Why organising teams around services matters; ‘departments’ cannot create super experiences

Because of my job, I always take real notice toward the interactions I have with different companies and their services. Prior to being on mat leave my screenshot folder was brimming, and not just with memes and tasty food, but good, bad and ugly of experiences I’d had. Since becoming a mom, I haven’t been as alert, occasional screenshots here and there, however given recent times, I started to take more notice again.

This post highlights some of the services I’ve interacted with, some brilliant, some not so brilliant, along with some recommendations. For those that aren’t entirely sure about this topic, really simply, a service helps someone achieve something.

Focusing on the right things

I’ve noticed more and more companies investing in service design, whereas Government for example have been all over this for many years. To be honest, it’s a little too late, but nevertheless it’ll be positive, eventually, for those companies now taking this seriously. Too many companies launch new services in silo without thinking about the interactions from start to finish, warts and all, and how the customer experiences this, which, in turn, can create some car crash moments. 

From joining a bank, to learning a new language, to updating your car insurance policy to fixing your phone, these are all services. Everyday we experience many services, some we don’t even think about, we just go through the motions. Sometimes we’re so frustrated we tell our friends and family, we complete surveys with a 0 rating, we rant on social media, we may even go as far as raising a formal complaint, and other times, we are absolutely delighted and can’t shout enough about how amazing something or another was.

A service is something that helps someone to do something – Lou Downe

When you make changes to an existing service or introduce a new one, it can’t be done in silo. Many companies have an organisational model that doesn’t enable teams to work together easily be that ‘it’s how we do things here’ mantra, politics or functions with conflicting objectives (many more could be listed!), which means the customer on the other side suffers. A big thing I get frustrated with is when internal structures and systems bleed into the experience I have with a company (I wrote about this a while back), why should I be at the mercy of this? I shouldn’t. There’s many reasons for it such as merging two companies together, building on legacy technology stacks and rather than focusing on the long-term, sticky plasters are put in place, the list again, could go on.

Real-world examples 

These are some of the experiences I’ve had, I’d love to hear yours too — the good, the bad and the ugly. Where I call out some of the less positive ones, I do have sympathy for these teams, it’s not easy when you’re working in a company that has hurdles in the way, but it’s about being creative and thinking of other ways — fake it until you make it (where you can), stress test ideas and if they are a successful continue to iterate, rather than spending 18 months delivering something that’s no longer fit for purpose, goes over budget and doesn’t put the customer at the centre.

Experience matters

Barclays have seriously stepped up — I find most of their services super slick. I always get a little buzz when friends and family notice things too, because they’re in completely different lines of work to me but we all have one thing in common — we’re customers. My husband hit the nail on the head with this for me earlier this year. It just reiterated how important experiences are. HSBC were advertising the switch offer, where you move to them and you get ￡175. So he thought, quids in, I’ll have some of that. I was like cool, go for it, but the experience you get digitally won’t be Barclays level (that’s me with my work hat on). He ignored that, didn’t think it was important. I’m like, go you, speak to you next week when you realise what I mean.

So long story short, (and it was pretty long as the process was obviously manual — one for another post perhaps), he gets his HSBC account, money in the bag, and a few days later he tells me how the HSBC app doesn’t do what Barclays did, how he doesn’t like it and now wants to switch back. Which he went through the effort of doing. One nil — just sayin’. 

Experience matters. Companies can no longer get away with mediocre experiences, be that online or offline. It all matters.

There’s a serious level of customer expectation these days. We can join a bank without heading to a branch, we can get things delivered the same day and if something goes wrong, companies can experience colossal losses over night…

*brutal example 

United Airlines suffers near $1bn loss in value after passenger was violently dragged off overbooked flight — The Independent, April 2017

Keep users informed, find out which moments matter

Most of us have had to go through the cancellation and/or rescheduling of a flight in our lives, but never so many at one time due to the ‘unprecedented’ (feels like word of the year) Covid-19. 

My easyJet experience at first was superb, the booking was simple and easy, it wasn’t one of those beautiful experiences, it was functional but that was all it needed to be (this is important — too many product teams focus on beautiful over functional, it’s really important to do fewer things better than many things halfheartedly). 

Then came the dreaded refund, I’d heard so many people share their experience but easyJet surprised me, it was proactive, I was told my flight was cancelled and given the ability to re-book another flight or request a refund all from within my account on the website, no need to call (result!). 

So I request a refund in a few taps, happy days — this was on 16th March. Immediately after I receive an email confirmation to confirm my refund was being processed. 

Twenty four days later, I get an email telling me the flight had been cancelled and I could book another flight — at this point I’m like, hang on, didn’t I successfully request a refund?

