oneux | designing experiences

owning services: a way to service envy

            

 

One of the main distinctions between products and services, is that we use the latter rather than own them. Part of good service design is to encourage use over ownership.

One reason why people become passionate about products is that they can make them their own, they can show them to their friends, they can define themselves by owning them. This strong feeling of ownership cannot and should not be underestimated when designing services. Creating a feeling of ownership could help users become passionate about using a service in the same way as owning a product. This can be achieved by designing compelling touchpoint experiences, or where possible, allowing users to own part of the service.

Take voicemail on mobile phones for example. As a service, voicemail is not owned by the users but rater used: every time a user wants to access their voicemail they have to call into their voicemail service to access and 'use' their voicemail. My experience in researching voicemail suggests that users feel let down by the service because they cannot own it. Simply using it seems like a cheat. So, any way of allowing people to 'own' their voicemail will improve their experience and the service.

              

       

the added value of peripheral service events

The added value of services is in the periphery…

The other day I went to collect a car I hired for Christmas. I arrived at Avis and after a short ‘check in’ I was all ready to go. However, I was given a 3 door car when I really needed to have a 5 door car… baby seats you see…. For my good luck another customer was given a 5 door car while she wanted a 3 door one. We decided to swap cars and off we went back to the office to sort things out. The Avis representative was happy to help us but was not sure how to complete the transaction. After a brief chat with a colleague she cancelled the first booking and amended the second one, then she went back to the cancelled booking and re-entered the booking details. The whole process only took about 10 minutes. Admittedly it could be faster and more efficient, that is, why cancel one booking when you should be able to just swap cars between bookings?

Swapping cars must be a really rare event and any research must have relegated that scenario in the ‘nice to have’ but not really needed elements of the design. Basically it is too much hassle designing for an event that will rarely take place when you can spend your time designing for more common scenarios. Absolutely, go for the main scenarios and make sure they support user needs. However, successfully supporting rare scenarios can make a good experience better.

So, could it be that the periphery of a service experience can improve that experience and lead to the all needed service envy?