Going all the Way: Key factors for successful implementation of strategic service design

How do service designers keep their concepts intact while moving from a strategic level to implementation? This article describes the key factors that made it possible to enact large strategic changes in a conservative field. Using a case in pharmacy services, we show how service design goes beyond incremental service improvements and takes a leading role in creating a strategic vision and making sure that that vision produces concrete results.

An illustration of the pharmacy concept

Placing outcomes first

At the 2013 Service Design Global Conference, Lee Sankey (1) , group design director from Barclays challenged service designers to love outcomes as much as we now love our processes. Indeed, too often we talk about models, customer journeys and methods, instead of focusing on the concrete results of our work. The reason is hardly because we are not interested in results, but that presenting them can at times be difficult. If the design is on a strategic level, the immediate results can be hard to describe before they have been implemented. Sometimes, improvements to services might be incremental rather than radical, hence they might not significant enough to report. Based on our experiences, there might be a third reason for the strong focus on processes: at times, service designers seem to have difficulties in following through with their work from concept design to implementation. Even though the design work on a strategic level can be stellar, if designers are not able to see it through, its effects can be diluted by the time arrives to implement the project. And, sometimes, it happens that the results of good processes end up on the ‘concept shelf’ without ever going live.

This presents a significant continuation problem for the discipline. After observing nicely crafted presentations of processes and methods, while difficult questions of results are brushed aside, clients might start looking for answers elsewhere. Without understating the importance of well-organised and innovative design process, we want to highlight the need to follow service design projects all the way to implementation and beyond. Only in this way can we create sustainable business propositions for the strategic level and take a leading role in complex transformation processes.

Where service designers fail

One of the imperatives in service design is the iterative process, during which the design problem is continuously reframed. Reframing is based on a recurring learning cycle that takes place through exploring the service context, its stakeholders, generated customer experiences, business case opportunities and so on. Hence, we often end up with solutions that demand more profound changes from the service organisation than was estimated in the beginning. This constricted view towards implementation requirements can cause problems later on in the project. A budget might be reserved more for customer understanding and concept design phases but, when the resulting service elements need to be put into action, the client might be struggling to find resources.

Siloed organisations present another challenge. Whereas service design can be tendered through one unit, the resulting concepts often require attention from several other units that might or might not be prepared to join the process. Sometimes the problem is simply that the client organisation is not ready to implement change. The challenges of change management might be underestimated or the person in ownership of the service design project might not be high up enough in the organisation. Service design might also be ordered to patch up deficiencies in current services without an intent to implement changes in the organisation.

However, we should not point fingers at the client who is buying service design. At times, the designproject sale is closed in a hurry and difficult questions regarding the implementation budget can easily be brushed aside. Fuzzy resourcing for outcomes leaves the designers without a proper budgeting frame to guide concepts, which, in turn, might lead to inflated proposals with no realistic opportunities for implementation. With no pre-agreed frame for design from the client side, the resulting concepts can be deemed radical and too risky for implementation. At times, designers lack understanding of the culture and design legacy on which the organisation’s development processes rest (2).

Problems often arise when the outcomes from strategic design point towards a major revision of the existing service or business model. Service designers might simply not have all the capabilities required to implement the new services. While the average size of service design agencies can be relatively small, implementation often requires capabilities in graphic design, spatial design, business planning and change processes, to mention a few. The client might choose not to trust the agency with all the work and to source parts of the design from other actors such as advertising agencies or business consultants. In order to maintain control of their concept throughout the project, agencies need to be prepared to offer design capabilities beyond service design. They can do this through building a crossdisciplinary team structure or maintaining a credible subcontracting network.

Most of these problems can be avoided through careful planning of the implementation phase and integrating it strongly within the design process. Engaging in discussions about the implementation with the client early on is essential in ensuring this.

Positioning pharmacies on the wellness map

In February 2014, a new pilot pharmacy in Helsinki opened its doors to the public. It presented a radically new concept for its customers, resulting from an intensive service design project that had gone on for a year. Our client, the largest pharmacy chain operating in Finland, wanted us to uncover a new role for them in the changing healthcare landscape and to create proposals that capitalised on emerging needs and new customer segments.

Pharmacies are facing increasing challenges in upholding their traditional business model of selling prescription drugs. The recently introduced new regulations effectively diminish returns on the sales of prescription medicine. As customers can now more freely choose between cheap generic drugs and brand name patent-holders — which reduces the traditionally generous profit margins on drug sales — many are looking towards services as an additional source of revenue. At the same time, new opportunities emerge through an increased customer interest in holistic healthcare solutions that support their wellbeing and prevent illnesses, instead of just curing them. In response, pharmacies can try to squeeze profit margins by reducing expenditure or they can start looking for new strategic opportunities.

Creating change is never easy, much less in the healthcare field. Pharmacies in Finland are highly regulated and controlled by the government. Their business model has been left relatively unchanged for decades, and it is fair to say that the actors in the field are very conservative and risk-averse. In our project, we faced the challenge of renewal in a traditional organisational culture where both service design and a customer-centred business focus were alien.

