Woo, Wow, Win: Service Design, Strategy, and the Art of Customer Delight

Authors of “Woo, Wow, & Win” kick off CX Next 2017 by defining service design as the steps you take to ensure that the customer receives the experience you want them to have, every time.  Stewart and O’Connell stress three different points out of that definition. 1. Service design has to be proactive and not reactive. In other words, it involves choices and consequences. 2. Service design begins with what you as the service provider wants as well as how you are delivering on your promise to the client. Finally, they point out that service design creates consistency which, by default, is no accident.

The bulk of this presentation dove deep into what it actually means to woo, to wow, and to ultimately win the customer over. In discussing the “woo” factor, Stewart and O’Connell liken this to the question of, “what experiences do YOU want your customer to have?” From here common service design archetypes are brought out including, ‘The Trendsetter’, ‘The Old Shoe’, and ‘The Classic.’ Stewart explains the trendsetter as the promise of being new, sleek, and hip. The Old, Stewart claims, is more of a promise that ‘we’ve been around the longest and can be trusted more since we have decent people, and decent prices.’ In contrast to this, the classic promises that ‘not only are we the coolest, but we have the most cutting edge technology which makes us the best.’ The duo conclude this section of their presentation by presenting a service design report card that tracks customer experience by empathy, expectation, emotion, elegance, and engagement.

In discussing the “wow” factor that their book mentions, Stewart and O’Connell elucidate the five principles of service design and delivery. These are, 1. The customer is always right…provided you have the right customer, 2. Don’t surprise and delight customers – Just delight, 3. Great service does not require heroic efforts, 4. Deliver coherent experiences on all channels, and finally 5. You’re never done. This last point was incredibly impactful since customer experience truly is always evolving with the times.

In their final section discussing the “designing to win” factor, the authors of this book raise three crucial questions. The first being, “What experience do we want the customer to have?” Following this train of thought the second question then becomes, “What does the customer see at each stage of the journey?” From there, the final question must be “What MUST happen backstage to make the magic happen every time?” According to Stewart, all three of these questions are fundamental in designing an experience meant to win. The duo finish their presentation by stating that services are experiences, and that experiences are journeys. We must not forget that these journeys are designed.