This time, the message is, transfer your flight for free or get an easyJet voucher. I gave up, I thought I’ll give them a month and see what happens as they were clearly under the cosh on Twitter and in the call centres. Days went by, weeks went by and finally a month later I saw the credit back in my account along with an email to confirm.

On the whole, given the circumstances, easyJet have done a super job here enabling me to do everything I needed to do, without taking tonnes of time out of my day waiting on hold. 

Unfortunately, another flight for 2020 was booked with easyJet, and just for the record, it’s been over 4 weeks of Twitter-action — direct messages and tweets, and I’m still waiting on a response, yet some customers are getting responses and the odd like. I get it, they are so under it. But it’s not being managed very well at all. 

I’m starting to sound like a jet setter now — I’m not, honest. I actually booked a flight prior to the one with easyJet, but that was cancelled but this time, it was due to flyBe going under. The issues I had were with NatWest, not the airline this time. 

I’ve never had this happen to me before, but I saw Martin Lewis on TV and he was talking about charge-backs because of the chatter about flyBe about to go bump. I hesitated as I paid on a Debit card (I know right, why did I do that?!) but anyhow, I requested to do a charge-back the night before flyBe officially announced it was going to be gone, so I’m like super pleased, I’m top of the queue. I submitted the form and there was nothing. A black hole. No confirmation on screen, no receipt on email, no nothing. I’m thinking, wow, okay, I know it’s tough to integrate stuff, but at least do the hygiene stuff. It doesn’t cost a lot to get an email fired out to a customer to manage expectation, however it does cost a lot to have that form go into a legacy system and appear on my account, and this is probably a journey that doesn’t happen all too often even to weigh up the cost vs. benefit from a business perspective. I was really anxious, I had a few hundred pound waiting for me, did the form submit, did it not?

Alongside banking with NatWest, I also bank with Santander, Barclaycard and Monzo. Monzo is a different grade when it comes to keeping me notified, so maybe that has set my expectations way too high?! 

Keep users informed, find out which moments matter

You wouldn’t organise a party and not send invites of some kind, in the same way you wouldn’t set a timer on the oven for it not to go off when to take the food out. So when customers do something, notify them. It’s basic. 

Make it easy

Did anyone fancy getting into cycling during lockdown? I did. If you did, I’m sure like me, you were too late. Just like many were for toilet roll, flour and hot tubs. I searched for hours to just see this over and over again… 

Possibly one of the most frustrating experiences lately. This didn’t just happen with bikes, it happened with many things. I’d search for a product, find one in the list, great, then the dreaded enter my post code (every time) to see if that product was available for delivery or collection…. COMPUTER SAYS NO. If only Argos could flip this on its head. How about, I can enter my postcode and then you show me what I can have at the top, and what I could have in future? 

I found some bargains on Matalan, went to buy them and saw that I could ‘click and collect’. I did wonder as I figured they were shut. The website still offered me the option to click and collect. Save me the hassle. Just remove the option, please. Maybe, just maybe, they were leaving it there to see how many people went for it, tracking the interactions to validate opening up stores? Hey who knows, but it was really annoying, and rather than do home delivery, I left the site and didn’t end up buying.

As a kid, Rackams AKA House of Fraser was the ‘posh’ shop, and today some of the range on their website is pricey with designer homeware and fashion, but their aftersale experience doesn’t line up, not when you buy online that’s for sure. I’m an avid ASOS shopper, I get free returns, it’s like it’s programmed into me, yet I purchased a couple of things from House of Fraser in two different sizes, and obviously one was always going back. I looked for the return label and I was shook – no it wasn’t friendly for the environment (paperless), oh there was paper alright, but no label or direction to download a label. Simply a piece of paper with order details and return boxes, along with their address printed to cut off and stick on the packaging. Quite quickly, it occurred to me who owned the chain. Yeah, you and me both… at the Post Office, we had a little chuckle and commented on many other brands within the group. I mean come on. I ordered some new slippers from a basic online retailer and even they give free returns. 

Make it easy

Why make someone believe they can have/do something when they can’t? It damages their trust in you, it’s important to be clear from the get go otherwise people waste time and in time, confidence in your product/brand.

Be upfront, to assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’

“Never assume,” my dad once told me. “To assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”

― C.J. Tudor, The Chalk Man

Homebase and their click and collect, lovely jubbly. I avoided the 25 minute queue. But first, I hesitated until another customer came out, saw my look and had that look, this one…

‘yes you can, go in this way’. How many people in the queue gave me evils? How many were actually collecting too but didn’t realise you didn’t have to queue? Stores that offer click and collect could do better here by directing people accordingly with clear signage or instructions on confirmation pages or collection messages/emails. 

Be upfront, to assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’

It’s really easy to be directive, and sure, some customers don’t read stuff, but it could’ve been easily called out on the website, in the email or text, and at the store entrance. Screw Fix have done this really well, sure they’re only doing click and collect, but the signage is there to be seen. 