We started with an intensive design research phase, during which we studied pharmacy customers, the current operating model and engaged with experts on the future of healthcare. We gathered understanding by conducting in-depth interviews and ‘shop-alongs’ with customers, collected ideas and insights through an online customer platform, visited several pharmacies across the country and arranged roundtable discussions with professionals ranging from technology experts to philosophers. The outputs of this phase were an analysis of problems with the current model, customer profiles based on existing and new customer segments and five healthcare trends in the field. To support and guide our work we established the key indicators for evaluating success throughout the project.

During concept design we generated close to two hundred ideas for future services. The resulting concept ideas were screened with online participants and prototyped at specific pharmacies. The best ideas were visualised and thoroughly documented. In order to communicate the changes in an even more concrete way, we created two service scenarios that combined several ideas into a consistent customer story. The results were presented in a concept manual, which was distributed to all pharmacies and presented in a closed seminar.

Concept manual communicated the vision to pharmacists

The pilot pharmacy materialises the design vision

The end results suggested major revisions in the service model of the client. Based on our advice, they chose to pursue a new direction for their market position, including changing the chain’s name, the reformulation of their customer promise, a stronger emphasis on environmental sustainability and a radical alteration of their service concept. Overall, the work points towards a new, more active role for pharmacies in the healthcare ecosystem.

Following the strategic decisions, we designed a pilot pharmacy that included an improved customer service model, a fresh interior concept and productised wellness services. The first pharmacy following the new concept opened a year after the start of the project. It concretises the business proposal and customer promise in a tangible and measurable way. In addition to sustaining the new business model, the pilot pharmacy concept has been recognised by two high-level design awards and an entry in the Finnish Design Yearbook. All in all, it embodies dozens of radical ideas, changing the perception of how a pharmacy should serve its customers.

On going all the way

Our client was facing a complex challenge that had the potential of disrupting the industry. They understood that a tackling it required more than one intervention. To secure trust and continuation, we signed a two-year partnership contract that created a focus for the project and a strong basis for collaboration. We understood from the start that getting the pharmacists on board would be essential for success in the long run. During the project we collaborated directly with the CEO and reported to the board, and engaged with the pharmacists at seminars and using an online platform. This long-term relationship allowed us to concentrate on first creating a strategy and then moving on towards implementation.

The central indicators for the project were based on key business drivers: customer satisfaction, profitability and internal efficiency. This kept the focus of the project and supported designers when framing the design space. Now we were able to identify and rule out ideas which did not contribute towards the established goals. The same indicators were used to adjust our designs after the pilot pharmacy had been running for a few months.

We were also plain lucky: the chain obtained a new pharmacy licence just as the strategic phase was being finalised. The licence required the complete renovation of an old pharmacy property that had been damaged in a fire. This allowed us to design the interiors from scratch. The pharmacist was excited about our proposals and willing to take the risk of piloting them in her pharmacy.

In addition to service designers, our office has employees with training and experience in graphic design and interior architecture. This meant that we could maintain the role of a concept gatekeeper when moving towards implementation. Other skills needed were sourced through our freelance network and from the client’s existing providers. In this way, the vision was kept clear and the concept did not become toned down at key decision points.

Finally, the success of the new concept depends a lot on how the launch of the product is conducted. Together with the pharmacy staff, we finalised the service model and engaged in discussions about the new concept. The prescription desk designs were prototyped using full-scale cardboard mockups. By including the employees in the process, we made sure that the ownership of the new way of working is internalised instead of being simply handed down. This created a common vision and motivation for the staff. The newly opened pharmacy received generous attention from the media, which reduced the pressure to advertise the launch and generated great interest in this different kind of pharmacy experience.

Actors of transformation

Successful service designers need to be able to manage processes of transformation. Their core abilities relate to managing change across many spectra, their clients at various level of decision making, the employees making the changes real and the customers who use the services to create a change in their lives. In our case, going all the way required a focus on building a long-term strategic partnership, working together with top-level management, basing your work firmly on customer understanding and retaining a strong focus in measuring business and experience outcomes. It is, at times, a challenging balancing act, but one that is needed in order to ensure that service design will continue to be relevant to our clients. •

References

(1) Sankey, L. (2013) The New Seriousness of Design. Keynote at the Global Service Design Conference 2013. Cardiff, UK.

(2) Junginger, S. (2014). Design Legacies: Why Service Designers are not able to Embed Design in the Organisation. Presentation in ServDes2014 conference. Lancaster, UK.

Mikko Koivisto is the lead service designer and a partner at Diagonal. He has extensive experience in designing services and customer experiences across multiple sectors.

Juha Kronqvist is a senior service designer at Diagonal and a researcher at Aalto University. He specialises in designing human-centric healthcare services and environments.

Kirsikka Vaajakallio has a doctorate in design and she works as a senior service designer and a project manager at Diagonal. She has years of experience with user-centred design, empathic design, codesign and service design.