Service Blueprints

Your constantly-updated definition of Service Blueprints and collection of topical content and literature

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What are Service Blueprints?

If you're getting involved in service design as a UX designer, then you'll want to be able to develop service blueprints. These are simple clear diagrammatic representations of the service as a whole. They allow the designer to simplify processes as well as communicate them clearly to other interested parties such as stakeholders and customers. With a growing cross-over between products and services – this is a really valuable technique to have in your toolkit.

Literature on Service Blueprints

Here’s the entire UX literature on Service Blueprints by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Service Blueprint: Definition, Benefits & Examples

Service blueprints were first described by Lynn Shostack, a banking executive, back in 1982 in the Harvard Business Review. They’ve become popularized over the last few years as service design has grown as a profession. In addition to being useful in service design they are often used by operational management to gauge the efficiency of work within an organization.

What Is a Service Blueprint?

A service blueprint is, in essence, an extension of a customer journey map. A customer journey map specifies all the interactions that a customer will have with an organization throughout their customer lifecycle – the service blueprint goes a bit deeper and looks at all the interactions both physical and digital that support those customer interactions and adds a little more detail to the mix.

The blueprint is usually represented in a diagram based on swim lanes (each lane being assigned to a specific category) with interactions linked between lanes (using arrows to represent the flow of work).

Service blueprints enable great service and as Kate Zabrieskie, the world leading customer service trainer says; “Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will.”

Author/Copyright holder: erik roscam abbing. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Service blueprints assist with service design which in turn fits into the bigger picture of brand management.

What are the Benefits of Service Blueprinting?

Service blueprints fulfill a number of uses but most often they’re used for:

Improving a service. By understanding the original service in detail – it’s possible to identify and eliminate or ameliorate pain points.
Designing a new service. A blueprint for a new service allows for the creation of service prototypes and testing before a service is launched to customers.
Understanding a service. There are many services which have become so engrained in corporate culture that they are no longer understood by anyone. Blueprints can reveal silos and areas of opacity in existing processes.
Understanding the actors in a service. When there are many actors (customers, suppliers, consultants, employees, teams, etc.) it can be very useful to have a blueprint to help manage the complexity of a situation.
Transitioning a high-touch service to a low-touch service or vice-versa. Broadening or narrowing the audience for a service requires careful consideration as to how that might be achieved a blueprint can help guide the way for this.

Author/Copyright holder: Standards and Configuration Management Team (SCMT). Copyright terms and licence: Public Domain.

Service blueprints can be drawn from business roadmap blueprints as a starting point.

What Goes Into a Service Blueprint?

The five main swim lanes that are captured in a service blueprint are as follows:

The physical evidence. Anything that a customer can see, hear, smell or touch belongs in this lane. This isn’t limited to store fronts and websites but should include signs, forms, products, etc.
The customer’s actions. What does your client base have to do to use the service at the touchpoint? If the customer doesn’t take action, you can’t respond to their needs.
The front office. The activities, people and physical evidence that a customer will be able to observe after they have taken an action.
The back office. The activities, people and physical evidence that is necessary to deliver the service but that the customer cannot see or interact with directly.
Supporting actions. Anything that supports the service without being unique to the service.

You should feel free to split up any of these lanes if you find they’re getting too complicated. For example, you might want to split digital and physical interactions into different lanes for clarity.

There are also some optional inclusions:

Time indicators. It can be useful to show the time taken at any step of the process. Knowing the time can help you understand whether the service is efficient and meeting customer expectations.
Quality KPIs. What are you going to measure and what are the targets for achieving customer satisfaction?
Customer’s emotional state. Not all services deal with distressed customers but those that do should give some thought to the emotions that a customer is dealing with at the point of interaction.
Sketches. Anywhere that words are not enough – feel free to include sketches, diagrams, etc. to make the blueprint more user friendly.

Author/Copyright holder: brandon schauer. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

An example of a well-articulated service blueprint – with the swim lanes clearly defined and all interactions clearly demonstrated too.

