 My name is Daniel Juerman and this is the Service Design Show. With the Service Design Show we help you to stay one step ahead by talking to the people that are shaping the service design field. We talk about the current state of the industry, exciting new developments and the challenges up ahead. My guest in this episode is Daniel Juerman. Daniel is the founder and director of Transformata Design. He is the author of a book called Customer Experience Why Some Organizations Fail and Others Don't. And he told me about a cloud-based product that Dave recently launched called Customers. Make sure you check out that. In this episode we'll be talking about things like why organizations fail to put customers at the center of their business, why service designers shouldn't be designing services but organizations, and finally about a thing called dynamic customer journeys. If you want to fast-forward to one of these topics, check out the episode guide in the description or just stick around and enjoy the whole episode. So let's go ahead and jump right in. Welcome to the show Daniel. Thank you. Thank you Mark. Daniel, let's kick off and ask me the question that I'm asking everyone. What is your very first memory of service design because you've been in the industry for so long? My very first memory was when we worked with Scania commercial vehicles, you know, those trucks from Sweden. We were traveling around Europe interviewing a lot of haulage owners and drivers when working with Scania's product identity. And the customers started to talk about not owning a truck but more using a truck. So the customers of Scania were asking them. The customers of Scania didn't talk about, they didn't really saw the value in owning the truck. They more saw the value in using the truck. And when iterating this together with them in many of the European countries, it was quite clear that they wanted a service from Scania in which there was a truck. And for us that was pretty new. This was 1999. And we started to try out our methods about design strategy on creating services and started to create services there for those customers like repair and maintenance agreements like driver training, buyback agreements or rent trucks for a short period. So that was my first connection. Was it called service design? Or did you have a different name for it back then in 1901? We called it for the sign of services. So it was services sign but just in a different order. We called it services and the managers there at Scania actually the person that really realized how the impact of this I was pretty young. Younger than today at that time. He's now the CEO of Volvo cars. So he was a bright guy. His name is Håkan. And he saw that those young guys here they had some great ideas that was more about the service logic than the product ownership logic. But we didn't call it service design but design for services. So of course now every car manufacturer is moving into the mobility and service business but we can say that Scania was way ahead of its time back then. Yeah they were. They were way ahead of the time. And I think that the reason for that was that they are a premium brand. They are more expensive maybe high quality and which do that they have more demanding customers. The more demanding customers they run into this earlier than the competitors customers. They are higher up in the value chain I guess. Well 1999 interesting. So Daniel let's explain to the people that are watching the show for the very first time especially to see you how this format works right. We do it in co-creation the show and I have a stack of cards with some topics written on it. These are here and you also have a stack of papers right somewhere on your desk. Yeah exactly those kind of things. So hold up a topic in a minute and you'll hold up a question starter what I call them and we'll co-create a question from there on and talk about it for a few minutes. Perfect. That's it. So Daniel let's start off with this one and this topic is called customers at the center. What question goes along with this one? Then I show you this one. Why? And do we have a question? Why organizations fail to put the customer at the center of the business. So why do organizations fail that's interesting. Why do they fail? There are some different reasons why they fail. One is that they have a bad connection or maybe bad anchor between customer empathy and the business. So they don't prove that empathy leads to better business. And with a bad connection it would be nice to have. What is a good connection? A good connection is proving how doing better for our customers will lead to a more efficient organization and maybe higher market shares or higher incomes or to connect it to the numbers or the figures that really matters in that organization. I guess that's one of the hardest things to do in service design at this moment. Yeah that's hard and I think it's very important to do it. To show it, to have systems to do it. I think it's really worth the time and sometimes the fight to really get through to show this. But there are more reasons. I would say that weak customer insights maybe. It's one of the most important that when you have weak customer insights, when they are not done in the proper way, it will become very easy for people internally to question those and start to run their own agenda. Because why should we use those customer insights? I don't really believe them. So let me ask a question again. What do you consider strong customer insights? Strong customer insights I would say those that are where you co-create together with customers the problem definition, not only the solution. So together with end users and customers, together with the end customers define what's really the problem or what could be the opportunity here. Instead of just making up internally or doing maybe focus groups. So that kind of way where you just more understand how people act in a group. You understand the group dynamics, but you won't understand how people will decide when it's a real situation when they go to buy something. But getting those strong customer insights, it requires a bigger investment upfront. You need to put more time and effort into this and sending this is maybe a real challenge, is a real challenge. I think that a lot of organizations have come to the conclusion that the old ways doesn't seem to show the real... It doesn't seem to give the input or the base for the development that they really need, so they're willing to try something new. And when trying something new they see that it works much better. So that's one reason why they fail, I would say. But there are more reasons. Yeah, give me one more. I would say that many organizations fail because they have a very bad distribution of the ownership of the customer experience. Who is really responsible for the customer experience? And who have the mandate and what budgets do they have? What should they achieve? When and where? And I think it's important for all organizations today that want to put the customers at the heart of the business. That they distribute the ownership in a good way, just as they do with other important stuff in the organization. Like? How do you compare this? Like development, sales or different business areas, where it's very clear how they have distributed the ownership. Who is responsible for achieving what? And they have to do the same with the customer experience. And that's, I would say, one important reason. What is your insight on this? Because should customer experience be centralized in some kind of place within the organization? Or how should it be distributed? What are your latest thoughts on that? Organizations are so different. So I think it's hard to just say one the best and the right way to do it. I think it's up to the organization. I think that just by having a kind of internal go-to guy called the customer experience manager, I don't really think that will solve stuff. That's a good start. I think they have to be organized the same way as other important stuff are taken care of in the business. So it's very different from some. In some organizations, it's really good to have someone in the management, on the management C level that are really customer experience responsible. In other organizations, better to have it in each business unit. And some it's better to share it up between sales marketing and development. At least they have to think about it and consider it actively how they are going to distribute it. Before we move on to the second topic, let's recap you. Why do organizations fail? They fail because what was your first item? Bad connection. Between customer empathy. Second one was... I don't remember actually. We customer insights. We customer insights and distribution. I guess the list is... It's long, but maybe if I just have to mention one more because it's so important. Unclear and unengaging decisions. It's a pretty bold statement. What do you mean by death? There has to be much more empathy put in into the decisions. So the C level people understand really with their heart what they are deciding upon. And I think that's where service designers really could design good decisions in a good way. So organizations fail for the decision and commit to the decision and don't just make the decisions. Maybe a lot of organizations aren't driven by the heart but maybe by the mind. I haven't met any people internally in no organizations that don't want the best for the customers. It's a strange world we live in, right? There are a few disconnects there. We have to move on Daniel to the second topic because time is flying by. Maybe you can elaborate or continue because this second topic is called designing organizations. Do you have a question that goes along with that one? I have a question here and it's called why service design shouldn't design services but organizations. You're making things even more complex which went to simplify things. Why should we be designing organizations? There's no need for good service design if the organization can't embrace it and make it true and make it come to life. The only way to get a service really come true and really meet the end user and end customer is to design the service organization that is going to deliver the service. Which means that we service designers can't anymore design services. We have to design service organizations. Can you name a few aspects that have to be designed? What do you mean with designing organizations? For instance, when starting to think about putting the customer at the center, a lot of organizations or a lot of people internally in large organizations they think, well, we don't have even time to do what we are doing today. Shall we now start to think about the customers as well? You're crazy. The reason for that why they think so is that they think that customer centricity and service design will add on more job for them. But it's just as important to understand what can we stop doing. We service design have to be much better in understanding what organizations can stop doing today because there's no value for the customer. Right. And that will free up a lot of resources to focus on what they should do. And that's a way to start to design the organization. What should we stop doing? What should we start doing? Another thing is that I think we service designers have to be much better in bridging the gap between development and administration. Because usually there's a lot of money in development. That's where service designers are. There's money there. We develop new stuff. And then at a certain time this service is ready to go on to the administration. And the administration that there's no money there because we're just going to run the business and maybe do some continuous improvement and that kind of stuff. But I think we have to bridge the gap. So help me out here. We've done our user research. We've done our code creation sessions. We've come up with some great new service concepts. Maybe we've even prototyped one or two of these concepts. And then a lot of service design projects stop. Yeah. And you're saying that's the point where we should get better. That's the point where we should be much better in understanding how the organization work and how they can embrace this. What's the best for this organization? And we have to understand on what level can they start to realize or make reality of those concepts that we have developed. Both in the development internally but also in the administration to engage people in the administration. For instance, I mean one very practical way is to set up. We have called them greenhouses or that kind of internal different departments which in the day to day work test the new stuff in the reality. That's the way to work with the organization. And then make that extremely transparent for other people in the organization. But I guess the most challenging part in this is getting our organization so far that they are willing to create the time and space and resources to set up these kind of greenhouses, right? How is it pretty easy? They challenge the, they have, I mean organizations that have experienced services sign which I would say that many have today. They have seen the challenge with implementation. So they know that they have to try out new ways to implement stuff. What I think that maybe one of the main things here is to stop think of implementation. It's much more activation. We have to activate people and then they are willing to try a new way where of course greenhouses and that kind of ways to work takes more time, more effort, etc. But it's a good way to implement things. Well, what is so far your, the example that has inspired you the most within this topic? Have you seen really good examples that generate really good results? Yeah, I do. For instance we have worked with the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. And they are, at that time they were 13,000 employees. They were organized in the old way of organizing, I mean with the people, the digital people in the customer support, etc. And now they organize themselves in five customer journeys. So they are totally redesigned and their trust, because this was the challenge that the trust from the Swedes were extremely low. And now they have raised this a lot since they started working with services sign but then slowly, slowly also reorganized how they work. Yeah, that was the question that I had in my mind. How long did this process stay? Because I think a lot of people under estimate, well and I think three years is even a relatively short period. I would say that until they, I mean now they have gone from, on a scale of 100, they have went from 52 to 62. Which is really good for a public sector organization to just keep moving. But it started to show change in their numbers, in the trust numbers after three years. It started to show some change. So I would say three to