Repair Transformation | Hastings Direct | Service DesignTransforming a complex repair ecosystem into a simpler, more efficient service - balancing customer needs, operational realities and £3.5m+ in potential cost savings.
The Challenge
Vehicle repairs involve a complex ecosystem of customers, claims teams, repairers, suppliers and supporting systems. Fragmented processes, communication gaps and operational challenges created friction across the journey. Improving the experience meant looking beyond individual touchpoints to understand how the wider service worked as a system.
Objective
Define a future-state repair journey, including mobility, that delivers customer and business outcomes — and establishes how it can be enabled through technology, processes and business model changes.
My Role
As a Service Designer, I connected customer, repair partner and operational perspectives to shape a better repair experience.
I led discovery and service mapping, facilitated cross-functional workshops, and translated research into prioritised opportunities that informed the transformation roadmap and business case.
Approach
1. Understand the current experience
I brought together customer, repair partner and colleague perspectives to uncover pain points across the end-to-end repair journey. Research helped reveal where fragmented processes, communication gaps and handoffs created friction for customers and operational teams.
2. Map the wider service ecosystem
I mapped the end-to-end journey and the relationships between people, processes, technology and partners. This helped make complex dependencies and breakdowns visible, moving the conversation beyond individual touchpoints to the wider service.
3. Co-create and prioritise opportunities
I facilitated cross-functional workshops to explore opportunities, challenge assumptions and align stakeholders around potential improvements. I translated these into prioritised future-state concepts and user stories, connecting customer needs with operational realities.
4. Build the case for change
I used visual storytelling, research insights and service design artefacts to communicate the opportunities and support decision-making. This work contributed to the transformation roadmap and business case, linking improvements to customer outcomes and commercial value.
Outcome & Impact
Shifted the focus from digital improvements to holistic service transformation
Service design revealed that customer pain points couldn’t be solved through digital fixes alone. Insights helped shape a wider repair redesign spanning processes, repair network relationships and operational design — addressing the service end-to-end.
Connected customer insight to commercial value
Customer research, journey mapping and prioritised opportunities were embedded in the business case, supporting forecasted benefits of £3m in indemnity savings and approximately £0.5m in operational cost reductions.
Influenced customer-centred process and digital decisions
Service design insights informed changes across digital and telephony journeys, including reducing handoffs, clarifying the customer experience with repair partners, and addressing mobility and courtesy car challenges.
The transformation also introduced greater customer visibility and choice, including repair progress tracking, choice of repairer and a more connected experience within Hastings.
