How can I use design in my business?
How you can use service design
Service design is a way of helping you improve your services by making them more useful, efficient and desirable for your customers.
What is service design?
Service design involves planning and creating the infrastructure, communication materials and levels of service delivered by staff.
You can use service design at any point where customers interact with your business to:
- improve their satisfaction
- enhance your reputation and profitability
- eliminate potential failures when you are developing new services
What does a service designer do?
If you employ a service designer, they will look at how you deliver your service and how efficiently it operates. They can interpret what your customers need and what their behaviours are, and they can turn this into potential services.
They will look at designing the full service as well as each individual aspect within the service. Redesigning existing services can be just as challenging as developing innovative new ones.
Examples of service design
Many types of businesses could benefit from using service design more efficiently.
For example, if your business is a transport provider, you use service design to offer supplementary services, such as:
- online tracking of packages or shipments
- availability indicator to show when low-cost or free delivery is available
If you are a food seller, you could use service design to extend your service. For example, you could offer:
- home delivery
- new menus based on your customer research
- seasonal offers based on ingredients supplied by local growers
- daily menus delivered by social media channels to local customers
If your business is an educational institution, you could use service design to extend your offering. For example, you could offer:
- distance learning courses
- online communication tools for lecturers and students
- access to library resources
You can apply service design in your business in many ways. Its role is ultimately to improve your customers' overall experience.