Using Service Design to tackle omni-channel transformation

Absa Service Design (2017 - 2018)

The context:

Absa bank was embarking on a large-scale customer-centered transformation and while there were plenty of digital channels in place, the overarching feedback was that they didn’t speak to each other.

While on the new Service Design team at Absa, I was involved in various CX/SD projects. It was the first time I’d been directly involved in CX and Service Design.

All main journeys from “Onboarding”, “Payments”, “Ordering a new card” to “Upgrading”, “Downgrading” and “Leaving the bank” were in need of a redesign, with omnichannel synergy at the heart of it.

The process:

Because it’s a very large, complex challenge we broke it into more manageable chunks: Upgrades was the first priority. There was some research that despite being in the correct earning bracket, many customers were not on the higher account package. This meant the bank was losing money, but also that customers were losing benefits that they were entitled to.

We set out to find out why people weren’t upgrading while also investigating the current process. As a team, we mapped out the As-Is journey and, with the help of user research insights, we plotted the To-Be journeys across all channels as well as the Service Blueprints required.

It was a mammoth effort and took our full team of varied disciplined designers to pull off.

It’s one thing to map out journeys, but to figure out the actions required to execute and bring the journey to life is quite another thing. We needed to run workshops with representatives from all over the bank, and then co-ordinate a huge project to get the changes in place.

These changes happened slowly and steadily, but I wasn’t able to see them finalised before leaving (to move to Ireland).

I thoroughly enjoyed this project and learned so much about Service Design, CX and omni-channel initiatives.

My Contribution

As the Senior UX Designer on the project, my primary focus was on the user research and mapping the flows. We were an experimental team, however, and all had to learn about CX and SD artifacts including Service Blueprints.

I was responsible for all research strategy, coordination, and analysis. I represented the user insights to the executives at the bank. In one particular off-shoot, I led research for Branch Archetypes as it became important to understanding our customers.

I also mentored the junior designers in the team.