Today the world is a complex web of various systems interacting with each other in an interdependent network. Simple to the most complex, everything is a system; education, town planning, traffic management, waste management, healthcare, travel, e-commerce, food, manufacturing, all our services, etc. just to name a few.

The economy and society are experiencing a tectonic shift from products to services. It is evident that this also brings a shift in business and industry characterised by a movement from traditional goods-centered logic to emerging service-centered logic. Leaders and professionals in almost every field are increasingly required to solve complex service-centered problems, there is a great need for understanding the system, stakeholders, and their interlinking. Traditionally in a user-centered design approach, you listen to users, to understand their needs, wants, complaints and critiques. Yes, listening to customers is always wise, but acceding to their requests can lead to overly complex designs or you missing the point (purpose) totally.

“Systems thinking has a certain simplicity and elegance to it — basically, a shift from seeing the world as a machine to understanding it as a network.” — Fritjof Capra

To deal with this fundamental transformation in the world that is taking place, we need to shift from problem-solving (designing products) towards system thinking (designing services). In addition, the very nature of products has also changed. From being purely physical and tangible entities, they are becoming mixed entities, with both physical and virtual attributes. Also, from being individual objects that stand alone, products now are part of complex systems, becoming the touchpoints of a service.

Service design is a way of seeing service, not only from the customer’s perspective, but all the way through the entire service delivery. Service design takes into account not only the customers’ perspective but understands deeply the staff, leadership, available infrastructure, technology to be deployed, communication methods and tools, and the culture of that organisation. The whole service is defined by its purpose.

Six service design principles:

1. Human-centred: Consider the experience of all the people affected by the service.
2. Collaborative: Stakeholders of various backgrounds and functions should be actively engaged in the service design process.
3. Iterative: Service design is an exploratory, adaptive, and experimental approach, iterating toward implementation.
4. Sequential: The service should be visualised and orchestrated as a sequence of interrelated actions.
5. Real: Needs should be researched in reality, ideas prototyped in reality, and intangible values evidenced as physical or digital reality.
6. Holistic: Services should sustainably address the needs of all stakeholders throughout the entire service and across the business.

A successful service design is when the service is user-friendly and relevant to the users while being sustainable and competitive for the service provider. To achieve this, service design engages various disciplines like design, technology, ethnography, economics, psychology to business management to data sciences. Any service must be understood end to end, creating an outside-in view of the organisation as a system and not looking at solving micro problems only. The purpose of systems thinking in a service design project is not only to solve problems but also to create desirable outcomes for all the stakeholders.

• Global Food Systems Map: https://www.cerealsgrains.org/publications/cfw/2019/jan-feb/Pages/CFW-64-1-0010.aspx
• Six service design principles are from the book ~This Is Service Design Doing: Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World, by Adam Lawrence, Jakob Schneider, Marc Stickdorn, and Markus Edgar Hormess.

(This Perspective was originally published on May 4, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Is cynicism in our national DNA?

Are you angry? In fact, do you remember when you were last, not angry? Doesn’t it seem like everywhere you look there is evidence of the very things that outrage you? The news is full of shouting heads and social media has so many people sharing many things that confirm all your worst suspicions –whatever those may be.

I have observed in recent few years that there is an overwhelming hatred for almost everything possible under the sun. We hate our governments, politicians, decision-makers, leaders (of course there are strong reasons to do so), our national and local policies, healthcare system, our doctors, our education system, traffic management system, infrastructure, waste management systems, our cities, other states, our family members, our neighbours and their success, waiting in queues, all our habits as Indians, and unfortunately these days we hate being Indian too. This list is endless in fact google shows 15,60,00,000 results for what Indians hate. At times I feel cynicism is in our national DNA.

Hatred is the deep psychological response to feeling trapped or being unable to understand a certain sociological phenomenon. Hate, whether turned inward or out, creates a destructive state of mind that wreaks havoc with your physical health and emotional well-being. Hate is part of larger entropy; larger chaos and disturbance. We need to expend energy to control or reduce entropy, but currently, we are running really low on energy. We need to conserve and channelise. For these challenging times and a better tomorrow what we need is more compassion, empathy, positivity, problem-solving, innovation, and holistic thinking.

One predominant global paradigm for measuring national progress, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has resulted in an over-emphasis on production and consumption that in turn, is exhausting the planet’s capacity to sustain life. There is an urgent need for a new paradigm of development that can propel human society in a more meaningful, sustainable direction.

