In my very frequent conversations about how to develop strategic plans for Multi-channel Service Centres, I have been talking with clients about a technique called Service Design Thinking.

Service Design Thinking (SDT) is a methodology I have brought back from the US and is a means by which organisations develop end to end customer experience perhaps in a better way than the current Customer Experience design is done, which comes out of a fairly dated Touch Point Analysis originally developed by Marketing folk, who let’s be honest, don’t really know much about the pointy end of customers... which is not actually the visual you are thinking about... but means the complicated world of customer service.

So, Service Design Thinking is a methodology that researches, experiments, models and tests customer experience. It is a rigorous methodology incorporating the following principles and tools:

Service Design Principles

1. User Centred: design involves real customers and is focused on the customer experience as the primary outcome
2. Co-created: all key stakeholders, internal and external to the organisation are involved
3. Sequencing: logical and emotional sequencing of user/customer experience is conducted
4. Evidencing: service design must be fact, data, information and evidence based
5. Holistic: takes a holistic view of the customer experience (all touch points)

Service Design Tools

1. Stakeholder maps
2. Customer Personas
3. Customer journey maps
4. Cultural probes
5. Story boards
6. Service prototypes
7. Service blue prints

It’s an outstanding methodology and important to consider given:

Of all customer contacts that organisations in Australia handle, the following channels handle the respective volumes:

• Contact centre channel - 79%
• Branch and retail - 11%
• Sales force - 4%
• Other web/email not handled by contact centre - 3%

And with regard to the development and implementation of a Multi-channel contact centre, the following percentages reflect the state of the market:

• Fully implemented 20%
• Partially implemented 26%
• Plan to implement in 20%
• No plan to implement 35%

Cool.

I am still trying to find a strapless dress that does not make the wearer, as Jules puts it “look like you have sausage boobs”. Help welcome. I am looking strongly at the Gay community to assist....;)

See you at G-Force Melbourne 2011