Samuel Švec

Designers always consider the end-user or customer when creating physical or digital "worlds." Their focus is on making solutions desirable and usable. Business design adds another layer to this: ensuring the solution is also profitable.

The latest guest on the Minimum Viable Podcast is Alžbeta Ivanovičová, who has been working in service design and business design for several years. Michal Blažej talks with her about what business design is, how it works in practice, and how anyone can benefit from it.


Do you know your organization's CX maturity level? Find out in few seconds by answering these 6 questions.




Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

Today, we’ll talk about something called business design. Where did the concept of business design actually come from?

I think business design has always been around; we just didn’t know to call it that or realize we wanted to call it that. Designers, when creating physical or digital worlds, have always focused on the end customer. They care about whether their design is useful, whether people can use it, and whether they want to use it. That approach is great but has its limitations. Let me explain with an example.

I have pretty long legs. Every time I travel by plane, I think, why can’t budget airlines—or any airline, really—make the seats bigger so I can stretch my legs and feel more comfortable during the flight? But when you look at it from a business perspective, giving passengers more legroom means fewer seats on the plane. Fewer seats mean fewer passengers, which drives ticket prices up.

Then the question becomes, would anyone want to take a weekend trip to Milan if the ticket price skyrocketed? Essentially, business design recognizes that not all customer desires can be met. It puts pressure on designers to align their work with the business context of the company they’re working for.

How can this design approach help businesses?

It can help in three ways. First, it brings structure. It ensures that we don’t stray too far from the business challenge and approach it in a systematic way to solve it effectively.

Second, it fosters understanding among stakeholders—whether customers, employees, or collaborators. It helps everyone see why a particular solution is important and why it’s the best fit for the specific context.

Finally, there’s impact. Business designers are hands-on. They tackle challenges by creating prototypes—concrete solutions—and testing them with customers. Then, they take it a step further by implementing these solutions. This means they cover the entire lifecycle of a service, from creation to integration into the business ecosystem.

You mentioned thinking about problems from a business perspective. Does that mean business comes first in business design, or is the customer still the priority?

In my view, every organization should have a strategy—an idea of where it’s headed—and from that strategy, business challenges naturally arise. When I talk about business challenges, I don’t mean specific issues faced by a single salesperson. I think of them more as goals the organization wants to achieve. Customer insights should serve as inspiration for solving these challenges. So, it’s not about one taking priority over the other; it’s about finding a balance—they go hand in hand.

It sounds like if I have a challenge I can’t solve alone, I’d turn to an external consulting firm. Is business design different in this respect? Is there competition between the two?

Management consulting certainly has its place, and some people excel at it. In my view, the difference is that consulting often relies on tried-and-true solutions or approaches. It’s built on years of experience and proven methods. Business design, on the other hand, tends to be more exploratory and tailored, creating solutions that fit the specific needs and context of the challenge.

I read somewhere that business design focuses more on the top lines of the profit and loss statement, while management consulting focuses on retaining as much of those funds as possible and achieving profitability. From my perspective, business designers are often more integrated within an organization. They create specific solution proposals, prototypes, and meet directly with customers. It's not about providing generic advice. Many times, qualitative or quantitative research guides our thinking, helping us outline the next steps for a project.

What specific problems can business design address?

For example, struggling to retain customers, losing them, or being unable to increase revenue that's stagnating. Or cases where the competition is doing better than we are, or a new product we developed isn’t successful and nobody uses it.

There are also challenges related to organizational structure. For instance, rapid growth that we couldn't manage well, wanting to achieve more but feeling lost, or processes taking too long. Customers might expect changes or innovations that we can’t deliver because of organizational, technological, or other internal limitations.

How can business design tackle such significant challenges?

The approach is key. You use methods that break the challenge into smaller pieces to identify the underlying problems. Then, you systematically search for solutions, test them in practice through experimentation, and implement what works. In medium or large organizations, it’s challenging to validate and sustainably roll out solutions without causing disruption that could create new problems.

How does the analysis differ when addressing an internal organizational problem versus involving management consultants?

I’d say it’s valuable to have insights from consultants to understand the situation objectively.

In organizations, different people often focus on different issues and sometimes forget that they are all working toward a common goal.

What's unique about this approach is that it centers on the customer and their inputs. By analyzing feedback, motivations, needs, dissatisfaction, and expectations—whether through existing sources or customer research—you build a clearer context around the business challenge.

Do you have examples of clients who successfully addressed major challenges using this approach?

One example is our project with the Bratislava Water Management Company. They wanted to improve cash flow by encouraging customers to pay invoices faster and reduce the number of calls to their support center regarding confusing invoices.

We analyzed call center recordings to understand customers’ questions and identified what made the invoices unclear. Based on this, we redesigned the invoices. Then we conducted guerrilla testing in a shopping center, asking people if they understood the new design. As a result, invoice payment times improved, boosting cash flow, and customer experience also got better, as people no longer had to decipher the invoices.

My favorite approach is that when faced with a significant business challenge, you can always refine or narrow the scope of the task. You can either focus on a specific target customer group or specialize in a particular product or service. By narrowing the business challenge this way, you can work much more effectively with the subsequent analysis, research, and solutions.

Don’t you get feedback that narrowing the target audience excludes other users?

We often hear that concern—companies wanting to target everyone. However, I believe there’s always a dominant customer group. Strategically, every company knows who their long-term priority customers are.

Can you share another example of a business problem?

Sure, let’s talk about NAY Elektrodom, the largest electronics retailer in Slovakia. They wanted to shorten the time it took to serve each customer in-store. They felt their process wasn’t efficient enough. We conducted customer research to understand their shopping journey for electronics and also analyzed the in-store service process.

We found a conflict: online sales were competing with physical store sales. Customers viewed buying large appliances as an important decision—they wanted to research in-store, consult with staff, then go home and buy online. This left sales staff frustrated because they lost commission.

We focused on improving the customer experience in the sense that we developed an app that helped sales staff provide better advice and prepared an online order for the customer. The customer received a list of recommended products via email, and the salesperson still earned a commission.

