The Big Red Book

Whilst working in Portugal the other week, our team was presented with what is possibly the most broadly used service refinement tool I've ever come across.

The complaints book is required in all Portuguese businesses which deal directly with the public, from banks to cafes, shops to train stations. It is required by the Portuguese government, who also stipulate that all complaints are replied to within 5-8 days and that completed books be returned to the relevant government department. Suddenly I could see it everywhere; at cash desks, in shop windows and information points.

I am yet to understand further the provider's inevitable loopholes, the government's powers to remedy bad practice and the complainant's experience and ideally, results. However, given that the UK service sector contributes more to the its GDP (73%) than most countries, that we don't have an independent or state run system like this is lamentable. 'Watchdog', a 30-minute BBC TV show which publicises poor practice and campaigns for resolution just doesn't cut it.



Benefits of a unified, independent body to oversee complaints and responses are obvious, although the methods are complex; they maintain a baseline of performance and should ideally accompany the power to fine or shut down repeat offenders. Services that don't deliver are essentially cons. The baseline could work to guarantee a minimum standard of service, as the kitemark is the official UK mark for safety in products.

A rhetorical poster: Performance on the provider's quantitative terms

Standing in London Bridge Rail Station on my way home from portugal, I don't know where to begin. I look around for a generic complaints form. Nothing. This highlights two key cultural problems.

The first problem is the domain of the service provider. Some forward-thinking organisations use complaints forms (often spun as 'your suggestions') as the opportunity to gain free customer feedback, troubleshooting and the figures to justify an improvement. These organisations are less likely to have regular entries to a red book. Many others put up barriers to discourage complaints, skew figures and in some cases, ignore them. A favourite example is retailers Next, who dealt with a 3 month backlog of complaints swiftly and efficiently by deleting all complaints on the computer system (source: a fantastic article by Anna Tims).

The second problem is ours, the customer. A look at the surreal and shocking behaviour of organisations in Timms' article linked above will show how easy it is for customers to be worn down, to see complaining as futile and to not bother. Indeed, it's not beyond reason to suggest that some of the larger, sector dominating organisations prefer to silently encourage this culture. If we were to introduce such a system, have we become too cynical to embrace it?

Designing Public Services Together

Engine have produced a great video around their project with Kent County Council explaining the establishment of SILK (Social Innovation Lab Kent) - a partnership between Engine and KCC to provide service design knowledge, tools and expertise for all areas of the council. It shows Engine in the studio demonstrating some of the processes and ways of working deployed through the project. On my day out of the studio too!

The video was also posted on the Local Government Channel. Let's hope we can widen the great work we do in the public sector by getting the attention of some new councils and government bodies...




The project was also nominated for the London Design Museum's Design of the Year! Though sadly, as with the excellent service design projects that were up for nomination last year (including Velibre, the fantastic pay-as-you-go urban cycling scheme), there isn't a suitable category for service design, which is inter-disciplinary by its nature, and we have consequently been entered under 'Communications'.

This all comes at a very important time for service design in the public sector. The growing awareness of the power of user-centred design in improving and developing new services, coupled with the sad reality that as the recession deepens, more and more people will rely on some aspects of the services their councils and the state provide, mean that innovation is fundamental to meeting the demand and the challenges faced.

Recently, the Design Council launched a new capaign; Public Services By Design, underlining the huge task and huge opportunity before us. The linked article covers a great deal of the issues - personalisation of services, inclusive design processes, and in particular the the call for action below stands out:




"We need to be conscious that today’s problems are just not going to be addressed by yesterday’s ideas and yesterday’s solutions...we need a whole new approach to policy over the 10 years.”

By a 'new approach to policy', I hope that the intention is to develop a culture of innovation, amongst other things such as sharing best practice. Service design's real power is not it's ability to pull from all disciplines of design to create the more tangible elements of a service, but the ability to transform an organisation from the inside out. In order to develop successful, relevant, sustainable services, it's vital to instill a culture of innovation and encourage the open-ness and willingness to change and test new ideas so that a service is never a finished product, but an evolving, constantly refined solution.