Service Blueprint
A swim lane matrix diagram covering user interactions with the service (customer journey map) and behind the scenes processes and interactions to deliver the service.
Why do I need this?
Service Blueprints are in a way expansion of Customer Journey Maps. CJMs lays out end-to-end the customer interactions with the service to create a hollistic view and pinpoint critical parts. It covers people, actions, touchpoints and tries to understand the thougts and feelings which will result in customer actions. Service Blueprints build on top of that (or actually under that) lay out the behind the scenes processes and interactions to create and deliver the service. It covers people, tools, policies, channels etc.
When group of people come together for Service Blueprinting, they create a common understanding of a complex service and ways to improve it. The resulting diagram can be distributed to others to share this understanding and to create new conversations.
Who should be involved
A group of 7-8 people from front line interacting with the customers, back-end support and subject matter experts for the scenarios to be covered would form a a good team for this activity.
How does it look like when it is done?
Here is an example Service Blueprint that was created for the new Service Design Community member sign ups through slack channel, for practicalservicedesign.com community (which is a good resource that some of this material is based on. ) :
max 8 people
2 hours per scenario
Instructions
Preparation
Explore the work area to identify the scenarios for Service Blueprinting. Once you have the scenarios, start finding the right people and scheduling the workshop day with them. User Research findings should be put into a brief presentation format to be presented at the beginning of the workshop.
Cross organizational complex scenarios that involve both phsyical and digital touchpoints and many people involved in the service delivery usually benefit the most from Service Blueprinting.
Scenario Blueprinting
Now you are ready to go through the scenario, covering it end-to-end and surface to core and visualize it in a one big sheet together as a team.
Think about the first step in your scenario. If it is a step visible to the customer, take a light blue post it and write down the short description of the step. If it is a behind the stage kind of invisible step, use a dark blue post-it. Using the post-it colors consistently is important for all items in the blueprint. Next you will fill the layers of this step vertically, creating that step's column.
If there is an actor from the customer side write down on a post-it customer actor ; e.g. "Quality Insurance Staff" from customer side.
Write down the touchpoint ; the interface(s) actors use at this step such as a web page, a mobile app, phone call, in-person meeting etc. and post-it up.
If there is one, write down the service provider actor and post-it up under the touchpoint.
Add the system layers, the back-end components in the process that makes this step work. For example : "e-commerce catalog database and payment system", "user login system", "product delivery system" etc..
Next task is one of the most crucial parts : Posting-up the key insights , observations, open questions, known issues etc. to cover this step fully.
Once you feel like you covered the step enough, move on to the next step in the scenario. You can (and you should) come back to this step later and make the necessary modifications and additions.
Use same color post-its for same category items in the blueprint like step description, customer actor, service provider actor, touchpoint, questions etc. .
Identifying Critical Moments and Opportunities
Next it is time to focus on those bottom layers; key insights, observations, open questions, known issues etc.. Discuss with your team these items and decide on (e.g. via dot-voting) what are the most important critical moments and oppurtunities and re-write them on red/orange kind colored post-its.
Now you have an overall view of how this scenario plays out end-to-end and surface-to-core and you have identified critical moments and opportunities within this scenario.
You can proceed to the next scenario or work on a variety of this scenario, covering a different use case.
Try to categorize the identified items as strategical vs. tactical.
Related case studies
Behind the stage story of BoxInc from Service Design perspective for internal audience.