Service Blueprint

The tool helps clarify how front-end and back-end processes align via different touchpoints of the service. This helps organizations, and their internal departments/silos, gain perspective of the different facets of the service delivery. The blueprint allows organizations to then address specific barriers to effective value delivery and improve its services. 

The Service Blueprint can be used to understand cross-functional relationships and align front-stage and back-stage processes. It is a diagram that displays the entire process of service delivery, by listing all the activities that happen at each stage, performed by the different roles involved. The resulting matrix illustrates the flow of actions that each role needs to perform along the process, highlighting the actions that the user can see (above the line of visibility) and the ones that happen in the back-office (below the line of visibility). Roles can be performed by human beings or other types of entities (organizations, departments, artificial intelligences, machines, etc.).  

This tool could be useful to protoype solutions before contracting.  

The activity is better done in a group of members coming from all of the areas of activity. They are engaged in constructing the different phases. One of the positive externalities of the process is the creation of new relationships between actors, providing the basis of future and further activity and collaboration.

The Service Blueprint should involve a representative from each area of the service.  

The first step is to identify which user you’re planning for: customer or beneficiary if you have more than one. Then plot out the different steps that are taken before, during and after using the service [See Customer Journey Map]. Some prompting questions could include: How do you engage the users and notify them of your service? What happens when they decide to use it? How do you stimulate re-use of the service or properly end the use of the service? These are all questions that must be considered when constructing the blueprint of the service.  
After mapping out the steps of the user, the rest of the worksheet can be filled out line by line according to the steps individuated. At the end of the activity, a line of interaction is created between what happens out front (customer) and what needs to happen in the back (organization). This allows for successful planning or improvement if necessary. At the bottom of the tool, there’s room for ideas on how to improve at each phase.  

The tool should be translated into the local language. If needed, additional features and elements can be added.