Is there something we can learn from our humble neighbours, Bhutan, and about their Gross National Happiness Index?

The phrase ‘gross national happiness’ was first coined by the 4th King of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in 1972 when he declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product.” The concept implies that sustainable development should take a holistic approach towards notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing.

The idea of Gross National Happiness (GNH) has influenced Bhutan’s economic and social policy. Bhutan created a measurement tool that would be useful for policymaking and create policy incentives for the government, NGOs, and businesses of Bhutan to increase GNH. The GNH Index includes both traditional areas of socio-economic concern such as living standards, health, and education and less traditional aspects of culture and psychological wellbeing. The GNH index supports policy-making and acts as a tool to review the potential effects of proposed policies on GNH. The stated goal is that all government projects and policies work together to maximise GNH.

Buddhist understandings of happiness, are much broader than those that are referred to as ‘happiness’ in Western cultures and literature.

The GNH Index includes nine domains

1. Psychological wellbeing
2. Health
3. Education
4. Time use
5. Cultural diversity and resilience
6. Good governance
7. Community vitality
8. Ecological diversity and resilience
9. Living standards

In 2011, the UN unanimously adopted a General Assembly resolution, introduced by Bhutan with support from 68 member states, calling for a “holistic approach to development” aimed at promoting sustainable happiness and wellbeing. This was followed in April 2012 by a UN High-Level Meeting on “Happiness and Wellbeing: Defining a New Economic Paradigm” designed to bring world leaders, experts, and civil society and spiritual leaders together to develop a new economic paradigm based on sustainability and wellbeing.

In a sea of negativity — Bhutan’s GNH is a ray of hope. It is time for us to disperse all the doom and gloom with positivity and action. It’s time to get out of the zone of hatred.

Let’s channelise our hate into an energy, a force for creating change and the change that matters the most.

(This Perspective was originally published on April 30, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Everything that we use, whether it be a piece of medical equipment, the hospital as a system, lights, stationery products, office building, piece of furniture, software interface, food delivery service, book cover, tool, or anything else, there is a function, a task the item is expected to perform and perform well.

Any new functional design of an office chair will improve it to make the users sit comfortably for more than what they already do or make changes to the way the chair operates or is made, etc. or a new design of an air conditioner will make it work better in an even harsher climate, and even better intuitive user interface or better aesthetics of the front grill. These approaches miss understanding the larger purpose. Why do we need an office chair, why are we sitting so long, why are we sitting in a particular way, what’s the most natural way to sit, why do we need to sit to do a particular activity, etc. or why do we need an AC in the first place, without resolving these questions and moving forward is like a domino effect, unfortunately towards collapse.

Esther Derby said when we are blind to systems causes of problems, all solutions we try will likely make matters worse.

We tend to forget what’s the larger purpose, the reason for work or why do we work, why do we need to work in a particular way, what’s the most natural and harmonious way to work can there be an alternate? Our body is not designed to sit for so many hours, creating many physiological problems and eventual degradation. 1 out 5 people globally is a victim of workplace stress, the annual global cost of workplace stress is est. $2.5 trillion. Traffic jams cost $87 billion in productivity in the US and $14 billion per year in New Delhi. Can we look at the entire system and design the work itself instead of functionally tinkering with the chair or the office interiors or the building any further.

Just look around there are so many things we are tinkering with and not thinking about the purpose. Just imagine if hospitals were not only meant to be functionally good but they were to ensure patients emotional wellbeing and harmony if healthcare planning was meant to reduce the need for hospitals or reduce diseases themselves if traffic management systems were not only meant to monitor and control traffic but were to positively change behaviour if governments were not only to ‘so-called manage’ the topical situations but were to look at challenges holistically and plan for the long term if technologies were not only meant to commoditise time but were to achieve harmony for everyone. A simple way to kick start a systemic design innovation cycle is to ask more why questions than what and how questions.

How getting rid of dustbins helped Taiwan clean up its cities is a global case study and a classic example of shifting from functionality to purpose. Rather than functionally tinkering or adding more dustbins they totally eliminated dust bins. Having fewer bins around and waiting for the trash trucks forced them to consider their waste. You can’t just put the trash into a bin and forget but forces you to think about your waste, you will change your purchasing habits, you’ll end up not buying things that you can’t recycle. This kind of systemic change gives them a chance to think about how much trash they generated because they had to hold on to their waste until they see a bin, or when they get home. The question people ask is, how we should be disposing of our waste? But the question we should be asking is, what is a better way to manage waste disposal?

