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Service Design courses

NEW Qualification: A4Q Certified Service Designer

Service Design is an exciting new field which encompasses value co-creation at every step of the change journey. This human-centred, iterative approach incorporates design thinking, customer experience analysis and business service design.  

The job of a service designer, or the change practitioner applying service design skills, is to analyse services holistically and to design and improve an organisation’s services, systems and processes to better meet the needs of the customer and stakeholders.

AssistKD’s service design courses are for any change professional who wants to gain service design expertise and future-proof their toolkit. These courses will enable you to: 

  • build a portfolio of must-have service design skills and techniques;  
  • gain a better understanding of the customer experience, mapping the customer journey across all platforms to build a better understanding of the value proposition from a customer viewpoint;
  • gain recognised service design certifications;
  • analyse your business service offering, looking at services, systems and processes from a customer perspective; 
  • use innovative design thinking techniques to unlock insights and transform your business service.

Become a Service Designer

Are you interested in becoming an A4Q Certified Service Designer? Our Business Service Design course, Design Thinking course and CX Analysis course are the core modules that, together with one elective module, lead to the new qualification. 

To help candidates achieve the qualification, AssistKD now offers a Certified Service Designer passport for a discounted price of £3,750+VAT. This passport includes the 4 courses and 4 exams required to become an A4Q Certified Service Designer.

 

 

AssistKD’s Service Design Training

Business Service Design

This introductory Business Service Design course takes an in depth look at the business systems, processes and services behind the customer journey, focusing on their impact on customer satisfaction. 

  • Study the four key strands of thinking behind innovative, customer-centric service design: Systems Thinking, Service Thinking, Design Thinking and Lean Thinking.
  • Explore your business services, their value propositions and the customer perspective.
  • Identify where changes are required.
  • Apply useful Service Design techniques to drive business innovation.

Watch Connecting the Dots, Jonathan Hunsley’s presentation at BA Conference Europe 2021 which connects service thinking, design thinking and lean thinking. Or you can download an article summarising Jonathan's talk from our Learning Zone.

Find out more about our Business Service Design course.

What is Business Service Design?

This short video introduces Business Service Design and the four thinking frameworks which combine to provide a powerful toolkit for the modern digital change practitioner: Systems Thinking, Service Thinking, Design Thinking and Lean Thinking.

 

CX Analysis

CX analysis is critical to business success. It looks in depth at the customer experience, and how an organisation can transform its existing processes to offer engaged, responsive and connected customer experiences. Take our CX Analysis course, and transform the customer experience offered by your organisation. 

  • Learn how to tune in to your customers, action your insights and ensure an engaging customer experience.
  • Analyse the organisation’s view of CX; the difference between CX and UX and why it matters.
  • Discover how a seamless, positive customer journey with touchpoints across all digital platforms engages customers and improves customer satisfaction.  
  • Become familiar with key customer experience analysis techniques for effective business service design. 

Find out more about our CX Analysis course.

What is Customer Experience?

In the digital age, it has become critical to understand more about our customers and what motivates, delights and even annoys them. So what is customer experience, and why is it important?

Design Thinking

Design thinking is a creative, human centred approach to business innovation. It’s about applying the design mindset to business challenges, making sure solutions are customer-centric and focused on meeting the needs of all stakeholders. If you take our Design Thinking course you will learn how to:

  • Apply the highly creative double diamond framework.
  • Investigate and resolve business challenges, identify options and test proposed solutions using an innovative customer-centric approach.
  • Learn how to empathise with the customer, unlock key insights, question assumptions, explore strategies and test ideas. 
  • Generate innovative and relevant solutions.   

Find out more about our Design Thinking course

Watch our BA Brew on Design Thinking

It’s all too easy to go back to the same BA tools time and time again. The crew talk about how Design Thinking helps BAs to refresh their approach, encouraging them to challenge assumptions, to elevate their thinking and to focus on people and outcomes.

 

Service Design Consultancy

Our Service Design Consultancy course covers the key skills required to deliver effective service design consultancy, including the consultancy lifecycle and service portfolio, the consultancy mindset, stakeholder engagement, investigation and negotiation techniques, and situation diagnosis.

Find out more about our Service Design Consultancy course.

Business Service Architecture

Our new Business Service Architecture course examines the service architecture and its component elements, within the context of enterprise, business and solution architecture. Topics covered include architectural principles; service definition; value stream modelling and analysis; capability requirements and modelling; the T shaped professional; service measures and controls and a framework for service agility.

Find out more about our Business Service Architecture course.

Business Acumen

Our new Business Acumen course covers the knowledge, skills, understanding and perspective needed to develop good business acumen. Topics covered include types of business model; leadership and decision-making skills; the importance of a growth mindset for senior leadership teams; available business models and financial and data literacy.

Find out more about our Business Acumen course.

FAQs

Why is service design growing in popularity? 

Service design takes a holistic, customer-centric view of services, systems and processes from the earliest possible stage in a project or business change scenario. Organisations are becoming increasingly aware that employing a service designer can help them to avoid making unhelpful assumptions at the outset of a change initiative and steer clear of expensive mistakes further down the line. Service designers are increasingly in demand as their insights and innovative approach towards building practical solutions that work become recognised.

What study materials are included with AssistKD’s new service design courses? 

  • Comprehensive course manuals, posted to you before the courses start. 
  • Access to our free Learning Zone.  

What will the service design learning experience be like? 

AssistKD’s virtual courses in service design are engaging and interactive, led by training consultants with significant knowledge and experience.  

You will log in (from anywhere there is Wi-Fi) using the link sent you by your trainer. You will meet your trainer and fellow delegates (who will be from anywhere in the UK, and even from the US, Europe and beyond). Our courses offer great networking opportunities, many delegates stay in touch with each other after training together.  

During each course there are regular comfort and meal breaks, so you stay fresh and alert. You can expect plenty of discussion and active learning, break-out rooms with activities, quizzes, straw polls and more. There are plenty of group and individual exercises based on realistic case studies, designed to consolidate your learning. 

How will the A4Q Certified Service Designer qualification benefit me? 

The new Certified Service Designer qualification is an internationally recognised, respected benchmark of business service design skills. 

There’s nothing like being at the forefront of thought leadership in the change profession. All the modules help you build knowledge, update your skills and deepen understanding. Gaining the new Certified Service Designer qualification will put you in a position of professional expertise and can lead to exciting new career opportunities. 

Who are A4Q?

Alliance 4 Qualification (A4Q) has the mission to create globally leading content and certification schemes in an independent environment. 

An independent, international body, A4Q creates leading qualifications which are highly regarded worldwide. A4Q, together with global certification body iSQI, delivers examinations according to ISO 17024 standards. The new Business Service Designer qualification is an internationally recognised, respected benchmark of business service design skills. 

A4Q, together with global certification body iSQI, delivers examinations according to ISO 17024 standards. Find out more here.

iSQI is the preferred partner of training providers, universities and educational institutions around the world, offering reliable and independent validation and assessment, with a reputation for integrity, validity and fairness. Find out more here.

 

 

How to become an A4Q certified Service Designer

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