Written by the experts at Livework, this practical guide offers a tangible, effective approach for better responding to customers' needs and demands, and provides concrete … Service Design for Business provides an analytical approach to service design, where the reader is expected to have a basic understanding of business terminology. Our rating helps you sort the titles on your reading list from adequate (5) to brilliant (10). Organizations probably should focus at least as much attention on how customers use their services as they focus on their products. The main focus of the book is to design the business with the customer as the centre of the universe. Cutting out the visual design of the content made it much quicker to read, sharp, and to the point. A far greater portion of the economy rests on services than manufacturing and, in many cases, producers have all but eliminated the variability in products – you basically get what you pay for and often it doesn’t matter which brand you choose. Concrete Examples – You’ll get practical advice illustrated with examples of real-world applications or anecdotes. These are difficult to change. Ben Reason leads the service design firm Livework where Lavrans Løvlie is a partner and Melvin Brand Flu directs strategy and business design. Following agile process lets you do that. Services present a different paradigm. Lack of information leads to fewer sales, more calls for help, and less satisfaction. validate new concepts by using scenarios and storytelling. Focus on three critical factors in service design. Eloquent – You’ll enjoy a masterfully written or presented text. Small businesses are generally much closer to their customer’s hearts than big businesses, and can see tremendous impact from capitalizing their customer focus. This allows you to identify when to inspire, support or enable them. © 2008 - 2017 Actionable. If you think about it, how you are: transporting (buses, cars, taxis, bikes, etc. However, it can’t be used as a field manual. At getAbstract, we summarize books* that help people understand the world and make it better. What we say here about books applies to all formats we cover. The service blueprint helps you to get a bird’s eye view on how the different elements of service work together. Books we rate below 5 won’t be summarized. Today, we need to develop new business concepts with customer-centric approach. *getAbstract is summarizing much more than books. Your highlights will appear here. This way you don’t have to ship the perfect service from the start. Scientific – You’ll get facts and figures grounded in scientific research. He help his clients develop and implement scalable digital digital marketing strategy so that they can grow their business predictably... Ben Reason is a co-founder of live|work. This short book by Livework colleagues Ben Reason, Lavrans Løvlie and Melvin Brand Flu addresses the frequently overlooked practice of service design – how you design the services you provide. It is a scenario building or storytelling tool that covers each stage (before, beginning, during and after). Innovative – You can expect some truly fresh ideas and insights on brand-new products or trends. The overarching theme of the book is for businesses to become customer centric. I believe that small businesses should pay special attention to the concepts from in the book. We rate each piece of content on a scale of 1–10 with regard to these two core criteria. Their part in successful service delivery is impacted by this story. It may not be helpful for beginners though. Well structured – You’ll find this to be particularly well organized to support its reception or application. Setting up the customer on the system, and dealing with their payments and defaults has to be a robust and stable process. Even when the service is available commercially, it should be constantly evolving from customer feedback. The book provides insight and tools to be customer-centered and apply service design methodologies in all kinds of business challenges. Service design: From insight to implementation. A practical approach to better customer experience through service design. Eye opening – You’ll be offered highly surprising insights. The next step is to involve customers in the development phase through prototypes. There are three ways you can do that: It’s important to find ways to test and pilot new concepts through prototyping. getAbstract recommends their compact manual to leaders seeking an introduction to service design. Where possible, include your customers and employees directly in your service design, capture their ideas and test your prototypes with them. Interactions are exchanges between customers and the business representatives. Complaints are good starting point to understand customer irritations. Design has grown more and more important in the past few decades. your colleagues with your book smarts in no time. Track customer performance during the four stages of customer experiences: before, beginning, during, and after. Both businesses and customers need to perform well for a service to be a success. Service design was first introduced as a design discipline at the Köln International School of Design in 1991. Customer lifecycles are frameworks are our map to the experience that our ideal customers have with our services. Yet, there is often a disconnect between the insight and action, as changes can be challenging. Inspiring – You’ll want to put into practice what you’ve read immediately. Often businesses are so focused on their operations that they do not consider the customer’s role in the successful delivery of the service. In this phase we collect insights to map the areas of low and high performances. ), managing money (banking with ATMs, internet banking, telephone banking, credit cards, etc. Analytical – You’ll understand the inner workings of the subject matter. Here's what the ratings mean: Applicable – You’ll get advice that can be directly applied in the workplace or in everyday situations. Although this isn’t an in-depth guidebook, the authors provide a useful overview of a big subject that few others have addressed. As a new field, the definition of service design is evolving in academia. In other words, document customer needs into three areas: the need for information, interaction, and transaction. Definitely one of the references in the field. Transactions are where the monetary exchanges happen. Today, most organizations that sell products focus on their design, but the same cannot be said for services. It shows you how this working together create value for customers. It also takes away the motivation to switch to a different service provider. This is a brilliant approach. The three main parts of a service blueprint are. How are you putting customers at the center of your business? ), eating (food vendors, restaurants, takeaways, etc. The book is targeted to people in businesses and large organizations. Insider’s take – You’ll have the privilege of learning from someone who knows her or his topic inside-out. An error occurred while adding you to our digest: Sign up for top business book summaries, delivered to your inbox every Tuesday for free. Where possible, include your customers and employees directly in your service design, capture their ideas and test your prototypes with them. In 2001 he set up service design consultancy Livework in London with Chris Downs... For the last 26 years Melvin Brand Flu worked for global brands, governments, and small businesses across the continents, delivering high impact... by Ben Reason, Lavrans Lovlie and Melvin Brand Flu is a practical guide to optimizing customer experience. Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back). It is specially written for those involved in B2B, B2C and government services. It should be a great session. Consider your services through the eyes and actions of your customers. He graduated from Liverpool John Moores University in 1994 with a BA in Fine Arts, followed in 2000... Lavrans Løvlie has worked as a design consultant since 1994. Visionary – You’ll get a glimpse of the future and what it might mean for you. “Technology can dehumanize and make things harder to navigate for customers and less flexible. Customers rarely know what they’re going to get and they’re often disappointed. Overview – You’ll get a broad treatment of the subject matter, mentioning all its major aspects. The feedback loop doesn’t stop there. Great! Hot Topic – You’ll find yourself in the middle of a highly debated issue. To reduce this complexity, think of “digital” as just another way to meet customer needs. The main focus of the book is to design the business with the customer as the centre of the universe. It’s easy to start up with digital but it quickly becomes complex and challenging as the business scales. No color, no typography flourishes, no photos (except a few at the very end). Background – You’ll get contextual knowledge as a frame for informed action or analysis. Customer performance is measuring the extent to which the customers are using your service.The key takeaway is that your service is an enabler of customer performance. This information has to be clear and usable. Here’s how I see businesses (small and large) using this book: By using the customers in prototypes you are virtually guaranteed to deliver a service that is in demand and will please its users. I’d recommend you read Eric Reis’s, Choose to become a customer centric organization, Identify customer pain points (or needs) and start designing your service from there, Sketch the customer journey and identify where pain points occur, If these don’t fit in one customer journey, then put them in the customer lifecycle for a different journey for different services, Plan your infrastructure to deliver the ideal experience at each stage, Involve the customers at every stage of development (during prototyping process), Document the customer performance, queries, and irritations at every stage, Make improvements based on the feedback from customers. People have grown used to excellent product design, and they’ve come to expect the same in their experiences with service providers. Collecting feedback to improve the service is what it’s all about. With your team, describe your customers’ experience with you; tell stories and visualize solutions to improve it. It may not be helpful for beginners though. The book is targeted to people in businesses and large organizations. For beginners – You’ll find this to be a good primer if you’re a learner with little or no prior experience/knowledge. This shared view of customer experience is represented visually  with Customer Lifecycle. It is specially written for those involved in B2B, B2C and government services. The book is basically divided into four parts. Traditionally, services are based on the infrastructure, resources, and capacity to deliver. Having worked with my consulting clients in developing, marketing, selling and delivering various products and services, I used my imagination fill in the gaps. We look at every kind of content that may matter to our audience: books, but also articles, reports, videos and podcasts. The book is targeted to people in businesses and large organizations. To complete your subscription, please click the link in the email we just sent you, and we'll be sending Engaging – You’ll read or watch this all the way through the end. This is a brilliant book if you are looking for a casual read. Customer lifecycles are frameworks are our map to the experience that our ideal customers have with our services. With your team, describe your customers’ experience with you; tell stories and visualize solutions to improve it. So how does this help us to develop and deliver customer excellence in practice? Just ship a good enough service, and improve it based on customers feedback. Successful businesses have a fair amount of practice in spotting the market trends. Select the sections that are relevant to you. map customer, and market trends onto lifecycles, and. “Three Critical Factors” Focus on … This book is for anyone who is interested in services and how design can help innovate and improve the customers’ experience. For experts – You’ll get the higher-level knowledge/instructions you need as an expert. Becoming a more digitally focused business also makes your service delivery more efficient. Customer stories and their experiences are impacted by the services they use. Service design offers people in business, or government organisations, a new and powerful way to approach challenges, impact results and undertake change. Bold – You’ll find arguments that may break with predominant views. Removing these irritations make it easier for customers to buy a service. Adil Zuberi is the founder of Superpower Solutions, a digital marketing production consultancy based in the UK. All Rights Reserved. I’d recommend you read Eric Reis’s The Lean Startup before this one if you are a beginner. All you'll need to do is read the summary (shouldn't take you more than 5 minutes), and show up. The customer’s needs are changing rapidly (thanks to the digital revolution), however, the changes in businesses infrastructure are slow and difficult. In contrast to that, Service Design for Business is printed in black and white, serif font, and only a handful of illustrations. Yet services account for between 70% and 80% of economic activity in developed countries. These enable the customer to make decisions and apply the services to themselves through a two-way interaction. Whatever we select for our library has to excel in one or the other of these two core criteria: Enlightening – You’ll learn things that will inform and improve your decisions. Impress ), Behaviour of the customers, staffs or technologies. Conduct “qualitative and quantitative research,” observing your customers closely and individually to understand what they really want. Service design draws on many concepts, ranging from user experience, marketing and project management in order to optimize new services. Comprehensive – You’ll find every aspect of the subject matter covered. Thank you for subscribing to the Actionable Books Weekly Digest. This means businesses need to be agile in response to customer demand and technology. Service Design For Business by Ben Reason, Lavrans Lovlie and Melvin Brand Flu is a practical guide to optimizing customer experience. Service Design for Business helps you transform your customer's experience and keep them engaged through the art of intentional service design. Avoid that by designing your service delivery with care. Movement of customer within a service (journey from first awareness to buying the service to leaving it and anything in between), Structure of an organization (teams, departments, or functions, etc. This can be best achieved by taking advantage of digital technologies. Since services suffer less from commoditization than manufactured products, the importance and potential payoff of good service design may exceed that of good product design. Information enables the customer to make decisions. It is specially written for those involved in B2B, B2C and government services. The main focus of the book is to design the business with the customer as the centre of the universe. ), and the other stuff you do, such as visiting hospitals or claiming insurance, are some examples of what goes into your story.