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[00:00:09] Nichola: How do you link marketing and technology for a seamless customer experience?
[00:00:13] Sean: I think there are lots of ways. One of the ways that we try and do it at Distinction is using service design. So the concept of service design features research, ideation, concept development, prototyping, implementation and evaluation.
[00:00:27] And it follows a similar framework to design thinking.
[00:00:30] Brilliant, so you mentioned about concept development there, can you just go into a bit more detail about that?
[00:00:35] Yeah, so concept development is, Taking an idea, but taking it a step further.
[00:00:39] It's fleshing it out to a point that you can turn it into a prototype and then test that idea with users. So concept development is quite important because when you create lots of different concepts and test them, it really helps drive your product forward because you can add new features and you can do things that competitors aren't.
[00:00:59] Nichola: Yeah, definitely.
[00:01:01] how would you use service design and turn it into something that's a bit more tangible?
[00:01:06] Sean: So service design is a concept and an idea, but a service blueprint is mapping out all the elements of your service or your product, and it features a few different elements.
[00:01:17] So it has customer actions, front stage interactions, backstage interactions, support processes and evidence. So there's quite a few elements there.
[00:01:26] Nichola: So you'd say it's a big overview of the whole sort of process.
[00:01:30] Sean: Yes. what I can do to break it down a bit further, I can give you an example of how you might use a service blueprint.
[00:01:36] So a FinTech company or a bank may have a loan application process. So the first step is the customer action. So that would be What does the customer do when applying for a loan? So they'd be downloading the app, going into the app, creating an account. So those customer actions are part of your marketing aspects of service design.
[00:01:56] Then the front stage interactions are parts of that process that a person interacts with. So you're a designer. So these would be the things that you'd be working on in terms of creating the form that people fill in, making it visual. So people know where they are in the process. So all the visual.
[00:02:13] Elements then the backstage interactions of the things behind the scenes that the customer won't see, but need to be there for that process to work. So in our loan example, a good thing there would be the actual credit check that happens in the background.
[00:02:29] So as someone fills in, that's checking to see, if the person can pay that loan back
[00:02:34] That leads us on to the support processes, which is anything that can support the customer in that process. So for example, a live chat may be there. If someone spends too long on a certain part, make sure that they're Know what they're doing.
[00:02:47] Prompts could appear on screen. and then the final part is evidence.
[00:02:51] So the evidence part is what the customer receives as part of that process.
[00:02:55] So for example, when they've completed the loan application, they'll get an email possibly to say you've applied for this. It'll show them how long it's needed to wait. And it's essentially proof that they've completed a process in the same way that when they sign up, they'll get a prompt to log in.
[00:03:09] to access their account and they are all the evidence aspects. And what that does is so a team can go through and it could contain a marketer , a designer, developers, and they together can map out that whole process for that feature and really develop it in a way that it's focused purely around the customer on every part of it.
[00:03:31] Nichola: so you've mentioned a lot of things there, so how does that all come together to bring marketing and technologies together?
[00:03:37] Sean: the great thing about the service blueprint is, It gives access to communication would be the first thing. So teams can communicate and everyone understands every process.
[00:03:48] So it's not a case that a design is not understanding where the marketing part is, or a back end developers not understanding where the front end is. It's all one cohesive thing that everyone can work on. The other good thing about it is it Provides continuity for example, if someone leaves the business, someone new can come in and look at that and go, Oh, I understand how that feature works.
[00:04:10] And if you have one of those for every feature, people could be on boarded a lot quicker in the business It could be done individually. The other key thing that it helps with his problem solving. So in an example If you're thinking, how can we improve these processes?
[00:04:25] We've talked about how AI and all of these other things can be implemented. If you've got a service blueprint, you could actually look at a process and go, how can we improve the form element? Is there something that we can do here? Could we integrate something to make it faster? If you notice there's a big drop off at a certain point in the process, could it be the backstage interactions are too slow?
[00:04:44] Where could AI come in to make those a bit more quicker? Could the credit check be quicker? And it's basically about optimizing these things all the time and continuously improving them and the service blueprint allows teams to work together easily to do that.
[00:04:58] Nichola: Amazing. Where would a client fit into a service blueprint?
[00:05:02] What sort of input do they have?
[00:05:04] Sean: when we work with clients, we want them to be involved. it formulates usually a discovery part of a project, and it ties with the normal user journeys to basically flesh out exactly what something looks like, and it really helps the client visualize what we're trying to do. we work with different types of clients. Sometimes that client may be more technology focused. They may be more marketing focused, so they may have. visual aspects on maybe the customer actions if they're marketing or the backstage interactions if they're more technical, but they're probably not going to have a viewpoint or an understanding of all points.
[00:05:38] So the fact that we can bring our team in and really guide them through that process, it helps them understand obviously what we're building. It helps them be able to input on lots of different areas and it gives them a bit of peace of mind that what comes out at the end is actually what they want
[00:05:54] is there ever a situation where you don't need a service blueprint?
[00:05:57] Personally, I think that if you're creating a feature and there are different elements to it, I think you should have it. because it really saves work in the longer run because the problem that a lot of businesses have is that they spot a problem and they don't know how to solve it.
[00:06:12] They don't actually know what's causing the problem. But when you can go back and see every element of something, it makes it a lot easier to come up with solutions.
[00:06:20] Nichola: So a really valuable asset for a client to have.
[00:06:23] Sean: Definitely. I think it's really valuable for every business, particularly ones that are digitally focused.
[00:06:30] And some people might think, oh, I've only got a website. I've got to user journey. I don't need a service blueprint, but when you actually pull apart every element of how something works, it will make you build better products and a better experience for the customer
[00:06:44] thank you for joining us, Sean. That was really insightful.
[00:06:48] Sean: Yeah. Thank you very much.
[00:06:49] We are the home of unreasonable progress. We are distinction.
