Designing a Customer Application for Consulting Services through Service Design

Abstract

Consulting companies are facing increasingly complex challenges in a fast-changing business environment. Easy access to information and globalization creates an increasingly competitive culture where innovation is key to ensure success. One important piece for staying relevant in the field comes from creating a strong bond between customers and consultants, who are direct partners in consulting projects, and whose relationship has direct impact on the level of satisfaction with service provision during and after each project. At the same time, technology has a bigger presence than ever in our lives, notably in teamwork activities. Therefore, suitable software tools might make the difference whether to take the best from each actors' performance. With this in mind, organizations might aim to develop a tool or from scratch, or to get one already created by another software developer. Sure, it will depend on several factors, such as the level of alignment with specific requirements and corporate vision. Nevertheless, after requirements are collected and service studied through a Service Design approach, it is still not clear what the main criteria to guide this selection should be. A Service Design-based methodology is developed taking into account this gap, where models coming from Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Measurement of Alternatives & Ranking according to the Compromise Solution (MARCOS) are integrated for attaining a feasible solution from a different perspective. This approach is tested into business environment at a young consulting company specialized in analytics. The project is carried out within the Project Management department, who envisioned a new tool to serve customers at the time it increases the current service value. The organization oriented this tool towards an application centralizer, where information, documents and functionalities are to be shaped in a simple and intuitive display, improving customer satisfaction levels throughout the project, while focusing on a pleasant and enjoyable UX that encourages long-term customer relationships.