Explosive websites… how digital damages service experience.
By The Team 03 Dec 2009.
0 comments
The explosive shift to digital is generally accepted as 'a good thing' - more efficient for both the service provider and the service user. But there’s also something of a threat in that explosivity – it’s charged, and potentially damaging. There’s a risk that the expansion is so rapid that our desire for everything fast and cheap online means we lose a lot along the way.
Digital services often set the service benchmark too high, too fast. Too often an online service is introduced that sets expectations which the rest of the organisation can’t live up to. The result for the customer is service failure.
A great example is what’s happening in the public sector. Three government supersites are setting new expectations for government services. They’re providing online solutions that are delivering long-awaited efficiencies for both the service provider and service user. But I’ve got personal experience of an online form not working, only to find out the department’s 'help line' has no knowledge of its existence. And I know I’m not alone.
Digital innovation must be integrated within wider, service design. Service design methods allow organisations to develop coordinated services, built around the needs of their customers. It recognises that customers only ever experience the service as a whole. They don’t separate the online and offline channel in their minds. They will judge you by the overall service you provide. If the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, they will laugh at you.
So what can you do? Firstly it pays to see your service as your customer does. By mapping the service territory, service design helps you understand the role digital channels play and so address any distortions, for example where your online teams are setting a service expectation that your offline channels aren’t yet able to meet.
We also recommend that clients use co-design techniques at the earliest stage, to ensure that the service is always being designed with the service providers and service users in the room. After all, they’re the ones that’ll be dealing with the service day to day. They have an instinct for what works, regardless of channel.