By improving the employee experience, we enhanced the customer experience, shortened service time, and reduced frustration.

Are there any principles on how business design should work?

Our approach always relies on several pillars. One important aspect is customer orientation and all other stakeholders involved. Every project includes a phase where we identify the customer group or determine who will ultimately benefit from solving the business challenge and who will gain value from it.

Then, the second pillar is data, both quantitative and qualitative. We usually use quantitative data to determine the impact or to define the problem. So when we identify the business challenge together with the customer, we also want to know how big it is, whether there is a possibility of return on investment, and if we’ll really make an impact within the organization.

Another important pillar is visualization. We usually try to capture all our findings, whether they’re quantitative or qualitative. For example, it could be a service blueprint or a customer journey map. In this way, we try to visualize the insights so that stakeholders within the organization better understand the sequence of individual steps.

I’ll stop you here for a moment, you mentioned visualization. Why is it important?

Different people within an organization usually focus on different things, and sometimes they forget that they’re all working toward the same goal. And that goal is, let’s say, providing quality customer service. So they’re all co-creating the customer experience. That’s why everything should work together and logically follow one another. When employees look at a visualization, they understand, “Ah, this is where I am, this is my agenda, but it influences these other people and processes within the company.”

And then, another important pillar is prototypes. Once you know the starting point and have some potential solutions, it’s good to create prototypes—small designs you can try out in practice.

Do you have a specific example? I can imagine a webpage prototype, but what if it’s a larger change in organizational processes?

Let’s take an insurance broker as an example. Based on analysis, you realize that customers don’t fully understand the details of the insurance coverage. You can take just this small part and iterate on it. You give these proposals to, let’s say, 10 salespeople and ask them to try out the prototype, and then you ask them how the customers reacted.

Then I also think about A/B testing, which we did with one of our retail clients. How would you handle that?

When you’re dealing with a retail chain with several stores, scaling can be quite difficult. You need to do a lot of tests in one location to determine what the functional model is, and then move on to other locations. But there might also be regional differences. However, you can define certain principles. For example, the product should be displayed in a way that doesn’t get in the way, it should invite the customer to visit your store, and it should be relevant to them.

What should the first step be to get things out quicker and confront them with the user?

You need to identify the business challenge, i.e., what you want to solve. Then, you should be able to define hypotheses related to the issue and conduct either quantitative or qualitative research. After that, you need to ideate possible solutions and create prototypes, and then it’s also good to know how to implement the changes—how to manage that change.

What tools do you use for change management, and how does it look?

We often use stakeholder mapping to understand who all is involved in the business challenge so that no one is left out. If there’s resistance to change, it’s usually because some needs haven’t been heard.

Business design helps to build and maintain a competitive advantage.

It’s also about evangelizing the approach, explaining why we’re doing this and what it should bring. Positive examples are very effective, as well as communication about what has been achieved, and on the other hand, sharing lessons learned from what didn’t work. Being open about this kind of transparent communication tends to work well for us.

The key to all of this is being willing to experiment and learn. And to have persistence, be flexible, and react promptly when something doesn’t go as expected. That’s why communication and involvement from the start are so important—so everyone understands.

Finally, I’d like to look a bit into the future. Is business design the answer to the challenges that organizations might face? Is it a tool for the future?

Yes, for the future, but also right now. You can already work on an organization's business challenges, and there’s no reason to wait.

Business design is something that helps you build and maintain a competitive advantage. So, listening to customers means that you’ll not only serve your existing customer base well but when something changes in that base or a new customer segment emerges, you’ll be able to respond to their needs and innovate your products and services. Plus, thanks to business design, you’ll be able to monitor what’s happening in the market because you’re in direct contact with it.


The full interview with Alžbeta Ivanovičová in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

In Minimum Viable Podcast, we use relatable language to dive into customer experience design. We invite unique guests to chat about how Customer Experience influences business success. A special thanks to Mojmír Procházka for his production support.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #28: Business design

Dominika Babulicová

Consumer brands are facing new sources of pressure. Traditional funnels are now crowded with new competitors, including online marketplaces that push prices down. Market leaders set high standards for customer experience, pushing consumer expectations to a new level. AI and algorithms give an edge only to those already strongest. And social commerce has turned even consumers into brands’ competitors.


Positioning through Experience identities

Although brand interactions are evolving, many consumer experiences fall short. Inflation and corporate cost-cutting often mean consumers are paying more, getting less, and dealing with lower-quality services. With rising inflation, consumers are much more picky about which brands deserve their attention and money. Our consumer behavior research reveals that consumers’ decision-making has shifted substantially in the past five years.

In a constantly changing society, evaluating information is increasingly challenging, and the market is oversaturated with products and brands. Therefore, consumers nowadays assess a brand's relevance based on the role it plays in their lives. From our research, we’ve identified how consumers build brand affinity, and based on that, we developed the concept of Experience identities. This model helps brand leaders (whether they’re CEOs or managers at the intersection of product–marketing) understand and respond to these new consumer expectations.


A scale from convenience to surprise

Experience identities reflect a range of customer needs – from simplifying choices to breaking away from monotonous experiences – and suggest the role a brand should play in consumers' lives:

 * Problem solvers make decision-making and daily tasks easier for customers. Think of leaders like Amazon, Ikea, or local company Alza, which offer services that handle as many purchase-related concerns as possible, covering everything from financing to delivery, setup, and returns.
 * Empathetic experts are trustworthy partners who build communities around shared passions. Through their expertise, they engage consumers also beyond the buying phase, securing their place in customers' lives. Examples include Miele's cooking classes or Isadore's community rides for cycling enthusiasts.
 * Responsibility enablers guide consumers to make responsible purchasing decisions, addressing their increasing sensitivity towards ethical business practices, social impact, and product lifecycle. This explains the rise of circular solutions like Vinted, Recup, or Martinus’ book return program, as well as brands with lifetime guarantees like Patagonia.
 * Magic makers bring back a human touch to an increasingly automated customer service. Instead of bland, templated online stores and customer service bots, they deliver a more human touch. For instance, in the fashion industry, you’ll find magic makers offering personal stylists as shopping curators or smart wardrobes in fitting rooms with selected items appearing upon request.