Another revolutionary example is the phrase ‘gross national happiness’ that was first coined by the 4th King of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in 1972 when he declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” The concept implies that sustainable development should take a holistic approach towards notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing. Robert F. Kennedy had wonderfully said GDP measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.

Bhutan National Values Assessment confirms that the nation and its people are healthy when it comes to self-identity and community. In fact, indications are that when it comes to values, Bhutan could possibly be the healthiest nation in the world. Among other things, the survey measures entropy caused by potentially limiting values. Entropy is a measure of the degree of dysfunction in a system indicated by the proportion of potentially limiting values found in a survey. Bhutan’s entropy is at 4% compared with the eight others: Denmark at 21%, Sweden at 31%, Canada at 32%, the United Kingdom at 43%, the United States of America at 53%, Iceland at 54%, Latvia at 54%, and Argentina at 60%.

These are a few approaches and examples of how some countries, governments, and leaders have moved towards understanding the larger purpose and are driving long-term strategies rather than temporary solutions. By understanding the purpose -why something is done/ created, many opportunities open up. The purpose is the aim; goal; the reason while the function is what something does or is used for. Simply put it is the difference between why and what.

So start with asking more WHY questions than WHAT and HOW questions.

Start with the purpose, not problems.

(This Perspective was originally published on April 26, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Though extremely important, we are only looking at the amount of trash we throw away, the landfills, environmental hazards, effect on the ecosystem, pollution, foul smell, diseases, and damage to the planet and its inhabitants, but all these are effects or outcomes of something much more fundamental the root cause or the reason. We seldom look into why people throw away.

So let’s first understand few reasons why we throw to go to the root of the problem.

Wikipedia states, the throw-away society is a generalised description of human social concepts strongly influenced by consumerism, whereby the society tends to use excessive single-use items, disposable packaging, and general consumer products not designed for re-use or lifetime use. The term describes a critical view of over-consumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items over durable goods that can be repaired, but at its origins, it was viewed as a positive attribute.

Another extreme reason could be compulsive decluttering, it is a pattern of behavior that is characterized by an excessive desire to discard objects from one’s home and living areas. Other reasons people state are convenience, safety, hygiene, habit, boredom, lack of alternate, cost, it has served its purpose, it’s broken, out of fashion, and some notional reasons amongst others just to name a few. Many governments, scientists, engineers, and activists are relentlessly working on several fronts including material science, disposability, awareness creation, minimalism, reuse, recycling, hygiene, and safety, etc.

Copyright India Today

But I would like to bring a few more refreshing approaches to possibly reduce throwaway culture by looking at design intervention to change behaviour, create attachment and legacy, use of smart materials, product evolution, create emotions and memories, modularity, etc. A few decades ago we used to cherish, preserve, protect, and reuse is there learning we can use to design new objects?

Following are few thought-provoking approaches you can use to reduce throw-away culture.

Approach 1: Taking entropy (disorder and eventual destruction) into account from the very beginning of the process of creation can present you with loads of design opportunities- recent innovation in smart materials, self-healing concrete, are a case in point. These smart materials would ensure products are not broken and need not be fixed for years. Another way is that a product understands that some part is about to be broken or fail and then it smartly communicates using AI/ IoT technologies with the service provider or the brand and is remotely fixed thus extending its life or reducing downtime. This could also help us move away from throw if broken culture.

Approach 2: A sci-fi approach where the product or an object was designed to evolve along with the consumer not only in terms of its usability, technology, features, but the materials, colours, form factor, etc. Re-programmable materials and configurations, design of modular components that can be swapped to make an entirely new product or modify the existing one is just one way to extend the life of products. Most products are thrown away because they are obsolete, outdated or out of fashion, if only they were designed to evolve and undergo change.

Approach 3: We can design the endowment effect in new products and objects by building, communicating, and making the consumers strongly feel the sense of ownership the same violent, hysterical way children react when deprived of an object they’ve designated as “theirs.”

