Service Standardisation
& Customisation
Discovery of IFB’s after-sales service experience to reduce reliance on exchange-based offers and improve service quality for long-term product longevity.
Client
IFB Industries Ltd
Year
2018 - 2019
Industry
Consumer Goods
Type of Work
Consumer Research
Service Design
Ethnography
This experience involved hands-on work on an actual industry project. As part of my Graduation project, I worked on a sponsored project, collaborating with the design team in the R&D office of IFB, alongside company employees.
The Service team reached out with intention to reduce their dependancy on ‘Exchange and Save’ offer for their old customers, also minimising collection of waste through this procedure. IFB products are of very premium quality and considered as one of best home appliance products but their service was as bad as good their product was.
That's when the vision was made to improve the service quality for better product longevity.
Engagement Highlights
Services, Deliverables, Results
What
-
After Sales Service
-
Service Operation
-
Process & Policy
-
Supply Chain
How
-
Discovery & Validation
-
Consumer Research & Insights
-
Service System Analysis
-
Ethnography
-
Service Audit (Stakeholders Process, Policy)
Outcome
-
IFB’s first cross-functional service blueprint
-
Service Charter
-
Trust-Based Service Selling Model, a Long term strategic framework
Collaboration
Designers, Business Head, Service Operation Head, Regional Branch Manager, Training In-charge, Field Technicians.
From Unknown to foundations for Discovery
Why this Project
mattered
Despite IFB’s high product quality, customer service was a critical pain point. Customers regularly faced:
​​
-
Delays in complaint resolution and spare part delivery
-
Lack of communication and transparency
-
Negative interactions with technicians.
The Key
Objectives
-
Conduct user research to uncover common frustrations, delays, and gaps experienced by customers during the end-to-end service journey. ​
-
Map current service workflows, roles, and touchpoints to understand how services are delivered and where breakdowns occur.
-
Evaluate the back-end systems, tools, and communication channels used by technicians and support staff to deliver service.
-
Propose actionable improvements in service guidelines, training, or tools to create a more consistent and customer focused service experience.
Pilot Research
A brief research around four areas was conducted and it was found that there was issue in service standards which is not properly defined or communicated to the customer. Customer feels helpless because of uncertainty and varied information it receives.
Four Areas : Perception in Organisation, Insights from Service Personnels, E-commerce Reviews, Telephonic Calls to Customers.
Issues Identified
1. Reactive Approach : The service team mostly responded after problems got worse, rather than preventing them early.
2. Incomplete Knowledge : Service staff and technicians often lacked complete or consistent information about service processes, leading to confusion, miscommunication with customers.
3. Lack of Customer Centricity : Customers frequently described IFB’s service experience as 'bad' or 'pathetic,' severely damaging the brand’s reputation and trust
4. Bad & Pathetic : Service processes were designed completely around internal convenience rather than customer needs.
Initial Engagement
Collaboration with Marketing & Analytics
Consumer Industry
We connected with the marketing team to understand the market. Through this engagement, we gained key insights into evolving consumer behaviour.
​
Indian consumers are increasingly upgrading to branded products, valuing service and convenience over outdated alternatives. This shift is driven by changing demographics, greater awareness of global trends, a desire for better products, and a growing focus on healthier living.
Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) on consumer durables grew at CAGR of over 10% between FY12 and FY17.
Define Target Users
This collaboration help understand the consumer base better, specially when a customer raises a service ticket, many family members contact customer care about the same issue. This means the service isn’t managed by just one person, it’s a shared family experience.
​
So, we defined our target users as families, with two roles:
-
Primary Users: Operators- The main person who contacts and manages the service (often the homemaker, wife's or adult).
-
Secondary Users: Decision Makers- Usually men, who financially support the family.
This helped us design with the whole family in mind, not just a single user.
Research & Insights
What
-
Conducted a service audit to examine internal processes and policy-level gaps.
-
Analysed 300+ customer complaints across CRM and social media to find recurring pain points.
-
Carried out competitive benchmarking using PAFFI analysis to uncover strategic differences.
-
Shadowed 17 technician visits to capture emotional insights from real customer interactions.
Re-mapping sub-systems and workflows
Outcome
-
Bad Technician behaviour.
-
Activities before Service - Service is not the first action
-
IFB customer are not well informed compared to competitor’s customers.
-
Operational irregularities - e.g. Wrong address/ spare part missing.
Analysis
Most problems point to technicians, either:
-
Directly: due to lack of motivation or improper behavior
-
Indirectly: due to poor business strategy, communication gaps, or insufficient training
Collaboration/Engagement with Design Team & Stakeholders
After identifying multiple gaps in the service experience, we aligned with internal stakeholders and the design team to determine which areas could be translated into feasible, high-impact design interventions.
​
We conducted collaborative working sessions involving:
-
Service team leads
-
Product and R&D representatives
-
In-house Design Team
-
Branch Managers and customer support staff
Rekha's Journey in Service experience
We mapped overlapping concerns and perspectives, prioritisation, translating scattered insights into actionable opportunity areas through different artefacts and presentation decks, ultimately leading towards intervention around technician and IFB essential sales strategy.
Outcome
The project led to a comprehensive evidence of IFB’s service landscape, uncovering both user pain points and internal system gaps. Through extensive research and stakeholder collaboration, we achieved several impactful outcomes:
​
-
Mapped the end-to-end service journey across 30+ customer interactions and 17 technician ride-alongs, identifying over 9 recurring pain points over 4 categories related to delays, miscommunication, and unclear responsibilities.
-
Created IFB’s first cross-functional service blueprint, aligning 5 internal departments (R&D, Customer Care, Logistics, Branch CRM, Technician Network Fiori App ) around a unified service delivery model. This blueprint became a shared reference tool for internal alignment and onboarding.
-
Developed a Service Charter, a technician training module co-designed with the service and HR teams. Piloted in customer service centre, the module focused on communication, behaviour, and trust-building, achieving a 82% positive response from technicians in post-training feedback.
-
Designed a Trust-Based Service Selling Model, a Long term strategic framework to help technicians recommend essential washing machine products during service visits in a way that is subtle, value-driven and trust-first.
Draft Blueprint
Disclaimer : Some Parts have been blurred/hidden due to non-disclosure agreement.
Please contact to know more !
Next Project