Deciding which experience identity a brand wants to excel in is a challenging strategic decision. One that enables a brand to deliver a clear and meaningful value to the customer, that will be irreplaceable by any other brand.


Brand = communication + experiences

Customers perceive a brand not only through its communication but also through the feelings it evokes through all interactions. This holistic perception of a brand is called brand experience. Brand experience is built on strong analytics – understanding consumers and competitors and identifying untapped opportunities. The experience identity framework allows brands to identify the right approach, whether they’re focused on revenue, market share, or customer retention.

Our report on new consumer expectations offers a deep dive into shopping behavior, key trends, and numerous examples of world-famous and local brands that understand where they stand on the experience identity spectrum. We’ll show you how these brands innovate based on the needs and future expectations of their target audiences, tailoring their entire service portfolio accordingly. After all, it’s the design and quality of customer services that shape how consumers resonate with a brand, giving it a real competitive advantage.

If you'd like to discuss Experience identities in person or have them explained to your colleagues, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Subscribe with your e-mail: www.lbstudio.sk/newsletter

The new reality shapes how consumers perceive brands. How to stay relevant?

The way consumers experience the world has changed significantly over the past five years, impacting how they interact with brands. New competitors have entered the traditional purchasing journey: global marketplaces are pushing on price, AI is further accelerating giants, and social commerce is turning even consumers themselves into competitors.

To understand the change in purchasing decisions, we analyzed dozens of renowned studies on today’s customers and compared them with indicators of success of leading brands. In respondents' statements, we identified how they now develop brand affinity and created the concept of Experience identities.


Brands need to redefine their role in people’s lives

Experience identities help brand leaders (whether they are company directors or managers at the product – marketing intersection) understand how the new reality has transformed consumer purchasing behavior. They represent a model of thinking that allows us to view current expectations of future customers and spot opportunities to address them amid the mix of new competitors.

We’ve gathered dozens of examples of successful brands that define their role in people’s lives through a well-designed portfolio of services and a consistent customer experience identity. Our report offers recommendations on how to conduct a managerial reflection on your consumer brand and choose steps to take.


In this report, you will learn:

 * what the new customer journey looks like after turbulent years (COVID, war, inflation, online marketplaces, AI...);
 * how brand experience and brand perception influence purchasing decisions of today’s consumers;
 * which identities the most successful brands adopt to redefine their market position;
 * the role customer experience and service portfolios play in this mix;
 * what makes four Experience identities stand out: the Problem Solver, the Empathetic Expert, the Responsibility Enabler, and the Magic Maker.









Get The new consumer expectations report, including our Experience identities framework


Yout full name*





Your company email*





Which one best describes you?*




Freelancer (I work as a freelance or an agency designer)


Product team member (I build or market products & services)


Product owner (I manage a product or startup lifecycle)


Corporate leader (I manage a division in a bigger company)


Academic (I am a student or a teacher)





What language do you prefer to read our emails in?*




English


Slovenčina





Handout type

Validation handbook


Experiment toolbox


Experience identities


Assumption mapper canvas







By clicking on "Download" you agree to the processing of personal data by Lighting Beetle s.r.o. as explained in our
Personal data protection policy.







Newsletter opt-in






I'd also like to subscribe for the occasional CX Insights newsletter by LB*





Download












Experience identities: How to react to the new consumer expectations

When paying taxes, we often feel like we are the state's last priority. We have to study legal paragraphs and use a calculator to figure out what to fill in boxes we don’t fully understand. A few people at the Bratislava City Hall took on this challenge and tried to redesign the tax payment process.

We are starting the fifth season of the Minimum Viable Podcast with Slavo Oslej, who used the service design method to propose a new way for Bratislava residents to pay taxes. Michal Blažej discusses with him what the work of a service designer entails and how to design services that put the customer first.


Do you know your organization's CX maturity level? Find out in few seconds by answering these 6 questions.




Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

To begin, I’d like to talk to you about the redesign of the tax payment system. Not everyone may be familiar with the project you worked on, so what was the outcome of your work?

Essentially, we looked at the service overall, starting from the first moment—filing a tax return or the real estate tax declaration and then the actual tax payment—so the entire service process. What we delivered was a new form that’s more intuitive and a payment method, so now you can pay the tax directly from an email or from a Bratislava account using Apple Pay. Now, people don’t have to go to the post office to make a payment.

What was wrong before? Why did you take on this project?

It was part of a larger initiative for digital transformation. When I joined the city administration, it was around April 2020, and we got a program from Bloomberg, called Think Big Start Small. We had to choose one service to try and transform gradually from start to finish. We picked the real estate tax because at the time it was the largest transactional service, generating the second-largest revenue for the city. It also had the greatest impact on users. The process was very cumbersome for users; people were paying in ways that were no longer suitable for the modern age.

Whose initiative was this digital transformation within the city administration?

We had electronic services similar to the Slovensko.sk with high-cost development and very few users. We needed to make these services more efficient. Bloomberg helped us organize everything. They encouraged us to start with one service and gradually learn from it, applying those lessons to further transform other services the city offers electronically.

How did you approach this? How was it different from how things were done before?

We started collaborating with Bloomberg right after I joined. What was great was the very broad Discovery phase. For me, it was an amazing moment since it coincided with my onboarding. When you think about it, Bratislava is essentially the largest service provider, from public transport to street lighting to paying for municipal services like pools, sports facilities, etc.

The portfolio of services is huge, and during the Discovery phase, we looked at basic things—what services actually mean to people, what the city provides them, and if they even realize it. We did exit interviews after people completed tasks at the contact center, conducted observations, and ad-hoc surveys in parks. We combined various research methods.

You really focused on understanding who the citizens of Bratislava are and how they interact with the city.

Exactly. We took a broad approach and used a 'Double Diamond' framework. We focused on one service, real estate tax, but the 4-month Discovery phase provided insights that helped us with other projects as well.

