3 hours
Service Design
Explore the principles and practices of designing seamless service experiences across multiple touchpoints.
Learning Objectives
- Understand service design principles
- Map customer journeys and service blueprints
- Design for omnichannel experiences
- Implement service design in organizations
Topics Covered
- Service Design Fundamentals
- Customer Journey Mapping
- Service Blueprinting
- Touchpoint Analysis
- Experience Orchestration
- Service Implementation
Hands-On Activities
Customer Journey Mapping
35 mins
Map the end-to-end customer journey for a service, identifying touchpoints, emotions, and pain points.
Instructions
- Choose a service experience (your own or an assigned case)
- Map all touchpoints chronologically on the canvas
- Plot the emotional journey (highs and lows)
- Identify moments of truth and pain points
- Brainstorm improvements for the 3 worst moments
Service Blueprint Creation
30 min
Create a service blueprint showing frontstage, backstage, and support processes.
Instructions
- Start with the customer journey from the previous activity
- Add frontstage employee actions for each touchpoint
- Map backstage processes that support the frontstage
- Identify support systems and technology
- Mark failure points and recovery opportunities
Exercises
group · 25 min
Touchpoint Audit
Audit all touchpoints in a service experience and rate their quality.
- List every touchpoint (digital, physical, human)
- Rate each on a 1-5 scale for quality and consistency
- Identify the top 3 strongest and weakest touchpoints
- Propose improvements for the weakest touchpoints
- Present your audit findings
pair · 20 min
Service Recovery Scenario
Design a service recovery strategy for a service failure scenario.
- Read the assigned service failure scenario
- Map the customer's emotional journey during the failure
- Design a recovery strategy (immediate, short-term, long-term)
- Role-play the recovery interaction
- Evaluate: did the recovery restore trust?
Practical Examples
Food & Beverage
Starbucks Third Place Experience
Starbucks designed their service around the 'Third Place' concept — a place between home and work — mapping every touchpoint from entrance to exit.
OUTCOME: Created a globally consistent service experience across 35,000+ stores, becoming the world's most valuable restaurant brand.
Retail
John Lewis Partnership
John Lewis mapped their omnichannel service journey, discovering disconnects between online and in-store experiences.
OUTCOME: Unified their service blueprint across channels, achieving a 15% increase in customer satisfaction scores.
Industry Success Stories
Aviation
Singapore Airlines
Challenge
Needed to maintain premium service quality while scaling operations across 60+ destinations.
Approach
Invested heavily in service design, mapping every passenger touchpoint and training staff using service blueprints.
Result
Consistently ranked #1 airline globally for service quality. Their service design approach became a benchmark for the entire aviation industry.
Useful Resources
This is Service Design Doing — Book
BOOK
Service Design Tools
FRAMEWORK
Blueprint+ Template
TOOL
Service Design Network
ARTICLE
What is Service Design? (Video)
VIDEO
Key Takeaways
Holistic service perspective
Journey mapping expertise
Blueprint creation skills
Fostering real-time entrepreneurship
to help accelerate career growth for venture builders, product designers and innovators.
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