Here's something really interesting to look at as a service designer,
for instance.
So someone who is designing a new service or redesigning and
existing service will often use something call a Service Blueprint.
And there are few key things to keep in mind with the Service Blueprint.
It starts off at the customer's side.
So, if you look at this, this photo as a line of interaction.
This is where you have the interaction between the customer and
the people who are providing the service.
There's a lot of physical evidence involved.
So for example,
let's take a hotel that you're checking into when you travel somewhere.
So the physical evidence is the desk where you check in.
The door which lets you into the hotel itself.
The pen with which you might sign, the paperwork.
So all of those are examples of the physical evidence that is required for
that service to happen.
The customer actions, what do you do as a customer as you walk into a hotel?
Now you go there, you drop your bags, you talk to somebody.
So all of the things that you do as a customer are referred to
as the customer actions.
There's something called the onstage or
visible actions which is just above what's called the line of visibility.
Now these are all the visible interactions between the customer and
the service provider, right?
So you are the customer at this hotel.
The service provider is either the concierge or
someone who's standing behind the desk who's actually giving you a key and
giving you the service that you need, checking you in.
So all of this stuff that happens at that level, you sign in,
you giving your credit card,
you taking the key, all of that happens at this above the line of visibility.
And those are the onstage of visible actions.
It's refered to as onstage because the services are unfolding are on this stage.
The stage is the lobby of the hotel or the main entrance area of the hotel.
In addition to make that happen, in order to make that happen,
you need a series of backstage actions as well.
So these are often refered to as Invisible actions.
So what does someone need to do to allow this to happen?
So somebody needs to design the hotel.
Someone needs to create the software that's required for you to check in.
So someone has to do all the stuff in the back.
If you go to the restaurant at the hotel or if you go up to your room and
order room service, someone has to be able to manage the kitchen and
provide the services that you need.
So all of the actions that happen behind the scenes.
So you actually don't go into the kitchen.
You get the food but you don't see what's happening in the kitchen.
That's why it's referred to as backstage or invisible.
Things that have to happen but the customer actually does not see.
And finally, support processes.
What do you have to do in order to make this stuff happen,
in order to allow invisible as well as visible actions to take place?
For instance, you might need to hire a software engineer.
You might need to hire a company who will design the website for
the hotel that someone can go into, log in and book a hotel room.
You might need to hire someone to create uniforms for
the people who work at the hotel.
So, all of those can refer to as support processes.
So, what happens with a service blueprint is that as you're designing the service it
allows you to map the service.
It allows you to create a blueprint that you can then actually install
your services, you install and build the hotel.
You can make sure that things happen the way they should so
that the customer has the best experience possible.
Why, so that they keep coming back to that same hotel over and over again, right.
So this is an example of the service blueprint that service designers use in
order to create new services or to redesign existing services.