For instance, it led us to start working on a new Bratislava.sk website because we noticed people were calling the contact center mainly because they couldn’t find information online. So, these insights directed us to further projects.

This is fascinating, especially the Discovery phase. Balancing the scope of research to avoid becoming too abstract and ensure the research remains valuable. Sometimes research can be too broad, revealing strategic insights that aren’t necessarily actionable. How did you select the takeaways, and how did you present them?

From day one, Bloomberg guided us towards high standards, like making research transparent within the organization. After each stage, we presented our findings to about 300 people, showing them what we discovered.

"The findings from the Discovery phase were that it is very difficult for city residents to handle anything with the local government."

The key findings were that it’s really difficult for city residents to handle tasks with the city administration. Most processes are manual, and people usually have to come in person. Just obtaining information or completing a task online is impossible for many because they don’t have an electronic ID card. Ninety percent of the processes are offline, which causes frustration and bad user experiences.

So, the Discovery phase confirmed that digital services were failing, which led you to work on the city’s digital transformation.

Yes, that was the core issue, but we also explored other areas. After identifying these problems, we moved into a targeted Discovery phase and focused specifically on real estate tax services, from filing the declaration to paying the tax.

So, after the broad Discovery phase, you narrowed it down and selected real estate tax as the service to target. What happened next?

We started working closely with the local taxes and fees department in Petržalka. We conducted interviews with users to understand how the current tax declaration works or doesn’t work for them and what issues they encounter. We also mapped out the current state and tested the existing offline and online forms. When it came to payments, we identified several pain points.

You even observed the back-office operations?

Yes, I spent time in the front-line tax offices and saw that when users didn’t pay their tax, the city would sometimes call them six or seven times to follow up. For example, when the invoices were generated in April and May, they had to be physically sent to the post office and signed. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. Another issue was that during December and January, when tax declarations are filed, there were 300-400 people daily needing help with the form. The city police even had to manage the crowd.

That sounds familiar. In 2016, we started observing back-office processes and call centers, and the insights we gained were often far more useful than customer interviews.

I completely agree. That’s when we first started using Journey Mapping. We mapped the entire process from filing the declaration to making the payment, identified pain points, and created five concepts ranging from small improvements to full transformation.

One of the first concepts was simplifying real estate tax payments. The second was finding a new way to authenticate users into a digital environment without relying on Slovensko.sk, as only about 6-7% of individuals had access to it. Another concept was helping people fill out the tax declaration through tooltips and nudges. We also considered involving third parties like notaries, lawyers, and real estate agents in helping users complete the form. The final concept was removing the user from the declaration process altogether.

In the end, we decided to focus solely on the payment aspect because it had the greatest impact, and we found a legal loophole that allowed us to test digital tax payments.

What team was behind this whole process?

Back then, it was two or three of us. Mainly our internal team, plus we worked with a service design agency, and they expanded our team with a service designer and an IT architect. Of course, we also had the local tax department involved, and to the extent possible, our IT department, lawyers, and others.

You mentioned you created a service blueprint. It’s not a commonly used tool here, and people often don’t know what it is. What is it, and how did it help you?

We used it to map the as-is state and also to map out an ideal state. What helped me was being able to visualize and fully understand how the service operates.

Another thing was that I could get different groups and stakeholders around one table so that everyone could see on one screen, in one Miro, what impacts the user and their experience. I could see everything holistically — how it works versus how it should work — and thanks to that, I discovered some potential inefficiencies.

What did your service blueprint look like?

If you imagine a customer journey, it shows what the user does to meet their goal or fulfill their need. Above that, we had some evidence or a visual reference of what the user actually sees. Then we had the front-end interactions they might have with our staff or some interface. There was also a technology section, linked to some form.

Below that was the entire backstage. And then there was the technology part that, for instance, sends you a one-time code for logging in, etc. We also had KPI tracking, showing how the user progressed through the service. Thanks to that, we could see where and what we could measure. For example, how quickly payments were made, whether the user chose a QR code or a payment gateway, and how many people clicked on feedback… So, we had the entire service described. Since we all understood how the service worked, we could review everything that might go wrong before and after its launch.

You mentioned that you first launched a closed beta for the payment. What happened next?

Back then, we realized that we could display the tax in a digital environment, but you still had to receive the decision in paper form. That’s how the closed beta unfortunately worked. However, we were able to verify that this method was correct. What else did we need?

The result was that within fifteen days, 72% of payments were made. Previously, over 90% of people had to go to the post office to pay their taxes. Let’s say it was at the post office for 18 days, you had 30 days to make the payment, and then 15 days to finalize it. Altogether, it could take two months. Often, people would stick the paper on their fridge and then forget about it or lose it.

We introduced the payment email, which included a QR code and a payment gateway. If you wanted to see the details, due to tax secrecy, you received a one-time code. You accessed a secure zone where you logged in via a code sent to your phone, and there you could view your tax.

The results showed that people have no issue paying taxes if you make the process easier, and everything moves faster. It’s just another bill to pay.

How long did it take to go from the initial discovery to this point?

One year.

It’s important to recognize how much work goes into creating a simple QR code. Citizens might think, "It’s just a QR code," but it took a year of work.

What’s interesting is that we had 72% of payments within fifteen days. Guess what the percentage was when we told people that if they paid within 15 days, we wouldn’t send them a paper letter?

85%?

94%. So, notice how much value we created for people just by eliminating the need to go to the post office.

By 2022-2023, we had better transactional measurements. We found that 4% of people still wanted to receive paper. In 2023, I understood that there was a willingness on the side of the Ministry of Finance to change the law to allow electronic payments.

We realized that we could change the way taxes were levied. We introduced a notification system, where if you paid by a certain date, you wouldn’t receive anything by mail. It’s similar to paying a fine — once you pay it immediately, you only get a receipt and that’s it.

This year was the first time we applied this, and it’s great to see that it’s working, for instance, in Petržalka and other cities. Petržalka, for example, gave a €5 discount if you paid digitally. After the first year, 50% of people were using it. This applies to property taxes, municipal waste fees, dog taxes, and other smaller fees.

