What I learnt about #servicedesign going to the movies.

Actually going to the movies always feels like a bit of a throwback, a night out from a previous era. Still we go because its an experience, and it needs to be. As a business its being hemmed in from all sides by the near (or actual) simultaneous availability of movies as they are released on streaming services and satellite TV on the one hand and the ever increasing affordability, size and resolution of home theatre equipment on the other.

But still there is a magic to taking your seat in the dark - huge screen looming, popcorn in hand waiting for the movie to start. Theatre owners are fighting bravely adding 4D cinemas with smell and water sprays - creating premium offerings with recliner couches and supposedly premium service.

A "night at the movies" experience starts well before we arrive for the show and finishes long after the movie ends. Long before I arrive in my seat I would have paid and booked my seat (hopefully online on a nice friendly app). I would have collected my ticket, my 3D goggles and a tub of popcorn and a large sugary drink to complete the experience. After the show I will have much to say about the movie and may well want to linger and extend the evening.

My recent customer journey at my local theatre left me wondering if I should even write about it. I was weighing up if the self evident principles that jumped out at me as I navigated my way through the movie theatre experience was worth repeating.

It all seems so painfully obvious.

Then I had to conclude that these principles either still escape the owners of my local theatre to perhaps they don't think the long suffering, muttering customers would notice, or in the words of Suzanne Briganti - "dissent".

Would my "dissent" here maybe start a conversation about some of the obvious but crucial service design principles that are strangely so often lost? I hope so. For the service design wonks like me out there - feel free to shout "obvious!!" at any time.

Some basic principles in order of absurd obviousness:

1. Create a single shopping basket where the whole experience can be purchased with all its add-on's in one transaction. ("Duh"). Why could I not buy my tickets to a 3D movie, 2 sets of 3D goggles and my movie snacks in one on-line transaction? Why could I only buy my tickets & then have to figure out where to buy the 3D glasses? (Sadly at the same endless line where you buy the popcorn!)
2. Machines should wait for people - not the other way round! This is a sin committed often by companies embracing automation. Instead of sitting waiting in your car for an attendant at the car park exit to pay for parking you now have to stand in a long line waiting for a turn at the parking pay station. In the case of the cinema, people were waiting in long lines to pick up pre-booked tickets from a swipe machine. This was either because the UX was confusing and laborious or because there was just not enough equipment. In the era of NFC and contactless bank cards or even iBeacons why? Which leads me to principle 3.
3. Some service experiences need to be instantaneous: If your customer journey has a defined cut-off point - such as a plane taking off or a movie starting - you will build anger, anxiety and frustration into the experience if you can't deliver instant service. In some cases your whole secondary business model depends on the service journey creating time for more transactions by being quick. If passengers can check in instantly journey time in total is reduced and they have more time to spend duty free shopping before departure. If cinema goers can get all they need instantly - tickets, 3D glasses and snacks - you will sell more snacks (many folks abandoned their quest for popcorn because the time to get it was too long) and you will have more eyeballs on the adverts and trailers that precede the movie. Build the service journey business case across the whole journey - don't skimp on machines or service workers for those 15-30 crucial minutes before the show!
4. Digital ordering means nothing if physical fulfillment falls flat. At my theatre I can (sadly at a second screen at the theatre and not at home before the time) order and pay for my snacks. I then get a ticket and I stand in line only to repeat my order at the desk and for my popcorn and drinks to be handed to me. This is the same frustrating scenario where you do everything on-line to book a rental car only to have to wait in a long line to sign papers and collect a key. A digitally enabled service journey is not just a digitization of a physical process. It needs different product packaging and fulfillment processes. So at the movie I should be able to order my snack box on-line when I buy my ticket and get the whole package - 3D glasses - the lot - waiting for me for collection. I should be able to go to a little cabinet, open it with my credit card and collect my key to my rental car and go. If car sharing schemes can do it with cars parked on the street why can't rental agencies?
5. Its not over when its over. If you're competing in the service economy the experience should never be over. After I leave the theatre the following opportunities present themselves: Would I like a coffee or a drink? How did I like the movie? Of the movie trailers I saw before the movie which one would I like to see? Which of my friends would enjoy it? What else is on this evening? Would I like an Uber home? Did I check in and share my thoughts about the movie? At my theatre not one of these real commercial opportunities where even approached. Imagine the value lost.

If you're sitting there feeling a little deflated and thinking "this is all common sense" then I guess that's the point. Service and experience design is less diagrams and flow-charts and elegant journey maps. Its a combination of two things:

• Deep empathy for the people who keep you in business - the clients, the movie goers, the customers.
• A commitment to constant "dissent" - constantly challenging the way things are.

With that simple manifesto lets all become service designers!

See you at the movies!