The Key Elements of a Service Blueprint

Structuring your blueprint is a question of following a simple process:

Identify the process to be blueprinted.
Identify the customers to be served by the process.
Examine the customer’s perspective of the service (the customer journey)
Identify the actions on the service by employees, technology and other actors (suppliers, etc.)
Link activities together for natural flow in order that they occur
Ensure that you have identified the evidence and KPIs for a successful outcome

Notations on Blueprints

There are two common notations on a service blueprint. Arrows and annotations.

Arrows

Single headed arrows are used to denote the source of control moving to the next dependency. Double headed arrows show that agreements must be reached between actors prior to the process moving forward.

Annotations

You can make notes any way you like on your diagrams (they are after all, your diagrams) but it can help to build a legend and key for clarity and ease of communication.

Author/Copyright holder: Rosenfeld Media. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY 2.0

Service blueprints can be as detailed as you want to make them. Here you see notes and images against the swim lanes of a service blueprint.

The Take Away

Service blueprints are a great way of fully understanding the process related to a service. They enable you to map all the interactions related with delivering a service and to determine quality and time KPIs for those interactions. In a world where the line between product and service is becoming increasingly blurred it only makes sense for a UX designer to learn how to deliver and use service blueprints in their work.

Resources

You can find a technical paper on service blueprints offering more complexity to the process here -
https://paulallen.ca/documents/2014/06/service-blueprinting-a-practical-technique-for-service-innovation.pdf/
Lynn Shostack’s original article can be found at the Harvard Business Review - https://hbr.org/1984/01/designing-services-that-deliver/ar/1
Hero Image: Author/Copyright holder: Cameron Degelia. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY 2.0

Learn more about Service Blueprints

Take a deep dive into Service Blueprints with our course Journey Mapping .

This course will show you how to use journey mapping to turn your own complex design challenges into simple, delightful user experiences. If you want to design a great shopping experience, an efficient signup flow or an app that brings users delight over time, journey mapping is a critical addition to your toolbox.

We will begin with a short introduction to mapping — why it is so powerful, and why it is so useful in UX. Then we will get familiar with the three most common types of journey map — experience maps, customer journey maps and service blueprints — and how to recognize, read and use each one. Then you will learn how to collect and analyze data as a part of a journey mapping process. Next you will learn how to create each type of journey map, and in the final lesson you will learn how to run a journey mapping workshop that will help to turn your journey mapping insights into actual products and services.

This course will provide you with practical methods that you can start using immediately in your own design projects, as well as downloadable templates that can give you a head start in your own journey mapping projects.

The “Build Your Portfolio: Journey Mapping Project” includes three practical exercises where you can practice the methods you learn, solidify your knowledge and if you choose, create a journey mapping case study that you can add to your portfolio to demonstrate your journey mapping skills to future employers, freelance customers and your peers.

Throughout the course you will learn from four industry experts.

Indi Young will provide wisdom on how to gather the right data as part of your journey mapping process. She has written two books, Practical Empathy and Mental Models. Currently she conducts live online advanced courses about the importance of pushing the boundaries of your perspective. She was a founder of Adaptive Path, the pioneering UX agency that was an early innovator in journey mapping.

Kai Wang will walk us through his very practical process for creating a service blueprint, and share how he makes journey mapping a critical part of an organization’s success. Kai is a talented UX pro who has designed complex experiences for companies such as CarMax and CapitalOne.

Matt Snyder will help us think about journey mapping as a powerful and cost-effective tool for building successful products. He will also teach you how to use a tool called a perspective grid that can help a data-rich journey mapping process go more smoothly. In 2020 Matt left his role as the Sr. Director of Product Design at Lucid Software to become Head of Product & Design at Hivewire.

Christian Briggs will be your tour guide for this course. He is a Senior Product Designer and Design Educator at the Interaction Design Foundation. He has been designing digital products for many years, and has been using methods like journey mapping for most of those years.

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What are Service Blueprints?

Literature on Service Blueprints

Learn more about Service Blueprints

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Service Design - Design is Not Just for Products

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