How, why and when to run a successful Service Safari.
Want to go on your first service safari or looking for resources or a refresher on how to do it? In this article, we will look at why, when and how to run a successful service safari.
What is a service safari?
Service safari is a great research method which allows you to look across all channels and deep dive into a project or subject area.
It allows you to walk in the footsteps of users, experiencing a task, product or service as near as possible to how they would. Through direct experience, you can assess where the strengths and weaknesses are. As well as building the teams’ empathy with users and domain knowledge.
When and why to use it
It is best used during the early phase of a project to supplement a landscape analysis by getting first-hand experience as a user. It is a fast way to gather insights to:
- Benchmark services
- Empathise with user frustrations prior to user research
- Inform user research questions
- Understand cultural impact when comparing markets
- Create As-Is is flows and generate insights for a To-Be state
It shouldn’t be a substitute for user research but as a supplementary research approach. It should always include your client’s offering as well as competitors.
The approach
- Set a clear objective
- Select who / what services you will investigate
- Create a set of scenarios to play out
- Build a documentation framework
- Analysis and report
Materials
- Camera / phone camera
- Notebook
- Survey / spreadsheet for processing data
- Timeline to map experience over time
- Post-it notes and pens for affinity mapping thoughts / insights
How long does it take to do?
1–2 weeks from start to finish.
Much faster if this is the sole focus of the team.
1. Setting a clear objective
The key to gathering the right information is to have a clear, concise and actionable objective. A good technique is to pair a research question with a goal.
Objective = research question + goal
This is the mission statement for the team to gather around. At this point, it’s likely to be broad and encompass the end to end journey.
e.g. We want to understand… (Question)
What is the experience of getting your car repaired, what are the steps and processes you must go through and how does each feel? Or
How do people who have moved to a new country open a bank account? What are the current options, hacks and issues with achieving this goal?
What is the experience of attending your first gym class? What are the current options, hacks and issues with achieving this goal?
Where… (in)
E.g in London, New York and Atlanta.
So that we can…
- Understand the highs, lows and friction points in this experience.
- See if there are clear market differences which may show an underlying cultural approach to the task.
- How each experience compares to each other.
- Form hypothesis around the qualities of a best in class service is at each point of the users’ goals.
2. Select who / what services you will investigate
You may have a good idea of who to investigate from looking at competitor analysis. This often will help guide and narrow the set you want to investigate. If not using Similarweb is a good way to find competitors.
If there are no current competitors look for indirect competitors and similar experiences. Also, run a set of scenarios on your client’s service.
Create scenarios and tasks to give the researchers backstories, as well as, setting the goal the user wants to achieve. If you are looking into an area with a wide range of users try to create scenarios which represent that range. Divide your team into pairs to cover the various scenarios and locations.
It can be helpful to set up email addresses for the safari or use the company you work for as an example in a B2B context. The closer to your reality the easier the scenario is to play out.
Each scenario should include:
- What they are looking for / trying to do and why
- Who they are with details relevant to the task (including email addresses if needed)
- Think through questions they may be asked during the safari and try to cover off some of these in the scenario.
4. Build a documentation framework
You are looking for rich descriptions of what happened and how it made the researcher feel. Encourage the team to take photographs, screenshots, recordings of video or audio to collect as much detail as possible. Agree on the format upfront so more team members can be researchers.
Key areas to document are:
- The experience over time: pre / during / post
- What or who you encounter: People / Processes / Objects / Environments/places / Communications
You should also gather a general impression of the experience.
- How much time does it take to complete the task?
- Is it easy to complete?
- Are there clear instructions or options?
- Did you hit any dead ends? Or experience any errors?
It’s often helpful to create a simple survey for the researcher to complete to mark elements of the service. I’d recommend using a Likert scale set up.
You can see an example template linked here. Feel free to copy and use!
5. Analysis and report
Synthesising all the Information gathered into a simple actionable format is key to spreading the learnings the team has gathered wider within the business.
Using all the raw data gathered write up key points onto post-it notes look for common patterns across the set, as well as ways to group those points, a simple affinity mapping exercise works well for this. Journey maps can also be a really good way to show how users experience the service over time.
From this, create key insights and implications for design or research, you can combine this with competitive analysis for a well-rounded view of the whole landscape. Having simple overviews of each service and the overall comparison ranking of key service aspects will help team members who didn’t research that experience to get a quick feel for the whole landscape.
