Service Design Changes The Rules

I've been taught some valuable lessons at school. Most of them I've forgotten from the moment I walked out of the school building for the last time. But, oddly enough, some ideas got stuck in my head.

For example, I learned the difference between branding and marketing. And I actually cherished that rule. For years I've been a pain in the ass of many marketing, brand and product manager telling them time and time again they should never confuse these two disciplines. Never!

But I feel it might be time to start questioning some rudimental principles. There is a service revolution going on after all. And what's a revolution without changing a couple of rules.

Let's assume for a second we live in a perfect world and service organisations are bold enough to go were no man.... etc. And they are actually going to embrace all the 'service design' principles. Than service organisations are going to be all about engagement, empowerment, co-ownership, meaningful relationships and building an organisation around the costumer needs and wants.

What could follow is this:

Identity = Image
A direct result of customer (and employee) empowerment, co-ownership and co-production. If you're customers can truly shape your organisation than your identity equals your image.

Branding = Marketing
This one scares the heck out of most organisations I know. The rule is: Marketing begins with the customer and branding begins within the company. But this is thinking in commodities not services. Co-ownership will hand over the brand to the customer.

Marketing communications = Internal communications
To deliver a great service everyone involved in the delivery should embrace the same set of values. And this means a customer-centered organisation can't differentiate between the people who work for the organisation and customers. They must be treated the same and given the same information. The only differences is that employees get paid.

This is just a thought that's been rattling around in my head for a while. And at DesignThinkers we use it as an inspiring starting-point to think up some innovative business-models. But my old marketing teacher is going to think I'm a raving idiot, so no change there.

What The Hell? (Talking Service Design)

I've been spreading the word on how important it is to stop treating service as a commodity for quite some time. I am, as you might already know, an enthusiastic supporter of the methods and tools 'service design' provides us. I feel like a preacher sometimes.

But soon after I started answering my calling, there is one thing I learned. I had to change the language I used. There is a particular jargon that accompanies this new field of expertise, and it can take some time getting used to. It can make everything sound a bit mushy and alien.

If I start orating about co-production, empowerment, service-delivery-blueprints, costumer-journeys, touch-points, service-ecology and so on, my clients generally start to get nervous. "What the hell is he talking about? I thought we were working on a marketing plan?"

So I changed my language. I started using words from the more familiar fields of branding, experience-marketing and, my personal favorite, life in general. This sounds easy, but customised words are sometimes pretty handy if you want to get to the point very quickly.

But until everyone knows what exactly a 'service-ecology' means, I'm going to shut up about it. It makes my quest a lot easier. And if clients still don't know what the hell I'm talking about, at least the familiar words give them a warm fuzzy and comfortable feeling. And that's all I want really.