Defective Products Vs Defective Services

Defective Products Vs Defective Services

1. Defective Products are designed and manufacturing not as per design is called defective products
2. Defects in Defective Products are visible to sellers
3. Defective Products are sold as seconds goods
4. Defective Products are rejected by customers

1. Services are not designed & therefore defective services are not easy to identify
2. Defective Services are being seen & experienced by customers
3. Apparently Defective Services are not seen & experienced by sellers
4. Even defective services are also rejected by customers , however since it is not visible to the sellers , seller wont know the reason for customer defections & complaints
5. Unlike Products , services are dynamic & made available every time customers want it. Therefore probability defective services for un-designed services is far more than defective products which are manufactured en-mass & stored for delivery. 

Therefore it is most critical for service providers to design the service & map customer journey to know the defects in service design. Its difficult & challenging but critical.

Today's Organisations - Weapons of Mass Irritation

Outbound calls , frequent SMSs to market the products, untrained callers all these are making recipient of calls irritable.

On the other hand when we call inbound call centers to solve our problems ; punching of innumerable buttons, repeating the problems to every agents, line disconnect, again repeating the process - huge irritation. 

When customers wish to approach any of the following issues, none can be handled without irritation ; 

1. Complaint Resolution
2. Goods Return
3. After Sales Service
4. Mis-Sell
5. Over-Sell
6. Over- Bill
7. Long Procedures 
8. Complicated Forms & Bills
9. Complex Features
10. Multiple & Unwanted Choices

Most of the activities rolled out by an organisation creates irritation. The main cause if lack of or no customer focus specially no end to end customer focus. No effort to step into the shoes of customer to design customer experience. No effort or mind for service design. No one in charge of end to end customer experience. 

Map the customer journey, design the service, take rigorous customer feedback , read social media reviews, put someone senior enough in charge of end to end customer experience. 

Convert your Customer Irritation quotient into Customer Happiness and you have won the customer for long, his repeat purchase, his higher pocket share, his referral contacts. 

If you are not making your customers HAPPY , you are IRRITATING them. 

Service Design - Most critical but Mostly Ignored

" Design is not HOW it looks but how it works." Steve Jobs.  

Product & service design is an integral part of over all customer experience. However it is easier to find out bad product design from its usage but equally difficult to know bad service design. 

There is a saying that if there is a physical queue / waiting for anything  , it is a bad design. If user is finding it difficult to fill a form it is bad design. 

In every product & service there is an element of design. 

You go to buy a railway ticket or buy a insurance policy, apply for insurance claim, opening a bank account or availing bank loan, buying a house from a real estate company , availing medical treatment at hospitals, buying a movie ticket and watching movie in a theater, roaming in a mall, roads & traffic flow ,  hotel booking, check in/out process everything is a design.  

Now if these intangible services are not deliberately designed keeping customer/users ease , convenience & comfort in  mind, it will happen without deliberate design and is likely to spoil customer experience. 

No part of business or enterprise activities happen automatically. It is not either it is deliberately designed or deliberately not designed but most of the time it is not designed as entrepreneur or service provider is not aware that it has to be deliberately designed. 

All physical aspects are designed by various design experts, however its final flow to the customer i.e. sales process, after sales process, actual service av-ailment process skip the design aspects. It is these gaps in service design creates bad and frustrating customer experience (CX). Hardware & tangible are designed but soft & intangible parts remain un-designed. 

Otherwise how expensive airlines , finest of hotels & hospitals , sophisticated banks & insurance companies and great home builder - real estate companies fails in customer experience miserably? 

In every aspects of intangible service design , CX designers' intervention  can improve customer experience and help solving many problems in Govt services.