{"id":8094,"date":"2016-01-18T08:21:19","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T08:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/?p=8094"},"modified":"2016-01-18T08:21:19","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T08:21:19","slug":"the-only-person-that-everyone-has-in-common-is-the-customer-interview-with-ben-reason-of-livework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/2016\/01\/the-only-person-that-everyone-has-in-common-is-the-customer-interview-with-ben-reason-of-livework\/","title":{"rendered":"The only person that everyone has in common is the customer &#8211; Interview with Ben Reason of Livework"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2287\/5803926253_32e2e89d5c_d.jpg\" alt=\"Workshop\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p><script src='https:\/\/play.pod.co\/punk-cx\/benreasonlivework130116.js'><\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Today\u2019s interview is with Ben Reason, founding partner of Livework, a leading service design firm. They help organisations with customer related challenges and how they affect the business and the organisation. Ben along with Lavrans L\u00f8vlie and Melvin Brand Flu, two other Livework partners, has recently published a new book called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Service-Design-Business-Optimizing-Experience\/dp\/1118988922\/\"><span class=\"s2\">Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience<\/span><\/a>. Ben joins me today to talk about the book, what they have learnt, service design and how firms can use it to improve their customer experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This interview follows on from my recent interview \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/why-should-anyone-work-here-interview-with-gareth-jones\/\"><span class=\"s3\">Why Should Anyone Work Here? \u2013 Interview with Gareth Jones<\/span><\/a> \u2013 and is number 164 in the series of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/category\/interviews\/\"><span class=\"s3\">interviews<\/span><\/a> with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Highlights of my interview with Ben:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Livework are a bit of a hybrid firm in that they get involved with designing and making things for clients but they also get involved with more strategic consulting opportunities as well as working with clients on implementation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">I have interviewed one of Ben\u2019s fellow partners, Melvin Brand Flu before on this podcast in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/do-you-know-if-you-are-irritating-your-customers-interview-with-melvin-brand-flu-of-livework\/\"><span class=\"s3\">Do you know if you are irritating your customers?<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Ben along with Lavrans L\u00f8vlie and Melvin Brand Flu, two other Livework partners recently published a book called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Service-Design-Business-Optimizing-Experience\/dp\/1118988922\/\"><span class=\"s5\">Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">The idea for the book came about as they were doing a lot of interesting work about five years ago but not enough things were going forward.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">As a result, they realised that there was probably a gap in what they were doing in understanding how their design work would translate into culture or operational change.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Therefore, they invited Melvin, who they had been working with as a client, to join them as a business partner to help them build the organisational change element and improve the impact of their work.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">The book is the story of Livework\u2019s journey to date, how firms can incorporate service design into their organisations and how they can make it more business relevant and usable.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">In fact, the book is full of accumulated learning, case studies, tools, experience but is also a statement of how Livework approaches customer challenges for clients.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">The book is structured around 12 challenges that they have seen a number of their clients have and each is accompanied by a case study to illustrate the challenge and how it can be addressed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">The challenges are:<\/span>\n<ul class=\"ul2\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Customer challenges<\/span>\n<ul class=\"ul3\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 1: Get the basics right and achieve customer experience excellence<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 2 : Prevent customer irritations and failures<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 3 : Engage customers effectively<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 4 : High impact customer innovations<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Business challenges<\/span>\n<ul class=\"ul3\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 5 : Innovate new business concepts<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 6 : Becoming a more digital business<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 7 : Achieve higher customer performance<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 8 : Successful launch and adoption of a new product or service<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Organisational challenges<\/span>\n<ul class=\"ul3\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 9 : Foster internal alignment and collaboration<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 10 : Deliver better staff engagement and participation<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 11 : Build a customer centric organisation<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Challenge 12 : Building a more agile organisation<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Many firms talk about being collaborative but few are and most find it difficult. A service design approach offers a great set of tools that foster a collaborative approach.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">The only person that everyone has in common is the customer.