Our first order of business was to turn the words executives were using to describe omnichannel into a tangible example of a service. Through a series of working sessions, we guided stakeholders through the process of exploring different service value propositions before landing on a leading candidate to further define–on-demand, just-in-time delivery for small-to-medium-sized home repair service providers.

We worked collaboratively to create a service hypothesis that included a refined value proposition and service features, operational capabilities, experience storyboards, and a service blueprint. After presenting the overall concept to the parent company’s executive team, we received the green light to design and pilot our client’s experimental service.

To avoid the common pitfalls of omnichannel initiatives—siloed work efforts, poor communication, inside-out thinking (rather than customer-centered action), and waterfall approaches (rather than iterative, nimble collaboration)—we steered away from business-as-usual. We guided our client in forming a cross-functional team that would follow a service design process. The team comprised members of the client and parent companies, product teams, store operations, merchandising, design, technology, a third-party delivery partner, and store employees. For many, this was the first time they had worked in a collaborative, human-centered process.