In one study from 1989, participants were given either a chocolate bar or a coffee mug and then offered the opportunity to trade. Regardless of their initial item, only 11 percent opted to switch. This phenomenon even extends to people who engage in bidding wars at auctions, too: They want it, they see themselves owning it, they feel ownership, and suddenly, the monetary value skyrockets. This will be very a powerful way to make consumers care and reduce throwing away.

Approach 4: Create connections and evoke memories the way family heirlooms make us feel connected to loved ones or the memories that are evoked when we sit on the grandfather’s chair. Children between the ages of three and six were convinced that there existed a cloning machine and were presented with the option of taking home their favorite belonging, or a clone. Not only did they overwhelmingly choose to keep their original toy, but many were also deeply unsettled by the belief that an exact replica now existed. This presents further evidence that we believe belongings have a unique essence, and their owners imbue them with further meaning — hence the concept of “family heirlooms.”

Approach 5: Create powerful stories and add endorsement and rituals around products and daily objects. If you were to get your hands on a bandana that once belonging to Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), you might begin consciously subscribing to the belief that we instill things with our “essence.” We preserve so many objects which had powerful stories or were endorsed by someone we idolise or love.

Approach 6: If we have no choice but to throw, then can our throwing away could POSITIVELY change the environment? Where can we embed seeds, compost, organic fertilizer? How can throwing away something be an act of kindness to the Planet?

I strongly believe in the power of (new) design to bring extraordinary transformation to life and its systems in a manner that ushers a new golden age for humanity. As humans, we are endowed with a system that has immense potential and enables us to achieve possibilities that one could only dream of.

John Keynes said the difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

Let’s escape from the old ones that haven’t worked for us and create new approaches and mechanisms to reduce entropy and bring about lasting change through innovation.

(This Perspective was originally published on April 23, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

The second law of thermodynamics states that, on their own, systems naturally become increasingly disordered. To prevent entropy/ disorder requires energy, that is, work. To reverse disorder, to create and maintain order, requires the continuous application of even more energy (effort, money, time, etc.). What one learns from entropy or the second law of thermodynamics is that our healthcare systems would naturally become increasingly disordered with time and lack of energy (our governments and systems are always firefighting, energies are consumed in something totally mundane to at times silly, or what can be seen through this pandemic they lack the necessary plans and hence the knee-jerk reactions in dealing with adverse situations).

Though India is a land of miracles, better healthcare or an integrated one does not magically appear or evolve naturally but requires a fundamental transformation of our care delivery approach and mechanisms: a shift in focus from acute, hospital-based care to early identification and prevention, population management, community, and home-based care; much stronger participation of citizens in their own care process, and participation of healthcare professionals, but most importantly what central and state governments should be looking at are totally new approaches and methods to deal with mega-scale systemic challenges that we face today or may face in the future.

If this remains the approach to deal with healthcare challenges then these entropies or disorders will keep increasing with time and we may face challenges that are beyond our comprehension. New governance models, advanced warning systems, deep insights, agile integrated planning, and deployment methods backed by robust and customised healthcare technologies are the way forward.

Copyright © 2006–2019, Future Health Systems.

Tightly integrated models between payers, providers, and consumers of care that incentivise co-delivery of care and results (including performance-based payment models), supported by innovative technologies are the ways we can go beyond the problem and design newer systems. There is a tendency to think that we can overcome the entropy in our healthcare systems just by building or buying technology solutions. This is why I highlighted, “supported by innovative technologies.” We can’t fundamentally transform healthcare without innovative health IT. But we can’t lead with it either.

There is an urgent need to look at the entire situation from thirty-five thousand feet with fresh eyes. We need robust systems design approach and design thinking at every level to, identify intervention points for a totally new blueprint and then redesign all the system components.

Albert Einstein once said we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
We need a paradigm shift!

(This Perspective was originally published on April 22, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Staring at a wide-open space that leaves you scratching your head and furrowing your brow: Is this really a bank? Or a cafe? Or a lounge? Is this the right place? Where are the counters? The cubicles? It makes me glad to see the Q110- the Deutsche bank of Future retail in Berlin. It is a great example of what a bank could be in a mundane and often boring banking world. Here the customers are called guests and are greeted with a very friendly atmosphere and ushered into comfortable meeting rooms built in the bank branches.

Their planning began with a totally new approach to what a bank should be and how the physical and virtual experience should be, to their services, touchpoints, and interactions. Their approach strongly reflects a vision that is based on service design principles, where the bank branch is not designed in the typical way of optimising space at the cost of customer experience and services that are not planned only to achieve sales.

