Service safaris are an early qualitative research method where researchers walk in the customers' shoes to experience a service from the customers’ perspective. By experiencing the service directly, they can find strengths, weaknesses and more as they build empathy with customers early in the design process.
Frank Spillers, CEO of Experience Dynamics, provides an overview of service safaris:
“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
— Marilyn vos Savant, Magazine columnist, author, lecturer, playwright and Guinness-Book-of-Records holder of the highest-recorded IQ
In service design, designers optimize end-to-end experiences. They focus on user needs, touchpoints and seamless integration across the entire service. For example, when a customer takes the train, they encounter many service components. Some examples of components include:
They use an app to buy their train tickets.
They enter the station and look for directions to the ticket machines.
They use the ticket machine to collect their tickets.
They ask a customer service representative for information.
They look at the departure board for updated travel information.
They use their ticket to pass through the entry barriers.
They board the train and use the signs to find their seats.
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On a service safari, researchers perceive and interact with individual components and the service as a whole. Service safaris help researchers:
See, hear and feel the service's experience as a consumer, not a researcher.
Learn how a service works from the customer's perspective.
Review the service as a whole, not by individual components.
For example, in 2022 and 2023, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky traveled across the US to stay in Airbnb rentals. He also made a room in his home available on Airbnb. Chesky discovered issues with the experience of being an Airbnb customer and a host. He used these insights to improve Airbnb’s service design.
How Do Service Safaris Improve Service Design?
Service safaris benefit service design in three primary ways:
They provide direct insight into how a service works and the customer experience. For example, a design team creates a café-oriented service involving an app. A “field trip” to Starbucks could offer a robust view of the many aspects of a well-branded coffee shop customer experience.
Findings from safaris can directly inform design decisions. However, researchers must back up findings with actual user research.They inform future research. Real-world insights help create hypotheses, guide user interviews and shape survey questions. Safaris turn observations into actionable research questions. These questions can further deepen researchers’ understanding of user needs and behaviors.
They build empathy within the design team. Researchers empathize with customers by experiencing the service as they do. This firsthand experience is invaluable for designing more intuitive and user-friendly services.
Direct Insights
When researchers venture out to get a first-hand experience as a customer, they can:
Observe real-world interactions. Researchers directly observe how customers interact with a service in their natural environment. Observations help identify pain points, moments of delight and areas for improvement. These observations might not be evident through other research methods.
Identify touchpoints. Researchers document every touchpoint where customers engage with the service. They note digital and physical interactions. Researchers must understand these touchpoints to map out the customer journey accurately.
Gather qualitative insights. Researchers collect qualitative data on their feelings, frustrations and satisfaction. This data deepens their understanding of the customer's emotional journey.
Analyze service flows. Researchers identify any inefficient processes or disconnects that could hinder the customer experience.
Influence management decisions. Researchers can present stakeholders with their findings to better convince them of the need for service design.
Future Research
Service safaris help form the basis of future user and ethnographic research. Safaris help researchers identify key customer behaviors and contexts. For example, insights from a service safari in a retail environment might highlight the following:
How consumers navigate the physical space.
The role of digital tools in their shopping experience.
Moments that lead customers to purchase decisions.
These observations can guide researchers to focus on specific behaviors, interactions or environmental factors.
Service safaris can uncover unspoken needs and pain points. For example, customers may repeatedly ask staff for directions in a supermarket. A positive experience with support staff may cause customers to overlook this as a pain point and not mention it in an interview or survey. This insight can inform the need for better signage in the supermarket.
Ann Blandford, professor of human-computer interaction (HCI), explains how user interviews help researchers discover the “why” but not the “how”:
Insights inform the recruitment of participants for ethnographic research. Service safaris can identify the most relevant user groups for a study, which allows researchers to get the most out of their research.
Observations can directly inform the development of research questions. For instance, a service safari in public transportation reveals challenges with buying tickets. Future research might explore the context and specificities of this challenge with customers.
When to Conduct Service Safaris?
Researchers conduct service safaris during the empathize stage of the design thinking process. Since safaris can form the basis of future research and help gain an overview of service, they are often the first method researchers use. They can be insightful and inspirational as researchers can research their own or other services.
In the design thinking process, empathy helps define problems. This empathy fuels the entire design process and feeds into each stage. Early research methods like service safaris build empathy in a design team and are critical to user-centered design.
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Some example scenarios in which a researcher might conduct a service safari include:
To begin the research process and map a previously unmapped service.
To research competitors or services from other industries to gain insights and inspiration.
To redesign or assess a specific aspect of a service.
To gather information that can convince stakeholders of the benefits of service design.
How To Conduct a Service Safari
Researchers conduct service safaris for both physical and digital services. For example, a digital service safari could follow the process of purchasing an item from an e-commerce website. Everything from a marketing email to delivery and contacting customer service should be part of the safari.
Required Resources
Safaris can be inexpensive and flexible.
For example, coffee shop and public transport safaris need little investment. Researchers can be reimbursed if they work for or with the service they are researching.
For some services, safaris are easy to set up and run. Researchers can conduct safaris as and when needed. Straightforward safari examples include coffee shops or digital-only safaris.
Recruiting users is unnecessary. Researchers and team members conduct the safari themselves.
Multiple team members and stakeholders can conduct service safaris for diverse insights.
Conversely, safaris can also be resource intensive:
High-cost services need more investment. Especially if the researcher is investigating rival or comparative services.
Some safaris are time-intensive—for example, a long-haul flight or a service in a remote location.
Researchers may need funding and permission from management regardless of the resources needed. Case studies and stories of successful safaris can be helpful for researchers who want to influence stakeholders.
