Book review: Design at your service

Having worked in a front office environment for almost 35 years, i always object to those who claim that service design is an new discipline. For me it has become a new formal discipline because of the integration of many elements that emerged in the last three decades.

And so i can agree with a statement that service design is a new discipline which offers an effective way for business to devise, develop and and sell a service, including tangible and intangible elements, using a combination of methods and knowledge drawn from design and the social sciences.  This is what the publisher claims on the cover of Xènia Viladàs latest book “Design at your service“.

And as regular readers of this blog may be aware of, designing services is not limited to business. It does very well fit in any business model of non-profits. Talking about non-profits,  creating services is the core of any offering, profit or non-profit.

Service design was (or should i say is) one of  topics in marketing management in the last 3years. As a practitioner and as a customer, working and living in the Neterlands I realize that implementing the concept of designed services (and managing accordingly) is a tough challenge for many organizations, marketing and operational professionals.

And just like the author, many of us – professionals or consumers – have entertained the possibility that service design did not have anything to do with design. For those who do not want to read the book, the author’s conclusions are boiled down to this:
Service design with its own tools and methodology is able to add value in every phase of the development of a new service; emphasizing the necessity for expert advice at every stage of its implementation.

 
The core 

The author outlines what is meant by service design. The birth of the formal concept, emerging approaches and the cross over into social design is captured. Using some examples (case studies) the author describes a methodology how it works (including  a visual representation) and describes the approach how to implement.  After a thorough discussion of the basics of the model and the offerings to business, the final chapter deals with recommendations and conclusions.

 
My rating 

4,0 stars on a scale 0-5.

This book is a readable introduction in service design and offers an approach and instructive case studies for professional in the operational field in profits and non-profits organizations.

It outlines an approach and techniques.

Strictly adhering to the proposed approach one should be able to develop new services through the eyes of users (although I would also recommend using recent publications like This is service design thinking and Designing for Growth.

Scanning these 3 publications creates an excellent outline for designing (and improving) any service. Awesome to construct your relevant context, connect to it and starting the required compact changes (these  publications in design thinking might help you).

And in case, u only read this book: again a readable instruction in service design.

 
Related articles 

• Open Services Innovation: A book review (serve4impact.com)
• Book review: Henry Chesbrough Open Services Innovation (serve4impact.com)
• It’s not your Grandmother’s Lean anymore! :Connecting to the book Designing for Growth, a design thinking toolkit for managers (serve4impact.com)
• Antonin Leonard’s deck service design and collaborative consumption (serve4impact.com)
• Putting people first ” Book: Design for Services (serve4impact.com)
• 3 awesome “Designing for Growth” quotes (serve4impact.com)
• It’s not your Grandmother’s Lean anymore! :Connecting to the book Designing for Growth, a design thinking toolkit for managers (serve4impact.com)
• Antonin Leonard’s deck service design and collaborative consumption (serve4impact.com)
• Putting people first ” Book: Design for Services (serve4impact.com)
• 3 awesome “Designing for Growth” quotes (serve4impact.com)