Louise Long has spent decades focusing on how to improve customer experiences. Beginning her career at the National Australia Bank (NAB), she ‘fell into design’ while working in the retail bank strategy team. It was there that she first became a vocal advocate for valuing customer centricity (where the customer is placed at the centre of all decision making). She was passionate about the concept that revenue and customer satisfaction didn’t compete against each other, rather they intersected, so designing and creating exceptional customer experiences was key to organisational success and brand loyalty.
In the early 2000s, ‘service design’ wasn’t yet considered an established discipline, but Louise was inspired by innovative principles being applied by companies like Virgin Airlines and – in her own area industry – Credit Suisse. A forward-thinking executive was quick to appreciate the merit in Louise’s way of thinking. Bringing in a group of designers whose work she admired, she formed NAB’s first service design team, rolling out human-centric programs across Australia.
‘Service design connected the dots for me because I’ve always had a human-centred view. It’s the basis for my understanding of the world, so when I learned about design, it added structure to the way I was already working,’ she explained.
Curiosity, optimism, immersion and trying to imagine what the customer needs from an empathetic point of view remain central to her ethos – and have been instrumental in driving impactful change at NAB, the University of Melbourne, Deloitte, consultancy clients and now at the Coles Group.
People who work in service design are often challenged to explain what the discipline is. Louise characterises it as the strategic adaptation of design that is more about the holistic experience.
‘It’s very real, but not as obviously tangible as other design areas. Service design shapes your impression of a brand. Using travel as an example, it’s everything that happens from the moment you book your flight to the moment you arrive at your destination. Each element you experience – the website booking process, arriving at the airport, checking your bags, going through security, is all shaped by service design,’ she added.
‘It’s also intricately linked to process and business improvement, a natural fit led by the customer experience. So service design is going beyond that surface layer, diving deeper to ask, ‘how do we deliver that service efficiently and empathetically? It's not enough to be good. Every brand experience needs to be unique and authentic to be powerful.’
While working at Today Design – a Melbourne-based strategic design and consulting firm – Louise redesigned the experience of getting a driver's licence at VicRoads.
The success of the project was rooted in challenging the assumptions of the organisation and helping it understand that an old process designed for 18-year-olds had to change to meet the new reality of a different customer base, such as people with language and cultural barriers, older people or those without access to a car. Rethinking and making the service more inclusive meant considering who was using it and how to make the experience easier.
‘Being able to have a positive impact by putting humans at the centre is really motivating. Having transitioned from a business background to design, I’m proud of how I connect the two and help people understand why design is valuable to business. That's kind of been my signature selling point. It's not hard to make things easier by keeping human-centred design at the heart of delivering a service,’ she said.
This will be Louise’s third year as a VPDA judge in the service design category. The attributes she is looking for include a strong connection between the capability of the service provider and its business model.
‘There has to be a holistic and deep understanding of delivering something the customer needs or solving a problem that also fits with a business model so it's sustainable, repeatable, feasible and viable ,’ said Louise.
‘The best examples of service design are when an organisation transforms its process or uses technology to craft and create a better service experience for its customers. Unless changes are systemic and run throughout the business with consistency across every form of messaging or experience, it isn’t viable or what I consider to be good service design,’ she added.
Louise also emphasises how important it is for VPDA applicants to articulate their approach to the project, their research methods and how the voice of the customer is guiding the outcome. Substance is critical.
‘When I assess a submission, I want to understand there's quality in the craft and in the process and credibility in how they got to the outcome, with confidence that their design really meets the needs of customers or solves their problem,’ she stated.
‘Success means a deep understanding of human needs and that's kind of the key for me – less so than it looks pretty,’ she added.
‘Last year, there was a service design entry (Pathways to Wellbeing) that didn’t win (it did, however, receive a commendation) but I still think about it. It was for Vietnamese migrants to access legal services, and it was such an outstanding example of cultural inclusion that wasn’t just about language. The design team also considered the cultural meaning and relevance of asking for help and identified barriers to access. So, there were all these thoughtful overlays that displayed cultural empathy and that really resonated with me,’ she revealed.
‘What stands out to me about the Victorian Premier Design Awards is its inclusivity. There's no barrier to entry, so it allows anyone from an individual to big corporates to submit. Winning a VPDA award is a badge of honour that says you’re part of a progressive state and a community/environment that appreciates design and your place in it,’ she concluded.
The entry deadline for the 2025 Victorian Premier Design Awards is 11 July, with the winners to be announced on 12 November.
Type on the line above then press the Enter/Return key to submit a new search query