What is relational service design?

Photo by Nick Hynan.

Recently I’ve found myself talking and writing about what I do as ‘relational service design’. If I’m honest, I think the last thing our industry needs is more jargon. However this isn’t a new phrase, and it isn’t one I’ve invented. Dennis Vergne and Joseph Badman are in fact writing a book on the subject and while I admire their take, and the work of many people they cite, I think I may have interpreted the term slightly differently.

We can talk about relational and transactional services in a binary way but the fact is, most services involve people - even the transactional ones. Take a service I used recently, the ‘Renew your driving license’ service. This is a well designed Gov.uk service that involves only digital interactions. However, I’m assuming a human is needed to review the applications, print the cards and package them up to post out. If this is all done by robots now I wouldn’t be that surprised (it did arrive quickly), I guess I’m making some assumptions here to make a point. And that is, that very few services operate without any human involvement at all and even when they do - the people who use them are humans. Ultimately, people are integral to the design and delivery of most services.

While I fully agree with what Dennis and Joseph talk about with regard to moving away from dealing with complex needs in a transactional manner, I especially respect the work of Hillary Cottam in this space, I feel like I have adopted the term with a slightly different slant and that’s ok. I’m not to argue the toss on one versus another. I just wanted to share my perspective on what I mean when I use the term.

When I talk about ‘relational service design’ I’m simply sayings that I’m interested more in the human side of designing services than the digital side. That’s because, for me, it’s the most interesting, complex and challenging part of service design. It’s also the part that brings me the most joy. That plays out in a few ways for me.

Designing services with the people who use and deliver them

I think one of the reasons I adopted this term was because I was very aware of not mis-using the term ‘co-design’. I really respect the work of KA McKercher in this space and by following their work and teachings I recognise the level of time, expertise and commitment true co-design takes.

Most of the work I do involves working with the people who use and deliver services to design them, however it’s not all true co-design. It might be collaboration or engagement, sometimes closer to consultation. While I would love to co-design every service I work on, we all know it very much depends on the context and budget a lot of the time. By calling what I do ‘relational service design’ it talks to the fact that I look to involve humans as deeply as I’m able to.

Respecting lived experience

While I may not always be able to practice true co-design, taking a relational approach means respecting lived experience and taking appropriate measures to ensure that the work I do is not extractive. This means taking a trauma informed approach if working with those who have experienced trauma, designing approaches to be inclusive and accessible, working to reduce power dynamics and ensuring people feel heard and empowered through their involvement - ultimately building relationships and trust.

Valuing service delivery expertise

I pay equal attention to how I work with service delivery staff. I think it’s very easy for service designers to swoop into service environments as ‘an outsider’ behaving like their unbiased perspective is a super power to rule them all. While this perspective is valuable, it doesn’t override decades of front line delivery expertise. What it provides is the opportunity for collaboration if the time is taken to build the trust required for this partnership to be effective.

Now I’ll be the first to say I’ve got this wrong a few times. But I’ve learned from these experiences and I now know how important prioritising building relationships is in this space.

Often service delivery staff know how their service could be improved, they simply don’t have the time, headspace or seniority to lobby for these changes. While service designers can bring creative methods and approaches to solving problems, the types of services I work on you can usually count on one hand how many ways there are to solve that problem - it’s usually a matter of providing the time and space for discussion and alignment and the clout to lobby for the resources required for implementation.

Balancing the needs of staff and users

I think a really key part of being a service designer is balancing the needs of staff and users - the people involved in services. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of designing a seemless experience for users that results in an impossible service delivery situation behind the scenes. It’s also easy to be drawn into organisational politics and business needs and find yourself designing a service that drives efficiency or increases the bottom line. Ultimately the job of a service designer is to get the balance right and I think that applies across the spectrum of more transactional digital services right through to highly specialised, largely people delivered, services.

Getting the balance between digital and human involvement

Getting the balance right between digital and human involvement in a service is crucial, especially with the rapid advancement of AI. Budgets in the public and charity sector are dwindling and demand is rising. While it might be tempting to ‘digitally transform’ to cut costs and drive efficiencies, there is a time and a place for the human touch. The key here, for me, is getting the balance right and using technology to maximise the skills of the people who deliver services to ensure those people hours are well spent. For example, using technology to automate time the time consuming admin that dominates the days of a highly skilled social care practitioner, or designing digital products that can support a front line workers ability to deliver services in a more relational, and less transactional way.

That’s my interpretation of the term. Ultimately, working with people is one of the great joys of my job and I hope, by taking a relational approach to designing services I am putting people first and designing services that make the lives of both users and staff a little easier/lighter/more joyful.

If this sounds like the type of service design your organisation could benefit from, I’d love to hear from you. I offer consultancy and advisory support and primarily work within the charity, local Government and healthcare sectors. You can find examples of my recent work in the case studies section.