Bankers and Leaders need to understand that the banking process is part of a service, from the moment the customer thinks of a bank or a financial product, or walks in or logs into a bank portal or app, or using a payment gateway, or using helplines or bots, and until he leaves the bank or logs out and later opts again to use the service. Service design focuses on the overall experience and the design of the service delivery processes and strategy. It focuses on crucial points of contact with customers such as initial interaction whether virtual or physical, engagement phase, and post-consumption experiences. While planning a banking service experience, one also needs to find a balance between user needs, the business vision, underlying processes, technology intervention possibilities, and market scenarios.

According to a recent survey by PWC, there are 3 main trends in the state of the banking sector in 2020:

1. Develop a customer-centric perspective and create a frictionless user journey
2. Real-time intelligent data integration through artificial intelligence and cognitive computing
3. Open banking solutions

One of the tools used in the planning of the service is the service blueprint. This is a macro planning tool that allows the service designer to see beyond the product or service and to have a clear picture of the entire system that brings the customer experience to life.

Compared to customer journey mapping, which primarily examines customers’ overall journey in using a banking product or a service, service planning maps the behind-the-scenes interlinks between processes, tools, technology, and people, and thus provides a 360-degree overview of the entire service.

Trust, empathy, and commitment are additional aspects that a modern customer seeks when choosing their financial service provider. This means banks need to develop banking processes that allow customers to be open, honest, and encourage them to voice their problems freely, build trust with their clients. The purpose of the service plan is to explore how the structures supporting customer journey work, what are the responsibilities, and what are the rules that determine what can and cannot be implemented.

(This Perspective was originally published on April 9, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Today healthcare is looked at as a series of discrete events managed by different organisations or service providers. Hospitals are structured in silos, health-tech companies are creating products in pockets, insurance companies are worried about mortality and pharma companies are concerned only about the efficacy and safety of their products. These divisions into silos or innovations in pockets make sense to the hospital or a health-tech company or a pharma company but make no sense to the patient who sees and feels the entire service as one experience.

The concept of innovation in healthcare is often in the form of equipment, devices or medical technique. Recent research shows redesigning processes and practises to improve patient satisfaction can be positively associated with clinically successful outcomes and patient experience. Across the health care industry, companies need to organise their businesses around what the ‘humans’ in their customers need and feel. Healthcare is moving from a focus on physician-reported outcomes and volume-based care to overall well-being and the patient experience.

The value delivered by the product or service should be seen in totality, from learning about it, choosing and buying it, to using it. Service design creates easy, distinctive, and rewarding customer experiences that can unlock value by boosting loyalty, reducing dropouts and migration, and making companies stand out from their competition.

Service design is a user-centric approach that focuses on holistic service experiences. Methods like service blueprints, customer journeys and scenarios investigates the holistic experience and touchpoints. This involves not only designing the functionality, safety and reliability of the product or service, but the whole journey as it is experienced by the users including both tangible and intangible qualities.

Service Experience and Digital Transformation in healthcare and health-tech sectors should be tightly intertwined for better patient health outcomes, overall patient experience and wellbeing. Health-tech companies can’t hope to change their customer experience and generate better outcomes without transforming the way their business functions across the value chain. However, it is important to understand — when applying service design thinking — digital alone isn’t enough. Offline and online channels must be considered at every touchpoint.

The service Design approach combines ‘human-centred’ design, behavioural science and data analytics to identify deep insights that have the power to drive innovation across the healthcare ecosystem. Now more than ever, health-tech solutions need to be innovative that can change behaviours, improve outcomes and reduce costs. The first step in designing a seamless service experience is crafting an experience strategy. The focus then must be on the front-end and back-end processes integration and should be orchestrated to manage the entire healthcare journey.

Digital transformation, change management, and the careful design of touch-points in online and offline channels — all impact the customer/ patient experience. Only when these complex ecosystems are considered in their full context, centred on the humans they are meant to help, will lasting success be created.

(This Perspective was originally published on March 29, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Our world is speeding up. Technology is often blamed but a more in-depth examination points to man’s desire and ability to create new economic models which have to lead to the progressive commodification of time. After all, ‘time is money’, or time is the basis for economics and all the supporting technologies. These technologies brought us all the conveniences and comforts that were not imagined a decade back.