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">We sometimes think that service design is an activity that everyone does and it\u2019s useful to have some designers in the mix.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">One of the case studies in the book features Norwegian insurer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gjensidige.no\/group\/english\"><span class=\"s3\">Gjensidige<\/span><\/a>, which challenged Livework to help them understand and deliver what \u2018more simple insurance\u2019 would look like.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Ben tells another story about how they have helped re-engineer a travel insurance claim process where they identified that one of the main annoyances for customers when making a claim was that they were asked for their policy number.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Given that the customer is probably in a state of great stress if they are making a claim, they found out that this was having a negative impact on the customer\u2019s experience. To improve that, they suggested that the agents should first ask how the customer was and what had happened. This helped put the \u2018call\u2019 on a much better footing and lead to a much better and smoother customer experience.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">For anyone wanting to start on a service design journey and to start to use it to improve their customer experience, Ben advocates starting by figuring out how you can bring the customer into the organisation in tangible ways.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">He suggests that a good first step is to go and talk to customers and then video what they have to say.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">He advocates that this is better done informally through observation, immersion and going out into the field rather than using more formal research methods as it will give people from the organisation a more \u2018visceral\u2019 feel of what is happening in the customner\u2019s experience.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Using a service design approach, because it is very visual and involves making prototypes, can also help business make decisions surrounding new initiatives and business models.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Ben illustrates this by telling a story about how they made a prototype of a new premium service initiative for Orange. They put the prototype in front of the client in a meeting and the client promptly picked it up, ran off with it and implemented it as they could instantly see that that was what they were trying to achieve.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">To help people make decisions about new initiatives or ideas make it real.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Some service design books are quite weighty and dense tomes but this book is very practical, case study and tool rich. You can check out more background to the book <a href=\"http:\/\/liveworkstudio.com\/sdforb\/\"><span class=\"s3\">here<\/span><\/a> and pick up a copy here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Service-Design-Business-Optimizing-Experience\/dp\/1118988922\/\"><span class=\"s5\">Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>About Ben<\/b> (adapted from <a href=\"http:\/\/liveworkstudio.com\/team\/ben-reason\/\"><span class=\"s2\">his Livework bio<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Ben is a founding partner of Livework having set-up the company in 2001. He now leads the London studio on service design and innovation projects for both UK and international clients.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In his time at Livework he has worked with multinational companies and exciting start-ups with a focus on service thinking and developing their service design methods and approach. His background is with internet and digital projects having previously worked for a number of large digital agencies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Having experience of an extremely wide range of clients in very differing sectors with different challenges he has developed an understanding of what works on innovation, design and strategy projects. He knows how simple customer insight can help organisations rethink what they do and focus on what matters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Livework\u2019s working style is collaborative and team based, internally and with clients. He helps their team understand how they can work in this way on projects for the best results. He is able to see the big picture and zoom into specific details to connect experience to strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">They started Livework because they wanted to have a positive impact on the way people live and work. He is very proud that this ethos of optimism and practical application characterises the attitude of the whole team making Livework days exciting and stimulating.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cMy daughter figured out what I do: &#8216;You find things that don&#8217;t work and design ways to make them better'&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s6\">You can find out more about the book <a href=\"http:\/\/liveworkstudio.com\/sdforb\/\"><span class=\"s3\">here<\/span><\/a> and pick up a copy here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Service-Design-Business-Optimizing-Experience\/dp\/1118988922\/\"><span class=\"s3\">Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Finally, you can connect with Ben on LinkedIn <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.linkedin.com\/in\/breasy\">here<\/a> and say Hi to him and the folks at Livework or Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/breasy\"><span class=\"s3\">@breasy<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Liveworkstudio\"><span class=\"s3\">@Liveworkstudio<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/44112235@N04\/5803926253\/\">boellstiftung<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/compfight.com\">Compfight<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/\">cc<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s interview is with Ben Reason, founding partner of Livework, a leading service design firm. They help organisations with customer related challenges and how they affect<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,6,27,4,297,9],"tags":[2266,155,174,175,156,159,2055,1746,2265],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}