Prepare for Your Service Safari
Once researchers have the funding and permission they need, they use the following process:
Set a goal or task a typical customer might have. In the coffee shop example, this might be to place an order in the app and pick it up at the shop.
Choose where to start the safari. While it may seem obvious where the safari will take place (e.g., a coffee shop), service design encompasses every service component.
For example, when evaluating a coffee shop, the safari may begin with finding and accessing the shop. How well is its location advertised? Is its signage clear? Is it accessible to all customers?
Decide who should go. Multiple team members and stakeholders should conduct a service safari wherever possible. With several perspectives, researchers can better understand a typical experience. This approach improves empathy with and understanding of the service’s customers.
However, each person must go alone. Researchers find it more challenging in a group to focus and put themselves in the customer's shoes. Group safaris can also result in groupthink, where the group’s identity overshadows individual opinions.
Decide what to bring. Researchers may take a smartphone or camera to take pictures and videos and a notebook to record observations. Items a customer would typically have are also essential.
For example, researchers may take an umbrella if the service safari occurs in a restaurant and it’s raining. Researchers observe small details, like where customers can put their wet umbrellas.
Conduct the safari. Once you’ve planned your safari, the next step is to execute it. During the safari, pay close attention to the following (you can take pictures, videos and voice and written notes):
The service touchpoints and how they fit together. How do you interact with the service, and are there any problems? Do you notice any disconnects between parts of the service?
The service environment and any physical artifacts the service involves. e.g., coffee cups and seating.
Which digital interfaces do you use while you’re on safari?
Anytime you feel frustrated or confused by the service.
Crucial thoughts or feelings about the experience.
Talk to customers. You can gain further insights by talking to people. You can converse with other customers if it feels appropriate in the service environment. Conversations can give you an informal impression of their experience with the service.
Ann Blandford advises how to approach questioning users and customers:
Tips and best practices
Service safaris may seem simple; however, researchers follow these best practices to get the best results:
Use empathy maps. Researchers often chart their observations on an empathy map, which can be helpful in later research and ideation. Empathy maps visually represent the researcher’s thoughts, feelings and actions. If you also spoke with other customers, you can include their thoughts, feelings and actions.
Design teams use empathy maps to inform further research, brainstorming and design decisions. Teams refer to the maps throughout the design process to stay empathetic and focus on the user.
© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0
Get comfortable with role play and prepare fictitious scenarios. Some service safaris involve everyday tasks, like buying a coffee. However, others, like applying for a loan at a bank, do not.
Researchers must often role-play for a more accurate customer experience during service safaris. Prepare scenarios and backstories to ensure the service reacts to you as if you were a customer.Immersion is key. Embody the customer or user as far as possible. Limit distractions and think deeply about the circumstances in which a customer would use the service.
Be aware of biases, and don’t draw quick conclusions. Personal biases and mental models affect how humans perceive and interact with services. Try to keep an open mind on safari and do not assume all customers experience a service the same way you do.
Alan Dix, HCI expert and professor, provides some tips on how to avoid personal biases:
Use observations to inform future research. A service safari is a foundation for ethnographic research, not a replacement. Safaris reveal issues that inform later research questions. If a service safari is the only research used, it will be biased and unreliable.
Keep an open and critical mind. An open mind is essential for stakeholders conducting service safaris of their services. Remain impartial and expect to find issues and disconnects.
Run a trial safari. A practice run can help prepare for the actual safari. A trial benefits those who’ve never done a service safari before. Trials can reveal the need for deeper role-play and better observation recording, among other pitfalls. This process will improve the outcomes of the actual safari.
Ensure privacy and consent. Service design often involves audio and video recordings. Ensure you get permission from the people you record (e.g., other customers standing in line). Secret audio or video recording violates privacy.
Service Safari Pitfalls
While service safaris are beneficial to service design, they do have some common challenges:
Familiarity with the service. It can be challenging for some team members and stakeholders to get into the customer’s mindset as they can anticipate what’s next. For example, a team member may be familiar with a train ticket machine and overlook its lack of user-friendliness because of expert knowledge. To combat this, take advantage of other team members' and customers' lack of experience and knowledge.
Bias and subjectivity. Service safaris involve personal observation and experience. While you can use techniques to limit bias, it is impossible to be completely objective. For this reason, it is vital you conduct further and deeper research with real customers.
Potential disruption. It is difficult for researchers to pretend to be a customer in some settings. For example, a researcher cannot entirely embody a patient in healthcare.
Overtly observing or participating in the service as a “fake” customer can disrupt the normal service flow. Disruption can lead to less authentic observations.
Service Safari Deliverables
Service safaris provide insights that can contribute directly or indirectly (through future research) to several service design deliverables. These deliverables assist the design team throughout the service design process. They help the team build and retain empathy, make strategic decisions and maintain a holistic view of the whole service.
Customer journey maps visually represent a user's interactions with a product or service over time. Service safari insights can help researchers identify critical points within the user journey. However, researchers should create user journey maps with insights from real users, not only stakeholders. This detailed understanding allows researchers to pinpoint areas for improvement and innovation accurately.
Frank Spillers explains how journey maps fit into the service design process and how to approach them:
Personas are fictional characters researchers create based on research. They represent users who might use a product or service and help design teams remember who they are designing for. As with journey maps, service safaris should not solely inform personas. A holistic user research approach informs accurate and relatable personas.
© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0
Service blueprints chart the entire service process. Blueprints include “frontstage” and “backstage” components of a service. Blueprints also include “moments,” for example, when customers browse a menu or wait for their order.
As with journey maps, safaris can inform design teams when they create their service blueprints. While safaris focus on the customer’s point of view, researchers may observe other service components. They can include these observations in their service blueprints.
David Bill, service researcher at Amazon Web Services, explains the difference between “frontstage” and “backstage” in service design:
