Service blueprinting

What is service blueprinting?

Service blueprinting is about understanding the whole service and includes the customer or user journey, the process, touchpoints along it and supporting technology.

It is designed to give the ‘whole picture’ of a service, end-to-end, with all the component parts and interdependencies that make up the service made clear. Service blueprints are usually presented visually in a linear format (e.g. flowchart), with different layers that represent the different parties involved.

Service blueprints are used to understand the ‘as is’ from a holistic perspective and to support the development of ‘to be’ services, considering opportunities for improvement.

Knowledge

• Understanding of best practice principles and approaches to service design and user research.
• Understanding of the tools and techniques used to visually map service flows.
• Technological awareness.

Skills

Able to:

• Think strategically: Consider the design of future service blueprints in the context of the whole organisation and desired organisational outcomes.
• Map customer or user journeys: Clearly setting out the steps customers or users take and how they interact with the service or solution, along with their feelings at each touchpoint, including the channels used (e.g. face to face, phone, website, social media etc).
• Map processes: That support the user journey, including detailed definition of back- office processes that enable front end service delivery and any dependencies.
• Create effective visual representations: Making it easy for anyone reading the blueprint to understand the flow of a service, including ‘who does what’ and dependencies.
• Use visualisation tools: To visually represent the flow of service delivery (typically this involves tools like Visio, Miro, Lucid chart, Canva and other digital whiteboard technologies).
• Overlay time sequencing and performance data: So that the customer/user experience and processes can be understood in the context of wider performance and responsiveness able to be understood.
• Collaborate and communicate: Working effectively with users / customers for research and as part of cross functional teams to develop visualisations that are easily understandable by everyone.
• Manage risk: Identity, assess and manage the risks associated with service blueprinting.