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Think about the last time you had a genuinely great experience with a company. Maybe it was a hotel stay, a visit to a hospital, a call with a customer service representative, or even something as simple as ordering a coffee. Now think about what made it great. Chances are, it was not just the core product. The coffee may have been good, but what you remember is how the barista remembered your name, how the ordering process felt effortless, how the space made you feel welcome.
**Author:** Marc Stickdorn
**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes
**What You'll Learn:**
- Why customer experience now matters more than the product or service itself - How service design provides a practical framework for creating better experiences - The core tools and methods used by service designers worldwide - How to prototype, test, and implement service improvements - How to embed customer-centric thinking throughout your organization
**Who This Book Is For:**
This book is for anyone who wants to create better services. Whether you work in a large corporation, a small business, a nonprofit, or a government agency, the principles and methods in this book will help you see your organization through your customers' eyes and take practical steps to improve what they experience. No design background is required. The tools are accessible, visual, and built for collaboration.
Think about the last time you had a genuinely great experience with a company. Maybe it was a hotel stay, a visit to a hospital, a call with a customer service representative, or even something as simple as ordering a coffee. Now think about what made it great. Chances are, it was not just the core product. The coffee may have been good, but what you remember is how the barista remembered your name, how the ordering process felt effortless, how the space made you feel welcome. Now think about a terrible experience. Perhaps the product was fine, but the website was confusing, the staff seemed indifferent, the wait was unreasonable, and you had to repeat your information three times to three different people. The core offering was not the problem. The layers of experience around it were. This is the central insight that drives the field of service design. As customers, we are less influenced by the core offering than by the layers of experience around it. The product matters, but the journey matters more. For decades, organizations have been structured to optimize internal efficiency. Departments are divided into silos: marketing handles messaging, operations handles logistics, IT handles technology, customer service handles complaints. Each department optimizes for its own metrics. Each department sees only a slice of the customer's journey. The result is often a fragmented, frustrating experience for the person who matters most: the customer. Consider a typical experience with a telecommunications company. You see an advertisement promising fast internet installation. You call to sign up and wait on hold for twenty minutes. The sales representative offers you a package that does not quite match the advertisement. A technician arrives during a four-hour window, installs the service, and leaves. A week later, you receive a bill that is higher than expected. You call customer service, explain your situation, and are transferred…
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Get the complete summary in the appCustomers value the experience around a product as much as the product itself.
Service design is a holistic approach that combines mindset, process, and tools.
Start with research. Understand what customers actually do, not just what they say.
Use personas and journey maps to make research findings tangible and actionable.
Prototype everything. Test early and often. Fail cheaply and learn quickly.
Address both the frontstage and the backstage. The invisible parts matter as much as the visible parts.
"This Is Service Design Doing" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around design, business, reference, especially themes like customers value the experience around a product as much as the product itself; service design is a holistic approach that combines mindset, process, and tools. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with as customers, Marc Stickdorn wrote “This Is Service Design Doing” to package those ideas for a fast, focused read. In “This Is Service Design Doing”, Marc Stickdorn focuses on as customers. Through “This Is Service Design Doing”, Marc Stickdorn distills the core ideas on design into lessons readers can absorb in a single short sitting. Readers turn to this work when they want Marc Stickdorn's perspective on the subject without working through the entire original vo…
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