Service Blueprinting in Practice: Who, When, What

Service blueprints map out the relationship between various service components (people, processes, and props) and customer touchpoints. The process of creating a service blueprint is just as beneficial as the output (the artifact itself). Service blueprinting, as a process, fosters communication with crossfunctional teams, creates alignment on intangible services, and gives teams a sense of their contribution to the end-to-end customer experience. As tangible artifacts, service blueprints can be used to identify and communicate service weaknesses or redundancies, serve as a guiding source of truth, and inform organizational roadmaps.

Research Method

To understand how service blueprints are used in practice, we surveyed 97 practitioners across industries (B2B, B2C, finance, government, healthcare, nonprofit, etc.). Their responses helped us answer the following questions:

• How do practitioner's define service blueprints?
• Who owns service blueprinting initiatives?
• Who is commonly involved in these initiatives?
• When are service blueprints used?
• What benefits come from creating or using a service blueprint?

Future articles will address additional research findings.

Service Blueprinting: Definitions and Mental Models

We asked participants to define service blueprinting in their own words. The majority of responses reflected one or two of the following mental models:

1. Service blueprinting as an artifact or visualization (56%)
2. Service blueprinting as an exercise or framework (20%)
3. Service blueprinting as a collaborative tool (15%)

Artifact

By far the most frequent view of service blueprinting is to define it as the blueprint itself — i.e., as an artifact or deliverable. This was done by 56% of respondents. Here are some responses representative for that view:

“A map of how all the different people, processes, technology, policies, and touchpoints fit together in the delivery of a service”

“An artifact that gives you a holistic view of a key scenario that our customer experiences, and how our organization delivers that service”

“A map/diagram of how (actions, tools, etc.) our business provides its services to customers and clients”

"A visualization of the service experience from the perspective of the organization providing it”

In responding to our survey questions, participants used similar, yet varied, language. Some of the terms they used to describe the blueprint were:

• Diagram
• Artifact
• Document
• Map
• Overview
• Exercise
• Activity
• Framework
• Tool
• Method
• Layout
• Visual summary or map
• Representation
• Picture

In defining service blueprinting, respondents with the artifact mental model placed an emphasis on the artifact, map, or visualization that is created in the service-blueprinting process, rather than on the process, people, or method used to create it. This model can be limited and limiting. Respondents who view a blueprinting initiative as simply the creation of the visualization are likely to miss a plethora of process benefits that can be gained from the blueprinting process (regardless of the state of the output). The process of blueprinting is as important as the resulting blueprint itself; it should force conversation, create a need for research and investigation, and foster a shared language and understanding.

Exercise or Framework

20% of respondents define service blueprinting as an exercise to improve understanding or a framework or methodology to analyze and improve an existing service:

“A framework used to map a product in all aspects—user journey, channels, communication, and even a method to analyze the technological feasibility”

“A visual exercise that helps an organization understand the interdependencies and complexities of interconnected people and processes”

“A tool to integrate a customer's experience with a map of the process steps...proving the unique ability to see how process directly impacts customers”

This group of participants view service blueprinting as a mapping framework. Contrary to the artifact group, these participants place emphasis on the act of mapping, rather than the end map or artifact itself. Our participants mentioned various mapping end goals: to analyze feasibility, determine interdependencies and redundancies, and increase team’s understanding of organizational processes.

Collaborative Tool

Only 15% of our respondents define service blueprinting primarily as a collaborative communication tool used to align the members of an organization.

“Collaborative alignment activity to map key stages and interactions between the involved parties of the service”

“A collaboration and communication tool to build engagement and help tell the bigger story of how a service is cocreated between an organization and customer”

“A collaboration and visualization tool that shows problems in service-experiences delivery interactions, operations, and processes”

“A tool I use to speak with development and show the complexity of the experience to the company”

This mental model can be viewed as an extension of the previous mental model, service blueprinting as an exercise and framework; however; people who view service blueprinting as a collaborative tool emphasize the goal to align, communicate, and create shared understanding amongst varied roles within the organization. Participants with this mental model create service blueprints collaboratively, in a crossdisciplinary way, in order to force a shared understanding. Contrary to participants who defined service blueprinting as an artifact, these participants indicated the larger value and benefits of blueprinting initiatives — getting various groups within the organization to buy in and cocreate.

Who Owns Service-Blueprinting Initiatives?

We asked practitioners which team most commonly owns (i.e., leads, facilitates, or initiates) service-blueprinting projects. We found that design teams most commonly own service-blueprinting initiatives, followed by product/project management, and research teams.

