Video Shorts – Discontinued Products Section
A cool feature I came across on a website, that is highly recommended especially for product companies that have a large and evolving portfolio.
#servicedesign #userexperience #b2c #b2b #shorts
Lose some…Win 'em all.!
A cool feature I came across on a website, that is highly recommended especially for product companies that have a large and evolving portfolio.
#servicedesign #userexperience #b2c #b2b #shorts
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Look forward to your views. And if you liked this one, consider following/subscribing to my blog (top right of the page). You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
Design Thinking: What a Patient Wants
Design Thinking is a relatively new concept in many countries including India. It is, however, already some decades old now. And having been practicing it for a few years now, I often get asked what it is about. And for examples of its applications.
For starters, design thinking is a mindset. One that uses empathy and a set of tools to innovate and pursue complex opportunities or solve complex problems. It aims at better understanding the needs of the end-user, or identifying the root cause of a problem, before beginning to innovate. And that always requires empathy, without which, we often settle for one of the first few logical seeming solutions that come to mind.
Like many management and quality initiatives of yester-years, design thinking too is currently receiving its share of a superficial hype. With time however, I believe the hype will pass; leaving people with a better understanding and more sincere appreciation for the power of design thinking.
Ordinarily, in a traditional problem-solving process, more constraints would almost lead to a dead-end or teams giving up. Such complex projects are where design thinking works best.
“Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.” –Charles Eames
About a year ago, I had undertaken a design thinking exercise for the paediatric oncology department of one of Asia’s leading cancer hospitals. Sharing an overview of the same here, in case some of you are wondering what design thinking is all about. For me, design thinking is simply a humble means to achieve a goal.
Client: Paediatric Oncology Ward of one of Asia’s leading cancer hospitals
Objective: Improving the overall paediatric patient experience
Introduction:
I was at the hospital with two of my associates, to meet the expert medical oncologist regarding a project the associates and I were collaborating on. During interactions, the doctor expressed that patient feedback regarding the treatment has been positive. He and his colleagues, however, were always keen on knowing how they could further improve the patient experience. And given that the hospital offered free/heavily subsidized treatment to the poor, this was a humbling gesture. I offered to work on it.
The task involved interacting with patient families, doctors, administrative and support staff. It was necessary to get a good understanding of each stakeholder group and interactions between groups, in this bustling ecosystem.
Field Work:
Over the next 2 months, I spent several hours a day or entire days, speaking with paediatric patient families. I broad-based the sample to include new admissions, patients currently undergoing treatment, and those there for checkups 1-3 years after successful treatments. The wonderful administrative staff helped identify patients in different segments, as well as introduce me to some of them, to make for a more comfortable interaction.
Doctors had already provided considerable information from their perspective. I then spoke with administrative and support staff across the hospital. From admissions, to inquiry and even 3rd party social service representatives.
Initial Observations & Findings:
Based on information gleaned, and using Design Thinking and other tools*, here were some findings:
Initial Verdict from Patients/ Patient families:
The overall feedback regarding the existing patient experience at the hospital was stellar. This included quality of process, staff, doctors, etc. However, I soon realized that this view was biased. Biased by gratitude for a hospital that covers all or a large part of their medical expenses.
I was back to the beginning. How do you improve patient experience when their treatment is paid for?
Back to trying to identify the opportunity:
I split the problem areas into three:
Again, using Design Thinking tools, I came up with initially unidentified problem areas. I also stumbled upon a promising solution for improving the patient experience.
Cutting to the chase:
My recommendations were as follows:
Please note that coloured stripes and naming of rooms isn’t part of design thinking. What is, is identifying underlying issues such as staff stress and its causative factors. So is identifying possible areas to delight a customer in an otherwise perfect seeming environment.
“The goal of a designer is to listen, observe, understand, sympathize, empathize, synthesize, and glean insights that enable him or her to ‘make the invisible visible.’ –Hillman Curtis
Key learnings from this assignment:
Anyone can learn and practice design thinking. It does, however, need a lot of Empathy and Involvement from you. It also requires an unwavering commitment towards customers, employees and innovation. And it is especially for those who are comfortable grappling with lots of ambiguity, and can stay true to the larger objective.
Got questions on design thinking, or how it might help your company innovate and grow? Comment below, or get in touch with me via LinkedIn or Twitter (links below).
“Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.” –M.C. Escher
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* tools including (but not limited to) observation, interviewing techniques, design briefs, contra-logic, changing perspectives, forced connections, etc.
Image: source
Recruiting in The Future
For the longest time, there were distinct industries, and reasonably well defined job roles. And of course, an education system that did a brilliant batch-processing job of creating products people, that fit those roles.
However, as people grew smarter, some of them worked hard to revamp the education system. They have been making it more flexible to innate individual talent and skill. However, how has the HR community been evolving to this change? Because at least from the outside, it looks like an increasingly difficult task to match requirements iwth candidates.
In the past, with no disrespect to people of the times, it was almost like fitting a circle or square into its slot. Relatively similar and standard positions across the industry. And now, average job descriptions read more like a position for a superhuman, or for a mother. With experience ranges sought, being as wide as a decade or more. And with the broad skillsets demanded, one would think they’re trying to replace 10 people with one.
But in coming times, while requirements themselves might not be as simple as ‘PHP Developer with 3 years experience’, neither will candidate profiles. With people thankfully opening up to a lot more varied learning experiences in the last decade, resumes are becoming increasingly interesting.
I’ll end this with a question for HR professionals. How is the selection process and mapping evolving to keep pace with candidate experiences?
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We Deliver.!
Several years back, I used to work in the ever so famous BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Industry in one of India’s IT hotbeds, Bangalore. My job involved providing technical assistance to North American customers of our pretty impressive all-in-one printer range.
There was a time I wondered if the monotony could leave me permanently depressed. Or worse, brain-damaged. But right then, I received an email from my boss. He was forwarding an email from a customer I had assisted a few days before. The customer had needed print cartridges urgently. For some reason unknown to most of us, it took about 3-4 days after placing an order, for the cartridges to actually reach the customer. (And in case you wondered, ‘no, the cartridges weren’t shipped from India).
While this was a free delivery, there was a 1-day shipping for some charge. I was aware that in some special cases, I could request a senior colleague to waive off the charges on the 1-day fee, but it was not a luxury I’d like to take for granted. So I promised the customer a 3-4 day delivery period and that I would try to have the cartridges delivered earlier if possible.
Coming back to the email the customer had sent, it read something on the lines of – I would like to thank XYZ for the quick shipping of my print cartridges. He said it would take 3-4 days, but when it arrived the next day, I was thrilled. He has done what we in the customer service industry call ‘under-promising and over-delivering’, the surest way to win a customer… and a little more to that effect.
That was my first lesson in customer service; ok maybe not the first, but certainly the one with the most impact. It has been a while since that corporate ‘high’, and since those technical support days, but that feedback has stayed on with me. While I’m no ‘pro’ at customer service, I do understand its ever-increasing importance in any business, and I constantly try to figure ways of improving the customer’s experience.
And I have found many an Indian BPO employee, or for that matter, even your average sales or service staff at any retail outlet or business centre, bubbling with enthusiasm to cater to the customer’s every demand. And while this is a great thing for customers, there are 2 key ingredients missing in many cases. Those being Planning and Communicating. A simple equation of their effect on customer experience would look something like:
Customer Experience = Communicating (Planning+Commitment+Delivering on Commitment)
Most of us are great at committing, but tend to fall a little short when it is time to deliver on the commitment. And this causes unnecessary customer dissatisfaction.
In our endeavor to give the customer that little bit ‘extra’, we often miscalculate delivery or commitment deadlines. And this ends up causing the exact opposite of the effect we had planned for.
If we were to take into account all possible influencing factors (Planning) and build it into a commitment or delivery deadline, and perhaps even throw in a little buffer if we have a gut feel about possible delay, we would be giving the customer a more realistic picture. And of course, nothing beats plain old ‘Communication’. It is extremely important that we communicate with the customer. Even a call or message updating them the moment you see a deadline getting stretched, does wonders. You cannot imagine how much customers appreciate that phone call informing them of a delay. It beats them arriving at your doorstep on D-day only to be asked to come the following week.
To my customer.
I may not have the answer, but I’ll find it.
I may not have the time, but I’ll make it.
-Unknown
Then of course, nothing beats delivering on a commitment or deadline.!
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Look forward to your views. And if you liked this one, consider following/subscribing to my blog (top right of the page). You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and on Twitter.