8 minute read
Who Are You Selling To? What makes companies buy service design
During the past years, Hellon’s sales team has become very successful in selling service design. The yearly turnover has increased at an accelerating pace, reaching a total growth rate of 30% in 2015. The growth can be attributed to a process of learning about our customer base. The sales team has developed its skills along the way and has recognised a great number of meaningful factors contributing to successful sales. Based on that experience, this article summarises key insights from the Hellon sales team: how to sell service design to various clients from large and small companies, in both private and public organisations.
Why is selling service design important?
Never in human history has technology developed as fast as it has in the past twenty years, greatly affecting the way we live, work and communicate and the way we act.
Now we are reaching a tipping point, the corporate world is beginning to understand and react on their customers’ needs for more emotional connections, for a sense of belonging and for the need to bring the human back to the centre stage. We are entering the era of ‘human-to-human’ business and service development. Service design is a great approach for this. However, the service design process is not simple to adopt for companies as they have to shift away from a technology or marketing focus towards real empathy for their customers. Moreover, they need to figure out ways to support their employees in turning empathy into innovative services and profitable growth.
Even though it is relatively easy to explain the benefits of service design, the selling process can sometimes be challenging, frustrating or even impossible.
How do companies utilise service design?
Generally, there are three types of challenges in organisations (1) :
A design approach is well suited the latter two types (2) . There are two reasons for this: first, the clients with ill-structured and wicked problems tend to know there is something wrong but they don’t know what to fix and how to fix it. Second, as the unclear problem sometimes leads to the need for a better brief, some service design methodology can be sold and utilised already in the briefing phase to obtain mutual understanding of what the project should solve and how it should solve it.
Collaboration between the service design agency and the client often starts with a smaller service design project. If successful, there is an opportunity to build a broader co-operation or an organisation design program. However, if the client feels that the project hasn’t reached expectations, continuing the co-operation becomes more difficult and service design may become a ‘one-time experiment’.
Hellon collaborates in two different ways with organisations:
— Service design projects, typically tactical and rather short (2-3 months) aiming for incremental improvements and quick wins
— Organisation design programs with a strategic focus of making the company customer-centric and driving long-lasting results
In order to build a longer-lasting relationship with the client, it is crucial for the client to fully understand the value service design can bring to the organisation. A careful identification of the different client profiles can help the service design agency here.
Who buys service design?
The Hellon sales team has identified two primary customer profiles: ‘The Advocate’ and ‘The Solver’. Each represents different challenges when dealing with them and the organisations they are representing.
The Advocate
The Advocate is familiar with service design, even an enthusiast. They strongly believe in this approach and they want to increase the use of design thinking in their organisation. As personalities, they often challenge the more traditional frameworks, enduring and embracing uncertainty. The mission of the advocate is to look for novel solutions and service design is one of them.
Selling service design successfully to this profile is straightforward. They are already open to the bridge between disciplines and embrace the service design process containing visualisation, agile prototyping and iterating.
As long as the Advocate gets approval from the top management or is a part of the top management, the selling process tends to be defined by clear objectives and a common understanding of the brief. The biggest challenge for them is how they can utilise service design even better across the organisation.
From the sales point of view, the client company hierarchy can sometimes bring challenges to the sales process or to the final outcomes of the co-operation. When dealing with an Advocate, the obstacles can arise from the other key decision makers within the client company. As the Advocate can sometimes be a loner in supporting service design, the agency should support them in the internal PR and buy-in of service design. The primary objective is to involve all the people, including the gatekeepers and the decision-makers during the sales process, in order to ensure a successful sale, implementation and customer satisfaction at the end of the project.
The Advocate:
> Is a service design enthusiast and familiar with service design as an approach: is a designer or has been to a class/education.
Decision making factors:
– agency brand and reputation
– agency’s expertise and person brands
Appreciates:
– being part of the design team and process
– getting design support
> Pay attention: The Advocate has authority to make decisions and implement outcomes. If not, support the Advocate by involving organization’s gatekeepers in the project.
The Solver
Solvers can be directors from different parts of the organi sation: from development, HR, marketing, customer service, accountants or even CEOs. The Solver’s mission is to tackle the problem at hand and they are most likely to seek different approaches for this.
From the service design sales point of view, this broadens the number of competitors in pitching situations since the approach to solving the problem is not yet locked down.
Solvers are familiar with buying ready-made solutions from traditional consulting and marketing services. They often develop services and products in traditional ways and are usually not so familiar with involving customers in their processes. Solvers will make decisions based on their belief of what approach will solve their problem the best.
With this profile, you have to reserve much more time in the selling process for understanding their situation and strengthening the trust towards service design. Even if the Solvers like the proposal and the methods, they might struggle in actively engaging their internal stakeholders and developing customer-centric mindset. In order to succeed in this ‘leap of faith’, the sales team need to support Solvers in building a firm trust in the service design process. The Solvers hesitate until they truly understand and trust the impact of service design.
The entire selling process is often about creating security and trust between people. One part of the trust towards the agency comes from the recommendations of the existing customers, from the success stories and previous projects as well as from trust instilling awards and recognitions. The agency brand is of course very important when building trust. The other part of trust is all about chemistry between the persons involved and their emotional connection.
Selling to Solvers needs constant education by the agency throughout the selling process and often the briefs are built in tight collaboration with the client and end up being created by the agency itself.
Throughout the project, project management and communication with the client are crucial for maintaining that trust and security, which were established during the sales process. After the successful project, Solvers are often enlightened about service design and its extended possibilities in their organisation.
The Solver:
> Buys the best approach to his/her problem and is interested in trying new approaches.
Decision making factors:
- the most secure and trustworthy approach to solve the problem
- references, similar cases, recommendations, awards
- trust and chemistry between the people involved in the selling process
Appreciates:
- project management
- milestones and communication, no surprises
> Pay attention: Enlighten the Solver in what else service design can solve and how service designers work differently compared to other approaches.
- Pauliina Rintamäki, Head of Cross Channel Business Development, TeliaSonera.
Summary
We believe that all business is human-to-human business and that it is not processes, but people, who drive emotional connection. The challenges in selling service design come from the fact that service design is not the solution itself but an approach. We need to get better when communicating this to our clients, both to Solvers and to Advocates.
References
(1) Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’. Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169.
(2) Buchanan, R. (1992). ‘Wicked Problems in Design Thinking’. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21.
Minna Einiö M. Sc. (econ), Client Service Director. She has years of experience from leading creative agencies’ top management tasks and in consulting clienteles from various fields. Her strength is to support clients in challenges where creativity can make a difference.
Laura Franck is Client Service Director and has reached excellent results in growing Hellon’s sales. She believes that meeting client companies’ needs on a strategic level will secure the good co-operation leading to excellent results.
Mariann Parts is Client Service Director and has years of experience in consultative selling of design both in public and private sectors. Mariann specializes in finding innovative ways of meeting client needs.
Pauline Ranta is Client Service Manager and has special experience of local service innovations.
