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Humanizing digital experiencesLivework & SDN Inspiration Dinner | 27 October 2016, Amsterdam

We invited business leaders from 10 sectors for an inspirational dinner to talk about Humanizing Digital

experiences.

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Over 50 of business leaders attended this event.3

The hosts of the evening.

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This evening was hosted by Birgit Mager (President Service Design Network), Erik Roscam Abbing, (Managing Director Livework Netherlands) and Melvin Brand Flu (Partner Livework).

Livework.

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Livework is an independent, international, strategic design consultancy focused on customers and services. We have the team, method and experience to support large and small scale service transformation, innovation and improvement. We use design, collaboration and research to guide all our projects.

Service Design Network.

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Service Design is crucial for all private and public organisations that want to innovate and improve their service strategies, offerings and the user experiences. The Service Design Network (SDN) is the platform to connect you with like-minded passionate service designers from companies, agencies and universities, and with curious innovators who embrace and apply this approach for the better of their organisations and for people.

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Humanizing digital experiences?

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Organisations invest billions in the digital transformation of their business. Many business leaders are overwhelmed by the cost, complexity and radical change that this brings. Successful digital transformation requires design for customers. Without the customer, the transformation is about the internal organisation, not digitizing a business.Designing digital experiences for fundamental human needs such as trust, transparency and security, simplifies complex interactions between organisations and customers. Using the human perspective enables organisations to design seamless experiences that create excellent customer experiences and improve businesses.

Why humanize digital experiences?

In digital transformations, service design thinking and doing can safeguard the human aspect. Service design keeps the focus on how digital services are used by real people and how those digital services play a role in their lives that is much bigger than the screen. Long before the digital touchpoint and long after, people orient, choose, use, change and discard services in the context of their daily lives. To deliver excellent experience you have to design for this context. Approaching digital services only from a user (UX) perspective is simply not enough, because it is a product based approach, not a human centered one.

How can service design help?

We asked the attendees about their best and worst digital experiences.

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What digital service did you experience that was just right?

Can you think of a recent miserable digital experience?

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In the responses of the attendees we see three main categories of obstacles when it comes to implementing digital touchpoints:Technological It takes too long to realise, is too expensive to implement, we are lacking skills.Organizational Organisational alignment between departments, lack of leadership in taken the digital agenda forward, lacking executive power and commitment.Customer facing Not a seamless experience, no differentiated experience, limited customer understanding and insight.

What are barriers to deliver great digital experiences to your customers?

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Four areas where design can help with

digital challenges

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A key idea in behavioural economics is  “nudges” - small rewards or indirect suggestions that alter people’s behaviour in predictable ways, without taking away their options. Nudges are proven powerful yet low-cost tools to influence customer perception and decisions. Identifying the nudges is not enough; it requires the right design to create experiences that enhance the effects of nudges on peoples’ behaviour.

Nudge customer behaviour

A major insurer experimented with how changing claims forms would make people more “honest” about their claims.First identifying key principles of behavioural economics that are in play around honesty, the team prototyped several aspects of the forms. This included different opening messages, sequence of information, place to sign and use of checkboxes and bullets. Next came process of rapid prototyping to test behaviours with real customers in claims processes. After months of controlled testing with real customers, the results were better than expected. A significantly lower number of claims were filled in and the claimed amounts were drastically lower.

Client case:Small changes in forms can have major impact

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Design can have one, simple and immediate benefit: it can speed things up. Designers have the ability to capture a discussion and present the ideas in a tangible form. It is the difference between someone describing a process and someone drawing it. We are also more likely to make (the right) decisions based on visualisations and evidence gathered by prototyping in the real world.

Faster and better decision making

Client case:Human input results in better decisionsRuter, the public transport authority of Oslo, Norway, was ready to launch new ticket machines. The machines were commissioned and ready to be build without real input from the people in Olso.By co-designing ticket experiences with key user groups such as the elderly and sight-impaired, a series of concepts were turned into prototypes in a matter of weeks. The prototypes were tested with people in the streets of Olso, in order to get real people, not just current users of the public transport system. The fast iterations of what became the final design of the ticket machine meant that Ruter was able launch a better travel experience, not just a new ticket machine.

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Retail, travel, financial services are just a few sectors that went from bricks to clicks to save costs and to enable anytime anywhere interactions. Companies like Bol.com, Coolblue, Ebay, Tesco and Amazon all have physical contact points to increases customers’ engagement, decision and purchase experiences. Rapid prototyping of the intersections between physical and digital processes can safe organisations time and money by learning what works for customers and what this requires of the organisation.

Align the physical and the digital

Europcar, one of Europe's leading car rental companies, the transfer from the digital space to the messy reality of the pick-up station was a core problem for customers. This was reflected by a plunging NPS which was mainly due to physical encounters . We helped Europcar to make this transfer much more seamless. To help staff understand the digital pre-journey customers had gone through, and to help them use legacy infested CRM in a smart, human way. The main learning for the organisation was: “Don’t invest in IT when you can just smile and be empathic and solve 80% of the problems”

Client case:Managing the digital-physical transition with a smile

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While organisations are getting to grips with cross channel experiences, Omni-channel customers engage organisations across multiple channels, platforms and media – sometimes all at the same time – where no one organisation is in control. The biggest challenge for organisations is designing consistent and seamless experiences for customers that can be consistently supported by the organisation. Co-creation of services with customers and across departments and organisation is a key success factor.