What makes the role of a service designer unique, and what does a service designer bring to the table? Why should organizations have service designers?

I think it’s a very important role. Service designers connect different roles and create multidisciplinarity. They’re also advocates for the user and work to deliver the best possible experience to the user.

But it’s not just about the user experience; it’s also about ensuring that the organization can deliver services as efficiently as possible in terms of time and money. So, it’s a crucial role that puts the user first while managing all the assets together.

What skill set do you think a service designer should have? What would you look for on their CV?

They should have a bit of a researcher in them, to be able to ask the right questions and listen. Visual thinking is also key—being able to draw some synthesis from what they hear during facilitation and collaboration. I’d also look for some project management skills so that they can organize resources and options. And definitely, the ability to think outside the box. It also helps to know what the front end is, and what the back end is, and understand infrastructures.

You had a brief internship in New York and got a glimpse of how not just service design but also innovation teams work. What did you see in New York?

It lasted four days, and every day I was with a different department. What was interesting was that the city had an external team hired from an agency, and they were doing six-month behavioral projects for various New York departments. They focused a lot on communication, and I noticed that using plain language was very important. Using simple language is crucial for services, especially municipal ones.

"It is not only about the experience but also about ensuring that the organization can deliver services as efficiently as possible in terms of time and money."

I also liked that they didn’t work individually but always in teams of three, which ensured good coverage and information sharing. Another day I was with an internal service design team. They had a sister product team, which was relatively small, just three to four people.

It certainly wasn’t for all of New York, but I liked that despite being only three or four people, they had "office hours." That meant every Friday, government employees could sign up with their problems, and they would mentor them. This allowed them to increase their impact. I found that very inspiring.

But what impressed me most was their co-design project, where they hired 12 residents over six months and turned them into designers. They passed on their design skills to the residents, allowing them to go through the design process and create a service for their community that was missing. The result was a multi-generational center focused on digital skills, as many groups in New York only have basic education.

Another thing that comes to mind is when I visited 311, which is a non-emergency call center. They don’t have any front offices where you have to go in person; you just call for everything. They handle 35 million interactions a year, and what’s amazing is that they have a knowledge base of 2,000 questions and can answer in the top 11-12 languages anytime. They even guarantee responses in all world languages within a certain time, which made me think, "Wow!" It’s incredible that they have one place where you can call and solve your issues.

In Bratislava, we managed to create one such service. How could we achieve standard thinking like this in local government or public administration?

This is a very complicated challenge. After these four years, I see the biggest barrier as the ability to not only pass on the know-how but also transfer the operation of existing services to the original owners. Because I only had the role of product owner on loan, and in local government, there’s no such thing as a service owner or product owner.

I’d like to get to the point where one day, we are not just tax administrators, road administrators, or sidewalk administrators, but service providers. Not just bureaucrats, but civic servants.

"Using plain language is crucial, especially for municipal services."

But this is gradually happening. Departments are slowly hiring stakeholders who are also part of the innovation department, meaning they are full-time employees. The same approach is being used for the Bratislava transport company or other city organizations, and it’s spreading.

So people from the innovation team are being sent to other city enterprises?

Yes, or hired. But it’s still centralized in one office. The challenge is to move this forward. In the case of local governments, a large percentage of their effort goes into just keeping things running, leaving little room for development and streamlining. We definitely need more people to gradually transform this.

If someone wanted to become a service designer, what would you recommend?

I had a very broad path, but my first impulse came from design thinking, which kickstarted my journey toward service design. Then I tried it out in practice in telecom, where I had an amazing mentor. After that, I took a course through the Butterfly Effect as a UX researcher, and Bloomberg also helped a lot—it was all learning by doing.

But you can also get close to service design if you’ve been a product owner or anyone who has worked in design, like UX or UI. These are very similar professions that can lead to service design. Fortunately, more and more schools focus on this now as well.

One final question I ask all guests. What is your biggest design challenge that you’d like to solve?

I have two. The first is that this morning, as I was unplugging my phone from the charger, I thought, "We’re soon going to Mars, but our phones still only last one day." The second is scaling the design mindset and approach within organizations.


The full interview with Slavo Oslej in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

Design is all around us. Minimum Viable Podcast explores design with a small “d” – the one that looks for solutions to people's problems. In it, together with our guests, we address topics that are related to design, but we normally do not associate with it. Thanks to our production manager Mojmír Procházka for the cooperation.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #27: Creating better cities

Klaudia Balagová

Humans love telling stories. Whether it's the last chapter of a novel, the climax of a movie, or the goodnight stories from our childhood, endings bring meaning and resolution. However, in the consumer world, the thrill of the new often overshadows the final chapter.

Imagine your printer runs out of ink. You buy a new cartridge, maybe even get an email with installation instructions.The printer resets happily and works again, but now you're left with the old cartridge, unsure what to do next. It’s not as simple as tossing a banana peel.

To address these challenges, an expert in consumer lifecycle endings Joe Macleod proposes “endineering”. It promotes the integration of emotional triggers and actionable steps into the offboarding process, in order to make the end of a consumer journey as engaging and meaningful as was the beginning.

“Businesses have become experts at beginning the consumer journey but often falter at its conclusion.”

With decades of experience in product and CX leadership, among others with the Ustwo design studio, Joe’s work brought him to a realization that the design industry has a serious problem of neglecting consumer journey endings. In 2018, he founded the andEnd studio, the world’s first customer-ending business, and wrote a book called Endineering: Designing consumption lifecycles that end as well as they begin, aiming to redefine the industry standards of how we intentionally conclude consumer journeys.

Having Joe in Slovakia for the final ByDesign conference, we seized the opportunity and booked a private half-day training. Together with a dozen of our clients and partners, we explored how to rethink and redesign consumer journey endings consciously to boost customers’ engagement and satisfaction, brand perception and ecological sustainability.


From circularity to linearity

In the pre-industrial era, the lifecycle of products was naturally circular. Waste was repurposed or reintegrated into the ecosystem. Industrialization, however, shifted this circularity into a linear process. We became adept at quickly buying new items and detached from the consequences of their disposal.

We’ve mastered the art of onboarding with the latest gadgets, services, and experiences. But what happens when their appeal fades? Offboarding – the process of ending our relationship with a product or a service – often falls short, leading to environmental and emotional repercussions. Every product or service promises a better future but the end of this journey is inconvenient and detached from the rest of the experience.


4 key challenges of modern offboarding


1. The emotional disconnect

In modern consumerism, the emotional bond between the product and the consumer often breaks apart during offboarding. Where once there was excitement and engagement, there's now confusion and detachment. This disconnect is mirrored in how we dispose of products—whether it’s the old phone that ends up in a drawer or the plastic packaging tossed without a second thought.


2. Loss of identity

The specific identity of the product or service we buy vanishes at the end. When it comes to shoes, you are not buying “just” shoes. It’s the specific brand you like, a specific type with a suede dark red stripe on the sides, ideally buying them in a retail store where the staff knows you. However, when you are throwing them out, they become just another piece of trash, stripped of their individuality.


3. Anonymity of actions

As consumers, we’re seldom aware of what happens to products once they leave our hands. The actions of disposal are anonymized, leading to a lack of accountability and engagement. This anonymity contributes to this cycle where we’re excellent at acquiring new things but lack responsibility when throwing away the old ones.


4. Complexity of neutralization

The process of neutralizing waste – whether it’s recycling or disposal – is often complex and unclear. For instance, while we know an apple core will rot naturally, what about the myriad materials in an electronic device? The complexity of these products makes their disposal challenging and confusing for the average consumer.


Designing for continuity

To create a more cohesive and responsible consumer experience, we need to reintegrate emotional and practical aspects into offboarding. Create a meaning and continuation in the end. Here’s how some companies address this challenge:

 * Creating emotional connections: Companies like IKEA are starting to design coherent end-to-end experiences like second-hand stores and take-back programs to make the end of the product lifecycle as thoughtful as the beginning.
 * Promoting empowerment through design: Fairphone empowers users to replace parts like batteries and cameras by themselves at home, fostering a sense of ownership and continuity. By making the end phase an integral and engaging part of the product life cycle, companies can help consumers feel more connected and responsible.
 * Leveraging technology and transparency: Doconomy offers a credit card that enables the cardholder to track and measure their carbon footprint, making consumers aware of the environmental costs of their purchases. This kind of transparency can drive more mindful consumption and disposal practices.

As environmental awareness increases, the way we end our relationships with products and services becomes more and more significant. Effective offboarding should be as straightforward and satisfying as onboarding, addressing customer needs and reducing frustration. Making the end of consumer journey equally engaging as its beginning not only supports mindful consumption but also fosters a sustainable and pleasant consumer journey, which directly increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.


Become an endineer yourself

Any expertise isn't built by reading one article. If you are hungry for more insights about endineering, definitely start with Joe Macleod's books Engineering or Ends for an in-depth and comprehensive outlook on this issue.

If you feel you'd appreciate assistance with ending an existing customer journey, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We will gladly share our knowledge and look for a solution to your problem as certified endineers.

Subscribe with your e-mail: www.lbstudio.sk/newsletter

Offboarding: How to end your customer’s journey meaningfully

Alžbeta Ivanovičová

Service design is a tool for aligning customer expectations with the company's offer. It's an action of collective creation of people-oriented services. In practice, it means designing corporate resources (people, assets and processes) to deliver value to employees, partners and customers.

The value provided must be tangible to customers. The book This is Service Design Thinking, now essential reading for anyone aiming to create valuable services, reinforces this perspective. The authors outline five principles of service design, emphasizing that the services created should benefit not just customers, but also employees and partners.

 * 1. User-centred – placing a human at the heart of the design process
 * 2. Co-creative – fostering extensive collaboration throughout the entire design process
 * 3. Sequencing – enabling examination of each aspect of customer service individually
 * 4. Evidencing – demonstrating that the service provided delivers its value
 * 5. Holistic – ensuring overall harmony and integration of experience across tangible and intangible services

I'll illustrate these principles with an example of an outdoor equipment retailer, although they are applicable to any industry and company.


1. User-centred

Consider the experience of all individuals involved in delivering the service. Understanding the customer is essential.

Initially, it's important to identify your customer base. Most businesses cater to multiple customer groups. However, when initiating service design, it's beneficial to temporarily narrow your focus. One effective tool for this purpose could be RFM analysis.

Internally, numerous stakeholders play a role in customer service. Understanding their perspectives, the challenges they encounter, and where they perceive opportunities for enhancement is vital.

For instance, consider the target audience of an outdoor store: adventurers, individuals actively participating in various outdoor pursuits. During customer research, our focus would be on comprehending their specific needs and issues throughout their customer journey.


2. Co-creative

Engage stakeholders with different expertise and roles in the design process.

The second principle of service design is close collaboration among employees from different teams, each bringing unique expertise. The most effective way is to create a multidisciplinary work team to enhance collective intelligence. Optimal outcomes are achieved when such teams embrace agile principles.

In the service design team of an outdoor store, participants may include individuals from marketing, production (procurement team), the e-shop or information system provider, and sales representatives from stores.


3. Sequencing

Facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the entire customer journey by breaking it down into manageable phases.

Another crucial principle involves mapping the customer journey, which entails understanding the customer's actions, decisions and interactions. It's essential to grasp the sequence of steps in the customer journey and identify opportunities to add value.

For instance, consider a customer journey where an adventurer realizes they need specific equipment for an upcoming trip. They browse and select a suitable product from the online store and then opt to collect it from a retail location. Their next step involves checking the store's opening hours.


4. Evidencing

Prove the value of the provided service and its components.

Evidencing can take various forms. One approach is visualizing services through physical artifacts such as customer journey maps or service blueprints. Another method involves researching customer needs with actual customers and testing prototypes in realistic conditions. My favorite form of evidence is when the value of the service is named/shown not only by the customers but also by the company itself.

A classic example of evidence is a neatly folded toilet paper in a hotel bathroom as a visible sign that the room was thoroughly cleaned after the previous guest.

Evidence in the context of the previously mentioned customer journey can be the number of product reservations and pickups on a given day, as well as a positive CSAT (customer satisfaction score). Thus, we can measure customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction and success/failure.


5. Holistic

Consider the entire ecosystem of the provided service with all interactions and channels.

The final principle ties all aspects of service design together. It's important to think not only about how individual interactions and channels work independently but especially how they function together. After all, the customer perceives the entire process as one continuous experience.

The key tool for mapping holistic services is the service blueprint or service map.

As discussed in the sequencing section, imagine a customer journey where an adventurer realizes they need specific equipment for an upcoming trip. In this scenario, the customer values the ability to reserve and quickly collect the item on the same day. Achieving such a seamless holistic service, however, demands well-refined internal processes and deliberate decisions (e.g., extending store opening hours).

Moreover, customer interactions with the outdoor retailer occur across at least two channels – the website and physical stores – with additional engagement from store employees. As part of the customer experience, interactions range from greeting customers upon entry to sending eco-friendly purchase receipts via email. Therefore, understanding the entire service ecosystem is essential.
When faced with challenges, adopting the customer's perspective and leveraging service design can be advantageous. For those interested in delving deeper into service design, feel free to reach out or explore excellent books by Marc Stickdorn, including the sequel This Is Service Design Doing.

5 principles of service design for easier service creation

Minimum Viable Podcast #26: Innovations in retail

Dominik Vaszily

When working in a bureaucratic or government setting, formal language and tone can differ greatly from how people normally communicate. Consequently, users experience problems and frustration gaining access to these essential, everyday services.

At LB*, we understand the challenges of good communication, especially in the digital world of expert environments. However, we can’t expect our clients to drop their customs and simply use easy-to-understand lingo overnight. As content in digital products is an integral part of any design, we act as the mediator between businesses and users. We spot gaps through which we can get clarity into digital bureaucracy. So what can be done to write better, intuitive UX copy?


1. Out-of-sync voice and tone

Maintaining a consistent voice across different channels and for diverse audiences can be challenging. Content may originate from policy makers, subject matter experts, designers, marketers, developers, or business analysts. A cohesive voice and tone are essential for upholding brand credibility. Any disparity between them risks confusing and eroding trust among the audience. But what if you're unsure about defining your brand's tone?

Solution: Brand voice workshop

Imagine that your brand is a person, then write down their personality traits: how they behave around others, their sense of humour (indeed if they are supposed to have one), and so on. You can even describe their dressing style, hobbies, personal preferences, anything that will help you characterise their personality and from it – how they talk.

For instance, Microsoft’s brand voice is defined as follows:

 * Warm and relaxed – We’re natural. Less formal, more grounded in real, everyday conversations. Occasionally, we’re fun. (We know when to celebrate.)
 * Crisp and clear – We’re to the point. We write for scanning first, reading second. We make it simple above all.
 * Ready to lend a hand – We show customers we’re on their side. We anticipate their real needs and offer great information at just the right time.

Once the voice and tone guideline is tested and ready for use, distribute it to all content creators representing the brand, including content designers, writers, editors, marketers, and designers, to gather feedback.

If you're unsure about how to conduct a workshop like this, don't hesitate to message us for assistance in discovering your brand's tone.


2. Inconsistent UX copy

We often observe inconsistencies in punctuation, acronyms, jargon, or technical terms across channels and products within the same brand. This can lead to confusion and misalignment. To address this, initiate a process to standardise language rules within your company.

Solution: Content style guide

How apologetic do we want to be in our writing? Should we use words “sorry” and “please” always or only sometimes? It’s all up to the consensus in your organisation – between you, your colleagues and stakeholders.

Start by documenting current practices within your company. If you identify inconsistencies, establish rules for how you believe they should be addressed. This initiative can proceed even without a defined brand voice (point 1), though having a predetermined tone can be beneficial. When uncertain, discuss proposed rules with stakeholders, ensuring the main decision-maker is clear.

Once you agree on rules, document them. A simple list of dos and don’ts will do. Besides grammar rules and date & time formats, define which components you would like to use for conveying specific messages. For instance, avoid expressing a neutral notification through a bold, red warning message full of exclamation marks. Having such guidelines makes UX writing easier, providing a reference when uncertain.

A guide like this is a living document, it’s alright to start small even with ten rules or fewer. You can always update it and add to it later.


3. Content not tailored to the target persona

Websites are not books and people don't read every word. Websites require content that users can quickly skim for relevant information. The general rule is to follow the context and the impact of the action the user takes. Governmental or bureaucratic environments regularly give legal texts more space based on their impact. Despite the fact that short texts are pleasing to read, in some situations the user needs more in-depth confirmation and reliable information.

Solution: Usability testing

After a long week of onsite design sprint in The Hague with the European Patent Office, we conducted testing sessions to observe how legal professionals interacted with our new solution. To enhance a specific confirmation screen's accuracy in legal procedure, we rewrote a neutral blunt message into a more specific statement providing clearer actions. The confirmation screen read: “We’ve received your submission. Please wait until we reply to you back as soon as possible.”

During testing, we discovered that patent lawyers, in-house counsels, and paralegals meticulously scrutinise details. In five sessions, all our respondents paused at the confirmation screen – expecting an immediate reply. The text read ‘we would reply as soon as possible’, however, in reality it would take weeks.

This particular example demonstrates the importance of precision in writing for your target audience. Not everyone skims pages. Sometimes they are expert users (lawyers, scientists, medics…) and they might behave differently than other groups.

Needless to say, usability tests during the design process can save a lot of uncertainty and validate most hypotheses – including copy testing.


Clarity can exist (even in bureaucracy)

Sometimes, entrenched norms are hard to shift because stakeholders struggle to envision alternative approaches. However, clear language forms a cornerstone of accessible products and services. So if you sense your users and customers will benefit from it, don’t hesitate to start changing things.

