The best time to hear your customer is now

How to determine what is important to a client? The creative economy suggested an answer seventy years ago, in 1950, when the foundations of design thinking were formulated. Design Thinking is a creative technique aimed to solve practical, engineering, and business problems when the problem itself is not obvious, but it is obvious that it exists.

With the growth of the service business, a methodology for designing an "ideal" service from the client's perspective - service design - has emerged. Service design takes into account the consumer's experience at every point of interaction with the company, at every stage of using the product or service, including the earliest one when the problem is blurred. The business is built through the eyes of the customer. "We showed how this tool works at the level of the whole city and revised the city strategy of Lviv. We identified the key audiences - the personas. We spent 7 days living in their conditions, testing how they use the city's services. The result was 150 practical ideas for improvement. We started implementing them the following week. These were simple, obvious things that lacked understanding," says Pavlo Plastovets, design thinking coach at Deloitte.

An ordinary grocery cart, Airbnb, Uber, and Netflix are the result of observing people's experiences and trying to improve them by replacing pain with pleasure.

How design thinking and service design work

Design thinking is a problem-solving method based on five stages. Focusing on the problem through in-depth interviews and observations, identifying pain points and challenges, generating ideas, prototyping the most relevant solutions, and testing them in real life. This was the case when, during a business training, I drew phone screens by hand and made a project for a garbage collection point out of a shoebox.

The task of service design is to think through a process or service for the consumer so that it is pleasant and convenient to use. There is no designing for everyone, we work with a very specific and understandable client. The basis of the method is a deep and detailed analysis of each stage of the customer's journey while receiving the service (Customer journey map). What they see, what they interact with, and how. For example, self-check-in desks at the airport appeared as a result of service design when it became clear that not everyone wanted to stand in line for check-in.

Why design thinking and service design are needed

1. Launching a new product or service on the market. "The design process allows us to reduce the risk of uncertainty and speed up the launch - whether there is such a problem at all, whether we are solving it, whether we can build a business on it. This is the same approach that underlies corporate accelerators," shares her experience Oksana Goshva, founder of DOT_DOT Innovations, which was one of the first companies in Ukraine to develop products and services based on a customer-centric approach.

2. Development of customer focus in the company. For example, how to make sure that a child's blood draw does not cause fear and why it is important to think about it? "We have tried several approaches to solving this problem - a separate 'children's' laboratory center, leaflets with recommendations. Service design allowed us to deeply understand the needs of the client. We realized that parents want to help their children prepare for medical procedures, but they don't know how. They need to be given a specific tool. We created a boxed game - a child can tie a tourniquet, "take" blood with a toy syringe, and hold a test tube in his hands. The unfamiliar and scary has become part of the game, and it no longer scares so much," says Yuriy Salan, Head of Customer Service at Synevo.

3. Increased satisfaction with the company or specific services (NPS and other metrics). "This gives a practical component to the work and makes it meaningful. In 2013, we developed the telecom services market in Kazakhstan. We had a 100% outflow of b2b clients. In the column "how do you advise us to improve the service", the client wrote "shoot yourself". We held several sessions. We found out the reason for the dissatisfaction - communication breakdowns lead to a processing stop in this bank. It's a big country, and everyone has interruptions. We found a solution that helps them to back up - satellite and 3G Internet. We can't influence the outages, so we start reporting them. We tie employee bonuses to customer experience. The churn rate dropped 11 times, even though we didn't fix the main product," says Mike Gorodetsky, CEO of Indi Vision.

4. Digital business transformation. Design thinking can become an integral part of all company processes at the level of architecture and IT solution algorithms. This allows for a continuous cycle of product and service improvement, linking it to customer experience and financial efficiency. Mike argues that this requires more attention at the stage of creating an ecosystem, but allows you to use every interaction with the client for continuous improvement, because the mechanisms of design thinking remain in the company's DNA forever.

Key success factors

1. The desire to hear the customer and make the process of using the company's product or service as pleasant as possible. It's like courtship - you want every minute alone to be the best time of your life.

2. Green corridor for implementation and involvement of top management in development processes. DOT_DOT Innovations strongly recommends giving freedom of action to service designers to ensure that the ideas are implemented, and not just a fashionable training.

3. Performance tracking. The solution found may not be optimal. It is important to test several variations of the service at the same time, as Netflix does with its product. This way, you can determine what works best and for which target group. Cinevo's experience shows that service design projects do not always result in innovation in the usual sense of the word. But it does guarantee an improved customer experience.

4. Customer-centered metrics in employee KPIs and company business processes. Studies show that 80% of people want to deal with a company with a personalized approach, it makes them happy. We all know that it's easier to sell additional services to satisfied customers, statistics say that by 70%, and 75% of such lucky people are willing to pay more. Adjusting a business to meet customer expectations leads to deep commitment and strong relationships. The company has become a pillar of support for its customers, especially in this strange time of the pandemic.

Iryna Manukovska

A strategic marketing and client relations advisor, known for their unwavering focus on delivering effective solutions in today's unpredictable business landscape. With 18 years of experience spanning diverse industries, including IT, FMCG, IoT, Software & Tech, Media, FMCG, and Telecommunications. Has an award for one of the best PR projects in the world at the Golden SABER Awards, specializes in the promotion of b2b services and non-standard business solutions. Forbes.com columnist, member of the Global Tech Advocates. Mother, wife, artist , mentor and coach.