For the answer options Other and It differs depending on the project, we asked survey respondents to further describe their answer. Through qualitative comments, we found several cases where the service-design initiative is coowned by several teams.

Who Is Commonly Involved in Service-Blueprinting Initiatives?

In addition to understanding who owns service blueprinting, we were also interested in who participates in service-blueprinting projects. Our research indicated that fewer than half of the respondents’ organizations included senior leadership, customer support, marketing, and sales in their service-blueprint initiatives. This lack of collaboration is disappointing for various reasons. It may result in less effective initiatives due to lack of stakeholder support, limit access to valuable information from frontstage and backstage employees, and result in decreased buy-in and ownership.

For respondents that selected Other we requested further details. The qualitative comments identified that some organizations have dynamic core teams that change depending on what journey is mapped. For example, consider the customer journey of purchasing and setting up a new mobile device. Blueprinting the device-setup touchpoint would not require participation from the sales team. However, blueprinting the selection and purchasing touchpoints would likely require contributions from the sales team. For organizations committed to mapping several journeys over time, a dynamic team format may save time for team members that don’t play an active role across various customer journeys.

When Are Service Blueprints Used?

Survey respondents identified 5 key moments in the product-design lifecycle in which they use service blueprints:

1. Defining a research plan: Practitioners mentioned using hypothesized service blueprints to identify gaps in current knowledge. Identifying these gaps informs the research plan because they become “known unknowns.” Additionally, these blueprints educate stakeholders of the resources and bandwidth needed to conduct the necessary research. This usage of blueprinting reduces the likelihood of spending significant time and resources gathering research that is already known.
2. Discovery and empathizing: Service design is about being human-centered, not just user-centered: we should design for internal staff as much as we design for our end users. In order to do this, we must form empathy for our colleagues and stakeholders. Respondents mentioned that blueprints helped them discover what activities their counterparts must perform (on behalf of their organization) to support customer actions. This knowledge can drive insight and alignment across functions and roles, break down silos, and bridge misunderstandings.
3. Defining and prioritizing: Respondents also noted using service blueprints to define and prioritize areas for improvement. Once a service blueprint (be it a low-fidelity one) is created, we can evaluate the holistic service and identify gaps, redundancies, or friction points. These gaps can then be prioritized for redesign based on the opportunity they present to the organization.
4. Ideation: Multiple respondents mentioned using their service blueprints to inform ideation sessions and drive the creation of an ideal future service. In this form, the blueprint acts as a prototype. Just as we can prototype a website, we can also prototype how a service will be delivered using a blueprint. A blueprint allows us to imagine how we will coordinate all the variables and actors to create the ideal experience for the end user.
5. Implementation: Participants also reported that their organizations used service blueprints for planning, tracking success, and informing strategic decisions. In these cases, the artifact acted as a shared visualization used to communicate future work, align priorities, and inform ideal future-state service models. Blueprints used at this stage in the process are often high-fidelity, and thus face a common challenge — the need to keep them “living” and up to date after the service changes.

What Are the Benefits of Service Blueprinting?

Participants’ responses to this question can be grouped into 3 themes:

1. Shared language and understanding: This theme was mentioned by most in our study. Service blueprints help departments align behind a common goal, empower team members, and educate stakeholders about the experience as it exists today (especially where complications or redundancies often occur). One respondent claimed her organization’s service blueprint was the “one document to rule them all”, a single source of truth used to create a shared language and understanding.
2. Forced holistic thinking: Service blueprints make invisible service components visible and help put products in context. Comments grouped under this theme centered around gaining “a deeper understanding of the experience” or “looking at the experience in a holistic context”. Refocusing on the big picture, instead of products or departments as silos, can lead to consistency across channels and a positive experience for both end users and employees.
3. Informed project planning: The goal of many service blueprinting initiatives is to visualize service dependencies and gaps. By doing this, organizations can identify broken processes and areas of improvement. This insight can then be used to prioritize projects on an organization’s roadmap.

Outside of these 3 themes, we discovered an outlier worth mentioning. One participant responded that creating a service blueprint helped her develop a sense of empathy and respect for her colleagues. The research for creating a service blueprint is mostly internal, requiring qualitative data from methods like interviews and direct observation. This qualitative data can force researchers to understand their colleagues on a deep level and can lead to better relationships in the long run.

Conclusion

Our research showed that practitioners most commonly associate service blueprints with an artifact, an exercise or framework, or a collaborative tool. Additionally, service blueprints are used throughout the product-design process, from planning research to implementation. Practitioners found that service blueprints create alignment and understanding across departments, reframe the experience holistically instead of in siloes, and encourage good project planning.

To learn more, check out our full day course Service Blueprinting.