five years. It takes that time. Yeah, that requires strong leadership from within the organization. Someone that really believes that this is the way to go, right? Strong leadership and strong, I mean strong leadership over time because managers come and go. So it has to be built into the structure. So yeah, of course strong leadership are needed, but also commitment over time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we can make a very nice bridge to the third topic. You just told that they are organized around five customer journeys. And the final topic that I have here in front of me is called dynamic customer journey. And I show you this one. And what question do you make out of the what if? What if the customer journey is a dynamic change plan? Your dynamic change plan, health manual. I mean, first, I mean, the customer journey is not a delivery. I mean, we as service designers have been thinking it's a delivery, but it is a change plan. It needs to be treated as a change hub for the organization, the organization. And they have to be able to update it. When things change, when they have implemented things, when things are changing from the customer's perspective, they have to, we can't, they have to have the ownership of it. And I think that's one of the jobs that we as service designers have to manage. And that goes back to the other two topics as well, that if they feel that they own the change plan and the customer journey and the breaking down into service map or service blueprint, it's an excellent change plan compared to the old processes where you have, you know, the management process from the top and then you have the main here that sits marketing manufacturing with delivery and then we have some IT and H&R from the bottom. There are no customers in that old ways of looking at processes, where I think that the customer journey and the breaking down of that into actions that's the real change plan for organizations today. This also so strongly intertwines with the other topic you talked about, about the question who owns or how is customer experience distributed throughout the organization. I guess this is a really key issue here, right? Who owns the customer journey? Who is responsible for keeping it alive? Who is responsible for doing stuff with it? If you see it as a change plan, there has to be an owner. If it's just a delivery from a service sign agency, who cares? So just by having it as a change plan, have it as something that always has to be updated, who is responsible for keeping the map updated? Exactly. When asking those questions, there has to be a responsibility. Who is responsible for doing improvements in this customer journey? One year have gone here and we haven't done anything. Who is responsible for doing nothing here? Just by understanding that this map is a change plan, it will force organizations to create an ownership. That will really lead forward, I think. I guess I was just thinking about the ways organizations do research traditionally and doing the marketing research. Those marketing research reports are updated quite often, maybe once a year or maybe even more often. I don't see organizations doing the same within user research. How often are service design agencies requested to update their latest user insights? It doesn't happen that often, but it should be treated the same. As in the market is changing, people are changing. I think among our clients now, a lot of them have come very far and they are really knowing how to handle things. So we often get the question, how often do we have to update the customer journey part with the customer situation and customer activities? For one customer we have to do it every third year and that's good enough. But when it comes to the touch point level, things happen. New devices show up, they reorganize, new IT, they implement a new IT stack, whatever it could be. That level has to be updated on a more regular basis, I would say. That's a great business model for service design agencies. I think we are going that way. I think we are really leaving the project-based service inside the agency and more going towards a customer-centricity partner with our tools. But we have to have those tools so they can own them. And the tools for us that help to keep that customer journey dynamic. Daniel, I'm going to close off the first three topics we talked about and ask you about if people approach you and ask Daniel, I want to get into service design, what would be your single most important tip for them? My tip would be that there's a lot of know-how to learn about out there, both on the web. They could look at your show, Mark. That could be a good way, but there's a lot of good books, of course. I would say the first step is probably to just understand the different words so they can start to google them and start to understand where could I find that. That would be the first level. But then the second level, when it comes to education, it starts to show up a lot of good education here and there. So I don't know if that's a good answer to your question. Well, if that would be your tip, I guess it's really interesting. Get yourself familiar with the language, get yourself familiar with the topics, right? Yeah, because if you don't have the language you can't google them and can't google them, you can't find the interesting stuff. And your best step probably is watch the show. Watch the show and try to find out the important words and keep going. And now I'm curious about your big question. What is the question that keeps you awake these days? The big question is how to really create an ownership of the change plan, which we have talked about earlier. Because I think that's the key. If they start to own, and if you see behind me the system that we have developed for keeping the customer journeys and the blueprints to create the ownership for the organization to continuously improve those, it's in line with that. We have developed that to give them ownership. Where I think that they are looking at consultants to both for consultancy in different projects, but more to show a best practice. Then it's better for organizations to start to learn doing things themselves. The next step is to really have the customer journey, the service maps, service blueprints, service ecosystem, whatever you call it, to have that as a core platform in the organization. So this is what keeps me awake because there are a lot of enthusiasts out there in the organizations. They have seen this, they understand this. In a few years there would be much more people understanding that they have to have those competences themselves. That keeps me awake. That keeps you awake. Interesting. Maybe people have some insights on that and share them in the comments I'd say. Daniel, thanks for your time. Hopefully we'll meet soon in a different location. Thanks for your inspiration so far. Thank you. Thank you too Mark for having me. Thanks. So what are your thoughts about the topics we've just discussed with Daniel? How do you make sure customer journeys stay dynamic? Share your thoughts in the comments. If you enjoyed this episode and like to see more interviews with service design pioneers, be sure to subscribe to the channel and check out some of the past episodes. With the service design show we help you to stay one step ahead by talking to the people that are shaping the service design field. For now, thanks for watching and see you in the next episode.