See below ‘your order will be available to collect from the customer service desk’, it would’ve been simple to have added, skip the queues, go through the exit. 

The beauty of click and collect is no queues, especially during this time where we all queue outside a store 2m apart. 

Look beyond why users originally came here

Booking.com and Airbnb get to know me and my trip, they make me feel like they want to be helpful by suggesting things to do etc. Sure, it’s an algorithm in the background based on where I’m going (but to someone like my dad, that’s like magic), but it’s super helpful and sometimes stuff comes up that I’d never have found. 

Look beyond why users originally came here. Offer up the next best thing, add value. 

Most of the time, your service is part of a bigger thing, be that booking a hotel room that’s for a trip to Disney, applying for credit to get a new car. There’s so many useful partnerships that could be struck up with companies around your ecosystem that would create utility for people.  

Get to know what your customers are trying to do

Quotemehappy.com car insurance is super basic, but functional. I’ve not had to call them once since I joined. I had my registration plate ready to go onto my next car and it literally took me a couple of minutes to sort. I logged in, had a quick look at where I updated my registration / car when I got a new one, and there it was, the option to update the plate. So updating it on my policy and physically changing the plates took hardly any time, which meant I could get back to my day. If I had to call, I’m sure it would’ve been painful and took a lot longer out of my day.

Get to know what your customers are trying to do

A lot of teams see the big complicated stuff as the best place to go, but the value there is harder to unlock. Get to know how your customers are behaving, and target the common, basic tasks they’re getting done.

To the customer it’s one experience; don’t make it about physical and digital

Passport renewals/applications what an experience. Perfect. No need to go to someone’s house to get signed a photograph signed anymore. No need to go to a photobooth and have photo taken, simply use your phone and stand in front of a plain wall. Although I did think it was pretty ace when my nan had a photo done the traditional way and all I had to do was enter the barcode and boom, there she was! 

Another great experience is around DVLA, and adding a private registration to your vehicle. The smart tool tips are brilliant, a constant reminder that the team are joined up and aware that there’s a ton of paper and stuff to look at and use when doing things online.

I recently ordered some clothes from Zara, and can I say, I’m continuously impressed by their laser sharp focus on making things easy – from scanning a top in store to see if your size is available online, to easily adding your gift card to your account, they make it so frictionless! So back to the clothes. One of the items I ordered was a pair of jeans, but they didn’t turn up. So I went to the ‘help’ area of the app, and got chatting, initially to a ‘virtual assistant’, to which I now just say “human agent” somewhere in my reply and this happens…

“Funky fact, funky fact”

Clearly I’ve also been watching too much CBeebies! Anyway, 60% of the time, it works all the time…

So, back to my point… I got through to an agent, and in a few moments my issue was taken away, and within days I received an email as promised detailing out their resolution, and I got my refund ??

To the customer it’s one experience; don’t make it about physical and digital

There’s a ton of physical and digital experiences that interconnect, so where these two worlds meet, make it feel like a single experience to the customer. When teams aren’t focused on the end to end experience, the cracks show and customers get mixed messages.

Capitalise on the smartphone, everyone has one

With streaming services all over the place, and passwords coming out of our ears, Disney+ have made this super simple.

Remember that time you had to login to your [streaming service] account on your TV and you had to awkwardly use your remote control and a keyboard on screen?

Disney+ now enables you to get through all of that by simply using your smartphone. So if you’re on the WiFi on your TV (where Disney+ is installed) and on your smartphone, you can simply launch the Disney+ app on your smartphone and it’ll log you in on your telly. Magic. 

Capitalise on the smartphone, everyone has one

There’s a ton of journeys customers go through where one of their many devices around the home could be used to make life easier. 

For me, all of these things, good, bad, ugly, link back to how companies and teams are organised. Instead of organising by department with competing KPIs, agendas and budget, companies should organise around services, services that customers experience. This in turn will make everyone happier. Employees will be happier and more fulfilled with end to end accountability and ownership of a given service, they will do their best work, which leads to better outcomes/happier customers, which ultimately creates a super image for the company, resulting in more loyal customers that stay, and tell their friends. Happy days. 

What you can do next 

1. Take a look at the service(s) you and your team work on. How are you organised? Are you working in silo’d teams? How quickly can you deliver value to the customer? Is it super hard because you’re working in departments, doing your own thing? 
2. Grab yourself a copy of ‘Good Services’ by Lou Downe. It’s ace. You won’t regret it. 
3. If you enjoy video, there’s some good stuff here on YouTube all about service design

If you’ve got any other examples I’d love to hear about them. Drop me a comment or send me message, I'm also on Twitter.