Omni-Channel

Many brands struggle to remain relevant to their customers. Omni-channel experiences enables organisations to extend their reach beyond physical channels. A major luxury brand is actively engaging customers, staff and 3rd parties in a conversation about how to create and support experiences across channels, social media and personal networks.Digital tools and capabilities are key in realising the full potential of the brand. Prototyping services, not just technology, enables the organisation to learn what resonates with customers and which touchpoint serves them the best.

Client case:Omni-Channel experiences change brand relationships

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What did we learn about digital

barriers?The results of our survey

Are competitors stealing your customers with their digital services?

Zero!

Few

Some

Many

Question 1:

Zero!

Few

Some

Many

Reflections:Digital redefines competitors

Question 1:

Digitization is global and across sectors. Organisations are loosing relevance as new competitors from other sectors are taking customers and eroding businesses by offering better, faster and more seamless experiences to customers than incumbents. Brands no longer control the digital footprint, or digital customer experience. Taking a human approach in designing the digital customer experience enables organisations to remain relevant and stay connected with their customers.

Are competitors stealing your customers with their digital services?

Customers are able to shop real time in the digital and physical space of the city, looking for bargains, reserving products, while getting recommendations from others. No one party completely controls the relationship with the customers and visitors. Shop owners, banks, telecom companies, the city council, online retailers all compete and collaborate in this digital/physical environment. The project is designed to align all parties around the customers’ physical and digital experience, creating new and exciting new business opportunities for stakeholders.

Client case:A digital and physical city centre

Question 1:

How do you know the main drivers of customers, using your digital service?

Question 2:

Reflection door Melvin.. Digital redefines competitors. ….

We talk to customers

We collect customer feedback

We read reports

We do not explore

Reflections:Digital innovations based on real customer needs

Question 2:

Talking to them

Collecting feedback

Reading reports

Don’t explore

Dormant and unfulfilled customer needs can be fulfilled with digital innovations. Customers previously experiencing lock-in in sectors ranging from retail banking and energy are being liberated by new digital services that give them control. At the same time, new innovations such as digital concierge and digital household apps give customers a new level of service that was previously unimaginable.The digital world requires deeper understanding of peoples’ lives, motivations and behaviours in order to remain competitive.

How do you know the main drivers of customers, using your digital service?

The biggest Brazilian operator wanted to know if customers would adopt digital services. Staff from all departments were convinced that customers were not ready or interested in moving to a digital invoice. Engaging customers in the street with a working prototype uncovered deep rooted and very consistent animosity towards banks and utilities. Leveraging these customer drivers enabled Livework to design services that have a high level of adoption.

Client case:From physical bill to digital service

Question 2:

A human centred approach to digitizing your services is…

Question 3: Cheap

Pricey

Expensive

Very expensive

Cheap

Pricey

Expensive

Very Expensive

Reflections:Human perspectives on digital services improve performanceOrganisations invest in digitising internal processes and services in order to safe costs or increase operational efficiencies. Taking a human perspective on digital improvements forces organisations to first consider things such as: how do staff actually, communicate, make decisions and support each other. Digital capabilities that support such human behaviour have the possibility to ignite a completely new level of performance by making people more productive, effective and competent.

A human centred approach to digitizing your services is…

Question 3:

A large scale enterprise solution affected operations of over 50.000 staff across the globe. There were clear benefits in creating the global platform for teams to co-create, mange processes and make decisions.Co-creation sessions focusing on how to leverage digital solutions focussed on human experiences such as: what frustrates you and what delays/pressure do you experience in your work. The result was a very simple decision tool that enabled senior management to make key decisions faster, eliminating a major bottleneck that significantly improved time to market.

Client case:Faster and better decision improves performance

Question 3:

Provide valuable learning

experience to our customers

Design and smoothness

Tailor each interaction to the individual user in

their current context

If top management

would allow us to proceed as we

think fit

More insight in actual usage

Usability, seamlessness

Company culture & people

Integration of projects

More transparency

Digital Marketing

Automation

Clear Value Propositions

Personalization (in CX)

Simplify real-world processes by removing steps and friction with

digital solutions

Wider / end to end experience of our

customers

Make it relevant and thus repeatable for the

customer

Real time analysis

Seamless integration with

non-digital service

Be more relevant

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Simplicity and personalisation of the

experience.

Less ego and moreunderstandingWhat would

make your digital service better?

Question 4:

To conclude.

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We want to thank all the participants of the wonderful evening for their enthusiasm and contribution. Digital will be on the business agenda for the foreseeable future. Using service design thinking can bring another level of capabilities to organisations by bringing in the crucial human perspective that makes any digital endeavor more relevant.

Erik Roscam Abbing

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erik@liveworkstudio.com

+31 (0) 624 51 84 62

Melvin Brand Flumelvin@liveworkstudio.com

+31 (0) 655 76 72 78

www.liveworkstudio.comThank you from the Livework team!

Watch the after movie here: https://vimeo.com/189339603

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Service Design – From Insight to implementation

Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience

Brand-driven Innovation – Strategies for development and design

www.liveworkstudio.com@liveworkstudio