Start by enhancing communication clarity with colleagues through enforced collaboration and involving diverse roles in the product design process. Remain mindful of the target persona in every use case and utilise user testing heavily. And don’t forget to document rules and stove for organisational alignment. If I’m ever to be helpful, connect with me.

UX writing: How to make digital bureaucracy understandable

In my article 10 Commandments of Product Discovery, I wrote about the foundation of creating good products and services being a creative process called Product Discovery. This process aims to deliver a functional product to users in the shortest time possible, with the greatest certainty that the product team will achieve the originally intended goal and that the solution will be technically feasible.

I mentioned Discovery Backlog, which is a conceptual repository of ideas, opportunities, and issues ready for the product team to validate – meaning to assess which ones are relevant and should be included in the product roadmap. So, how does one go about building such a repository of ideas?


How to fill Discovery Backlog

Idea generation techniques are divided into quantitative and qualitative based on the type of data they rely on, and into generative and evaluative. Generative techniques help us find new ideas, while evaluative techniques help us assess the current situation.

Let's illustrate this with an example. I have an ecommerce store with the goal of increasing the shopping cart conversion by 1 %. I choose techniques from the four quadrants based on what I want to discover. The best results come from combining techniques from all four quadrants. Techniques from each quadrant can provide the following types of information:

Quantitative – Generative techniques:

 * I can ask all customers who place an order for feedback and thus obtain the CES (Customer Effort Score) of the purchasing process, that is, how difficult it was for them to complete the task. For example, I will ask: "How difficult was it for you to place the order?"
 * How to do it: Survey integrated on the thank you page after the order

Qualitative – Generative techniques:

 * As a customer leaves during any step of the purchasing process, I ask them through the Hotjar tool what they would improve.
 * How to do it: Hotjar survey triggered when a customer leaves the page

Quantitative – Evaluative techniques:

 * For the customers who completed an order and those who did not, I compare the conversion rates of individual steps in the purchasing process. I identify where most customers drop or where the greatest potential to increase shopping cart conversion is hidden.
 * How to do it: Data analysis based on data from Google Analytics

Qualitative – Evaluative techniques:

 * I conduct a usability test of the purchasing process.
 * How to do it: Usability testing of the website


Techniques for seeking ideas


Surveys

A survey is a quantitative technique primarily categorized as generative, but it can also be used to evaluate the current state. The advantage of a survey is that it allows you to gather a larger amount of data in a relatively short time.


Desk research

During desk research, you delve into your own knowledge base or public sources (internet, libraries, archives…). It provides you with both quantitative and qualitative data. Beware, don’t use desk research as a substitution for research with your own customers.

Get ideas from relevant and trusted sources only. Also, consider their timeliness as customer behavior can change over time. Interesting sources of information include archives in the field of social and behavioral sciences or open databases of scientific articles from social science journals published in countries of Eastern Europe.


Individual or group interviews

There is nothing more important than interviews with real customers. These can be conducted either individually (problem interviews) or in groups (focus groups). Before starting the actual qualitative interview, always make sure that you are talking to your real target customers through screening questions.

In interviews, try to capture stories. Don't hesitate to ask "Why?" to uncover respondents' real needs. In group interviews, use an experienced facilitator who can address the risks of groupthink and dominant participants. Our User Interview Cheatsheet will help you ask the right questions the right way.


Competitive analysis

Competitive analysis is a qualitative generative technique that helps you understand how other organizations solve a particular problem. It also helps you discover what can be done better, to gain a competitive advantage.


Data analysis

Analytical work with data is a quantitative evaluative technique. The conclusion of each data analysis should be the interpretation of the outputs, ideally with recommendations. The biggest challenge of data analysis is that either companies don't have such data or it's challenging for the product team to obtain it. However, it can provide very useful insights and even show that some ideas are not worth pursuing because there is no real customer problem or no opportunity arises from them.

If you don't have user and customer behavior data, map out two to three most important customer journeys, identify the key metrics, and implement your findings. The conclusion of each data analysis should include interpreting the outputs with any recommendations. Google Analytics can be a good starting point for websites and applications. To understand more advanced product analytics, I recommend reading the Lean Analytics book.


Usability testing

Usability tests are an evaluative qualitative method where you observe customers using the product. It evaluates the user's ability to complete the assigned task or the degree of difficulty and frustration experienced while doing so. In summative testing, you only need to observe six users to identify 80 % of serious usability flaws.


From collecting to exploring ideas

By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the product team gathers a lot of ideas that can be validated during Product Discovery. Simply describe them briefly and add them to the Discovery Backlog. At Lighting Beetle*, we use the Idea Validation canvas. In the industry, you might also encounter terms like Business Problem Statement or Opportunity Canvas.

Get inspired!

All Stories

Podcasts

Events

Tools

Newsletter

Minimum Viable Podcast #28: Business design

The new reality shapes how consumers perceive brands. How to stay relevant?

Experience identities: How to react to the new consumer expectations

Minimum Viable Podcast #27: Creating better cities

Offboarding: How to end your customer’s journey meaningfully

5 principles of service design for easier service creation

Minimum Viable Podcast #26: Innovations in retail

UX writing: How to make digital bureaucracy understandable

Discovery Backlog: How to seek opportunities for better customer experience

Minimum Viable Podcast #24: From designer to investor

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

Your journey
starts here

Get inspired!

All Stories

Podcasts

Events

Tools

Newsletter

Minimum Viable Podcast #28: Business design

The new reality shapes how consumers perceive brands. How to stay relevant?

Experience identities: How to react to the new consumer expectations

Minimum Viable Podcast #27: Creating better cities

Offboarding: How to end your customer’s journey meaningfully

5 principles of service design for easier service creation

Minimum Viable Podcast #26: Innovations in retail

UX writing: How to make digital bureaucracy understandable

Discovery Backlog: How to seek opportunities for better customer experience

Minimum Viable Podcast #24: From designer to investor

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

Your journey starts here

Your journey
starts here