Service Blueprinting

Companies that outmaneuver their competitors by providing new or improved services to customers
keep their service development process from being “ad hoc”. These customer focused companies tend
to move with specific intent through a set of planned stages of service innovation. Typically these stages
involve establishing clear objectives, idea generation, concept development, service design, prototyping,
launch and customer feedback. This column continues our discussion of Service Blueprinting, a
technique that supports several of these steps. As a visualization tool Service Blueprinting will generate
new service ideas, and identify gaps in current service quality that are impacting customer loyalty.

Components of Service Blueprints

There are five components of a service blueprint. See the example which shows a simple blueprint for a
one night stay in a hotel.
 Customer actions,
 The Onstage visible actions taken by employees,
 Backstage actions taken by employees that are not visible to the customer,
 Company support processes used throughout the service delivery,
 Physical evidence of the service.

“Customer actions” include all the steps a customer takes during the service delivery process. In a
service blueprint customer actions are usually depicted in sequence, from start to finish. Customer
actions are central to the to the Service Blueprint so they are described first.

“Onstage” visible actions by employees are the face to face contacts with the customer during the
service delivery. These are separated from the customer by the line of interaction. Service delivery
actions by frontline customer contact employees are shown here. Each time the line of interaction is
crossed through an interaction between a customer and contact employee (or self service technology) a
moment of truth occurs. During these moments of truth customers judge your quality and make
decisions regarding future purchases.

The next part of the service blueprint is the “backstage” invisible actions of employees that impact
customers. Actions here are separated from onstage service delivery by the line of visibility. Everything
above the line of visibility is seen by the customer while everything below it is invisible. In our hotel
example these actions included taking the food order (accurately), and preparing a quality meal.

The fourth critical component of a service blueprint is the “support processes” that customer contact
employees rely on to effectively interact with the customer. These processes are all the activities
contributed by employees within the company who typically don’t contact customers. These processes
need to happen however to deliver the service, and clearly service quality is often impacted by these
below the line of interaction activities.

Finally for each customer moment of truth the physical evidence of the service delivery at each point of
customer contact is recorded at the top of the blueprint.

Vertical lines are drawn on the blueprint to show how various activities and processes interact to deliver
the service to the customer.
 Overnight Hotel Stay
Evidence
Physical
Evidence
Physical

Desk
Elevators, Room Food Meeting Bill, desk,
Hotel registration.
Hallways, amenities, Menu appearance, room lobby,
exterior, Papers.
Room bath quality materials parking
parking Lobby. Key
Customer
Customer
Actions
Actions

Arrive at Inspect Call room Receive Meet

Check in Go to room Check out
hotel room service food clients

Line of Interaction
Employee
Customer
Onstage
Employee
Customer
Contact
Onstage

Contact

Greeted in
Greeted at Process Deliver Business Process
hall by
door? registration food coordinator check out
cleaner
Line of Visibility
Backstage
Employee
Customer
Backstage
Employee
Customer
Contact

Take food
Contact

order Audio
visual
support
Line of Internal
Interaction
Process
Support
Process
Support

Load
cart Prepare
Registration with food Registration
system supplies system

Building the Blueprint

Now that you have a basic understanding of the parts of a Service Blueprint, and what one looks like,
think about developing a blueprint for a Precision Ag service for your business. The first step will be to
define all the steps in delivering the service you want to blueprint. If you are trying to differentiate your
service offering to different customer segments it will be helpful to blueprint each approach. Once you
have chosen the service you want to blueprint, all the customer actions involved in the service are
placed on the blueprint in the Customer Actions section. Getting this done in sufficient detail may be
challenging because most of us have never broken services into their individual parts. I guarantee the
effort is worth it. Part of the challenge will be deciding where the service starts and stops from the
customer point of view. Once the customer actions are determined, the onstage and backstage actions
of contact employees can be placed on the blueprint. Then identify the supporting processes that
employee actions draw on and put these on the blueprint too. Now link up each customer action to the
onstage and backstage employee actions and support processes. I suggest you completed the physical
evidence section last.

My example of a hotel stay blueprint shows only the basic steps in the customer experience. An
overview blueprint like this is a good place to start, but you will likely need to add more detail at key
steps where you suspect improvement could occur. Blueprinting is a very flexible tool, and you can add
additional detail as you identify potential shortfalls and hopefully moments of delight in the delivery of
the service. Remember you want to capture the end to end customer service experience from the
customer’s point of view in the blueprint.
Thinking about the Precision Ag service you selected, who are the onstage employees that deliver the
service? No doubt there are several, from sales agronomists who consult with the customer, to your
office staff who schedule the service to applicators to drive equipment in the customer’s field. What are
the behind the scenes processes they rely on to deliver a memorable experience to the customer?
Where can gaps occur that prevent a smooth trouble free experience? Are there places that appear to
meet customer needs, but could still be improved anyway to begin exceeding needs? Service
blueprinting will identify areas where a service could be refined. If you introduced new elements into
the service delivery would that create more customer satisfaction and help you differentiate yourself
from competitors?

We will return to Service Blueprinting in future columns because this customer focused business tool
can help you grow your business. Putting your service delivery under a microscope can help you
increase customer satisfaction and increase loyalty. Service blueprinting will also help you differentiate
yourself from competitors.