1 Align service design with your vision and goals

The first step to integrate service design into your organization's strategy is to align it with your vision and goals. What are you trying to achieve with your service? Who are your target customers and what are their needs and pain points? How do you measure your success and impact? These questions can help you define the scope, purpose, and direction of your service design projects, and ensure that they align with your overall strategy.

2 Involve stakeholders from different departments and levels

The second step to integrate service design into your organization's strategy is to involve stakeholders from different departments and levels. Service design is not only about the front-end interaction with customers, but also about the back-end processes, systems, and resources that support it. Therefore, you need to engage and collaborate with people from various functions and roles, such as marketing, sales, operations, IT, finance, HR, and management. This can help you gain insights, feedback, and buy-in from different perspectives, and create solutions that are feasible, viable, and desirable.

3 Adopt a user-centric and iterative approach

The third step to integrate service design into your organization's strategy is to adopt a user-centric and iterative approach. Service design is based on empathy and experimentation. You need to research and understand your users, their needs, expectations, and emotions, and create personas and journey maps that represent them. You also need to prototype and test your solutions with real users, and iterate based on their feedback and behavior. This can help you create services that are user-friendly, relevant, and valuable.

4 Use tools and methods that suit your context and objectives

The fourth step to integrate service design into your organization's strategy is to use tools and methods that suit your context and objectives. Service design is not a one-size-fits-all approach, but a flexible and adaptable one. You can choose from a variety of tools and methods, such as service blueprints, service scenarios, service models, service concepts, service prototypes, and service evaluations. You can also combine them with other approaches, such as lean, agile, or design thinking. The key is to use the tools and methods that help you achieve your goals and fit your constraints.

5 Communicate and share your service design outcomes and impacts

The fifth step to integrate service design into your organization's strategy is to communicate and share your service design outcomes and impacts. Service design is not only about creating services, but also about communicating and demonstrating their value and benefits. You need to document and showcase your service design process, results, and learnings, and share them with your stakeholders, customers, and partners. You also need to measure and report your service design impacts, such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and advocacy, as well as cost savings, revenue growth, and risk reduction. This can help you build trust, credibility, and support for your service design initiatives, and foster a culture of service design in your organization.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?