Designing for the Full Customer Experience
In the past, organizations became industry leaders by improving manufacturing, distribution and information strategies. Today, that isn’t enough to thrive in our hyper-connected, experience-driven market. Existing products and services have more competition, smaller lifespans and more demanding customers.
Consumers’ experiences are vital to the success or failure of your organization, and aligning your business model with the needs of customers is essential. That means developing a customer-centric strategy that holistically considers the customer journey and the context surrounding it.
At OST, we know that organizations can improve the experience of consumers, employees and stakeholders and accelerate growth by designing, aligning and optimizing products and technology to enhance the customer journey. With our deep expertise, we are uniquely qualified to help you overcome uncertainties slowing down and blocking your success in the service ecosystem. We go above and beyond customer research by rethinking your business model, analyzing data to gain actionable insights about your customers and how they use your products, enabling your team to focus on innovation and more.
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Advocating for Design with Lisa Helminiak
Making a product and designing a product experience are two very different undertakings. We have all used apps, devices, products and services that we didn’t necessarily want to use again, and a key reason for that is design.
Together, Brian Hauch and Azul Seven Founder and CEO Lisa Helminiak explore how design helps overcome the challenges associated with creating products and building experiences that delight consumers.
OST’s Human-Centered Design Approach
Every business has frontend and backend service components that play a critical part in the customer experience. Service design focuses on customer experiences and business processes to generate value for both the service user and service provider. At OST, we leverage human-centered design (HCD) and design thinking to create value in a broad range of contexts:
- We help your organization look at the whole picture to align processes, technology and interactions to drive exceptional customer journeys.
- Our designers use qualitative and quantitative research to discover the problem and then develop a solution using insights and empathy.
- OST’s holistic, highly collaborative approach leverages cross-disciplinary teams to uncover the right problem to solve.
- We define, ideate, test and implement digital products and solutions to meet the needs of consumers and ensure they are desirable, viable and feasible for your organization.
OST’s Service Design Process
OST’s approach includes four key phases that allow us to learn, experiment and create innovative solutions that generate new value for the customer experience:
Design Research
We leverage a variety of research methods to generate true insights that build a deeper understanding of the user and their unmet needs in the context of your business and your market.
Ideation
Ideation is the process of generating design ideas through co-creation and brainstorming sessions. The goal is to create numerous viable ideas and strategies that can be evaluated and narrowed down into the best, most innovative solutions.
Prototyping and Testing
Designers create an early iteration of a product or service solution to validate ideas and test usability. During this phase, OST’s experts test and refine designs of a solution to ensure the needs and expectations of consumers are met.
Implementation
We help your teams turn an idea (the design) into a tangible, insights-backed digital product or service that strategically aligns business goals, customer desires and technical capabilities.
Service design has revolutionized customer experiences across channels and platforms, and that shift has raised the bar for every organization in today’s digital economy. With the help of OST’s design experts, your organization can drive new value and create better business outcomes.
Service Design Resources and Case Studies:
Service Design Documentation
Every consumer interaction creates a service experience with your brand. Building a meaningful experience means making great things, considering the entire customer journey and being intentional about how your products and services fit into that journey. At OST, we analyze your organization’s goals and strategically select tools that will help you improve the end-user experience.
For example, successful service design implementation may require:
Stakeholder Maps
Stakeholder maps identify all stakeholders, customers, staff, partners and teams involved in an organization’s service ecosystem. The map illustrates who is responsible for receiving and delivering services and fully describes the nuanced relationships between these stakeholders.
Journey Maps
A journey map is a visualization of the customer experience used to understand and address customer needs and pain points. This tool is built using information and data gathered from research and plays a significant part in user experience design and optimization.
Cultural Probes
Cultural probes (customer journals, photos, videos, etc.) help customers self-report and self-document their experience over a period of time. This technique helps deepen your business’ understanding of consumers without the intrusiveness of having a researcher present.
Service Blueprints
A service blueprint is a visual representation of relationships between the people, props and processes related to a specific experience. This diagram provides a framework for ongoing performance management of a product or service.
Whether your organization wants to understand an end-to-end user experience or dive deeper into the experience of a particular persona, our team of experts can help your organization use the right tools to generate new value across customer journeys.
Get Started With OST’s Design Consultants Today!
At OST, our unique expertise in strategy, design and technical services helps organizations reorient their focus on the customer journey. Our team of service design and customer experience experts is ready to help you move forward and start driving new revenue.
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