How to pitch Service Design?

The full question

What is the best way to briefly pitch the value of a service designer to a potential employer, unfamiliar with the practice of service design?

I've listed below a few resources that might help you do exactly that.

To the obvious thing: empathize before you pitch

In Service Design we say that we should do our research before even thinking of proposing new solutions. The same should happen when we want to pitch the value of Service Design to someone. Before we can pitch we should:

Know what are the problems and the dreams the person has
Know what convinces her (is it a numbers person, a stories lover, or a down to earth "I'll believe when I experience it" type of person).
Know her culture and language

Once you know that you can adapt the way to pitch the value of what you are doing to the person.

Tell a story

This short 3:30 minute video by the lovely people at Fjord pitches Service Design in one of the most beautiful way I know. It asks:

"Why do you always go to that particular coffee shop?"

Give real world numbers

If you are speaking to a numbers guy, you might want to show the measured impact of Service Design. Or build on one of these stats.

Follow a course to learn to sell Service Design

Marc, the host of the Service Design Show, provides a full course to sell Service Design. I have not tested the course myself, but Marc is a friend and a really smart guy.

Show for what it's great

Audree Fletcher also wrote an article called How to sell service design about this exact subject. Here an excerpt:

Service design is the perfect approach to take when you don’t understand a problem well and/or have little appreciation for the opportunities or the solution space. Great for “when would we use this”?

Service design is an opportunity to optimise a customer’s experience — creating the possibility for reduced costs and improved customer satisfaction. Great for “but can it help us cut costs?”

Service design is a way of experimenting quickly and at a small scale = fast, low risk, frugal. Great for “we don’t have the time” or “we can’t take the risk”

Service design is a great core discipline to marry with other approaches Great for “we’d usually get a management consultancy in” or “how robust can it be” or “but X team is already developing something”.

Explore the question more deeply in a podcast

There is a an episode of the Service Design Show which tackles this exact question that might help.

Additional resources

The Service Design Network has published a special edition of its Touchpoint Magazine on the topic of "Selling Service Design"

Service Design Questions and Answers