We all experience services all day long, and as a result, we intuitively know what good and bad services feel like (think about the difference in interacting with Disney vs. the DMV). Whether you think of yourself as offering a service or not, if you produce anything that can be engaged or interacted with, service design can help you make better decisions.
Service design is an approach that facilitates a holistic understanding of your offering and empowers you to make that entire experience better for your users, employees, and customers.
A restaurant can be a helpful analogy. Think of all the staff working together to support a customer’s dining experience: hosts, servers, chefs, management, bussers, dishwashers, etc. Service design looks at how each of these roles interacts with the others to create a meaningful, delicious, delightful experience for a guest.
Does a server know what to do when a diner has an allergy? Is the seating process efficient, and are the relevant parties (server, bartender, etc.) notified when it happens? Does kitchen staff know what to order and when to minimize waste and maximize budget? Service design examines interactions like these to produce a blueprint for optimizing and enhancing the customer’s experience and the needs of the business.