But on the contrary, the recent global upheaval made us aware and accept basic human needs and emotions far more deeply than ever before. We have realised what really matters to us and what were the appendages. As an outcome, we have started looking consciously at real human experiences and ways to satisfy the very essence that makes us who we are.

If time (time is money) has been one of the axes; what could be the other axis?

The other axis could be if we combine the exponential speed and power of technology to create new techno-economic models with a deeper understanding of our needs and emotions. This approach can positively affect the societal fabric and philosophy of everyday life. Like the light at the end of the tunnel, this complex situation presents us with a great opportunity to think differently and challenge the status quo.

The new axis can move organisations that traditionally used design for improving the look and functionality of products and create convenience (time-saving) to opportunities that we have never seen before. To make the most of the new axis understanding humans and the entire system of which we are an integral part is critical. We are not the system! The new axis uses deep human insights and rapid prototyping, all targeted at getting beyond the basic assumptions that block effective solutions. This axis is — inherently optimistic, constructive, and experiential — addresses the fundamental needs of the people.

Embracing this approach will help organisations be more innovative, be the best fit for the evolved customer psyche and reduce expensive product failures or changes. This new way, the integrated approach at the core of every organisation, provides a totally new axis for innovation and drives the change that matters the most.

(This Perspective was originally published on March 8, 2021 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Ruth Benedict says One of the handicaps of twentieth century is we have the vaguest and most biased notions, of not only what makes Japan the nation of Japanese, but what makes India a nation of Indians, France a nation of Frenchman…

Lacking this knowledge, each country misunderstands the other.

If we “decode” the elements of culture to discover the meanings and emotions, we learn a great deal about human behaviour and why and how it varies across the planet. The cultural codes are hidden within the unconscious of every culture.

Culture code

1: you can’t believe what people say

2: emotion is the energy required to learn anything, the keys to imprinting

3: the structure, not the content, is the message. Eg the connection between driver and the car rather than the car or types of cars

4: imprinting: first 7 yrs of life.

(This Perspective was originally published on February 28, 2018 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)

Just imagine the first thing that your insurance company asks you “What’s your customer number?” when you are feeling emotional and vulnerable after an event like a car accident, flooding in your house, or having a wallet stolen in a foreign country. Most often these organisations forget there is a ‘Human inside the Customer’. Yet all processes and systems have been built with this as the starting point of the conversation.

Most people dread calling their insurance company to make a claim. The expectation is that it will be a negative, complicated, time-consuming process, and at worst, they would disagree to settle the claim because of something in the small print that you forgot to read or couldn’t understand, banks are no different.

As bankers, you need to realise that being indifferent or oblivious to rising customer expectations, demands for seamless overall experience through your touch points, competition from emerging fin-tech companies, digital and technological advancements has the risks that run very high. In today’s world, banking is no longer about just money but is about the overall banking experience. Do check, are our customers with you because they love your brand or they have no choice or they are just plain habitual.

Bain & Company’s recent survey of the customers of 362 companies shows only 8% of them described their experience as “superior”. The need is urgent: customers’ have great many choices today than ever before, and more touch-points through which to pursue them. In such an environment, simple, integrated solutions to problems — not fragmented, complicated ones — will win the loyalty of the fickle minded time-pressed customer.

Service Design is the method or the approach, that will help you solve such complex challenges. It helps you see the entire customer journey and engagement model from 35,000 ft, it reduces complexity and then helps you rethink the whole customer-organisation engagement approach. What value and experience does your organisation offer at various touch points and what is expected. Where are the dropouts, what is causing leakage and what leads to dissatisfaction.

Service Design Blue Print and Tools will help you rewrite explicit and implicit value that gets exchanged between your bank or insurance company and your customers (Humans) throughout the journey. Service Design will enable you to better predict and respond to change, innovate to differentiate your brand and create memorable experiences for your customers.

To win over these challenges and achieve success, companies would need to know more than buying habits, incomes, and other characteristics used to classify their customers’, they need to know more about the psyche, thoughts and emotions that customers’ interactions with products, services, and brands induce. More the companies know about these subjective experiential factors and the role every touch point plays in shaping them, more the chances are that, memorable customer experiences and deeper satisfaction will be a reality.

(This Perspective was originally published on February 26, 2018 by Shekhar Badve on LinkedIn)