This article is based on Pip Hall’s talk at the Business Change and Transformation Conference 2024.

I joined my organisation as a Business Analyst, but the work that needed to be done launched me (and my organisation) on a journey into Service Design. 

My organisation is one of three main competitors in the business of traffic signal installation and maintenance but, unlike our competitors, does not have its own product range. Whilst this gives us the great advantage of being product agnostic, our USP is our customer service. 

Over the last 3 – 5 years the company has gone through a period of rapid growth and, as a BA, I was asked to document the processes and undertake compliance and audit activities to both underpin the operations and identify areas for improvement. 

However the Service Designer in me wanted to know the ‘whys’ and to dig deeper. 

Going beyond looking processes and compliance, I examined the context in which we were delivering services, for example, what were the KPIs? How could our organisation work smarter, more efficiently, and reduce risk? 

This Service Design approach towards transformation and growth involved looking at:

• The processes – how do we operate?
• Value propositions – what drives our business/operational design?
• Services – what do our customers expect?
• Organisation design – are we set up to deliver our customers’ expectations?

Processes

The first step was to look at the processes. My organisation installs and maintains traffic lights; fixing faults, inspecting equipment, and building and testing controllers. I defined these processes as: manage fault; install asset; inspect asset; build and test controller; schedule planned activity; and report performance.

For each process, I documented each step at a high level first. For example, for ‘Install Asset’ the steps were: receive order; order equipment; clear site; install equipment; commission site; invoice customer.  

Value Streams, Value Propositions, and Customer Journey Maps

I presented these high- level processes as value streams and looked for areas of commonality – such as assigning an engineer, invoicing, testing, or defining scope. This then allowed me to introduce the concept of “services” to describe the contractual scope for each of our customers, using these common areas to demonstrate where of our several services called upon the same activities.

With the idea of customers and services now accepted, I took the business through an exercise to look at the potential obstacles, frustrations, and challenges of customers for each step of our key services, documenting these via a customer journey map.  I was very deliberate in defining the colours as we assigned a ‘RAG’ status to each step: Red for the steps where we thought that our customers were experiencing a service that fell below their contractual expectations; Amber where we felt we were meeting our contractual obligations; and Green where we felt we were exceeding our obligations.   

When discussing and documenting our perspective of customer’s journeys, we talked about our relationships with, and dependency on, our internal service providers. We challenged ourselves to look at how we are demonstrating our USP of customer service across the whole value proposition – function, price, quality, choice, and availability – and the extent to which we are competing on these variables.

Customer Needs

The customer journey map analysis was the basis for the team spending an entire day talking about what our customers wanted and needed. We conducted a CATWOE analysis to challenge the team to think about who owned each step and service. People reflected and came back. This was an extremely powerful exercise, identifying internal and external actors from both the team and the customer perspective.

We also used Personas to model the customer perspective (for example, we imagined a demanding customer called Victoria and found ourselves saying “Vicky won’t like that!”). Customer service is about relationships, image and reputation. We asked ourselves, “What do our customers want, need and feel? What are we doing to address their needs and eliminate their obstacles and challenges?

Co-creating Change across Our Top 5 Services

The Customer Journeys highlighted areas for improvement. I completed a Service Blueprint for each service, identifying the processes, data, and capabilities (as distinct from job roles) that underpin each of them, to start to dig deeper into these areas and understand – and address – the root causes.  This is ongoing work and forms the basis of our continuous improvement agenda.

The next step will be to hold a Customer Day, to review the critical services with our customers, working together to identify and understand the customers’ challenges and receive their feedback. Collaboration is vital to ‘co-creating’ value and driving change.   This approach has changed the way we behave and think about what we do – it has brought about a confidence in consistency of delivery across our services, extending to the full lifecycle of contracts and projects from bidding through to expiration. This has resulted in additional capacity to provide focus on the bespoke needs of our customers, on innovation, and on future service development.

The Future of Service Design

As we respond to accelerating digital change, Service Design will continue to play an important role in my organisation.

Many organisations now find themselves needing to ‘pivot’ to meet commercial pressures and the expectations of their customers. Service Design allows organisations to redesign and redefine services, to survive in competitive markets.

Business Analyst of the Year 2023 and the first person to achieve the new Service Designer qualification from A4Q, Pip Hall works for Telent Technology Services.