Week 3: Service Design

The third session began with a short follow-on group exercise to the previous week’s session. Students gathered in their groups and were told what resources they would have available to run the pop-up shop. The groups were given ten minutes to finalize their objectives for their pop-up shop time slot. Groups submitted hard copies of their plans and objectives to the course instructors. It is against these objectives that the groups will critically assess their performance following the pop-up shop activity.

Students remained in groups for the lecture, which focused on the differences between delivering services and products. It detailed the challenges of delivering services and examined different service layouts. The session explained blueprinting of services and how it could be used as a tool when setting out service processes. Students were given an example coffee shop service blueprint to consider, including the line of interaction, line of visibility, line of internal interaction, and fail points. 

Students were then asked to design a basic service blueprint for running their pop-up shops. They were asked to identify tangible indicators of quality, opportunities for standardization, and potential service fail points. After identifying these elements, they then were asked to think of any training necessary to ensure a consistent standard of service for pop-up shop customers. The students spent the remaining time in the session preparing the logistics for running their pop-up shops. 

The overall aims of the session were for the students to understand the differences between providing products and services, to identify the key elements and issues involved in service design, and to become familiar with different service layouts. The aim of the group activities was to apply the service blueprinting technique to the running of their pop-up shops and to prepare students to run their shops the following week. 

The most challenging part of the group activity was in the application of different service layouts to the actual pop-up shop plans. Extra explanation was needed to help students understand the delineations between the different activities needed to encourage the public to come into the shop, to engage the customers once they had entered the shop, and to help prepare their resources for distribution. This week, students found it easier to set objectives after they knew what resources would be available to them to aid in their goal to promote the University of Worcester’s activities and opportunities to the public.

Click here for more information about the project.

Click here to view the lecture slides.