A service blueprint is an operational facility that visualizes the components of a service in the appropriate detail to analyze, implement, and maintain it. Service blueprints illustrate the orchestration of people, service touchpoints, processes, and technology both onstage (what customers see) and offstage (what is behind the scenes). These blueprints are used to describe the existing state of a service experience as well as define and implement new or improved services. Service blueprints maintain focus on the customer experience while illustrate how operations deliver that experience, not to mention that they provide service documentation.
Service blueprinting creates a communal space where diverse groups – such as design, development, operations, business analysis, and frontline staff – can align on how the parts for which they are responsible connect to create a greater whole. As a communication vehicle, the service blueprint highlights dependencies within the organization and provides the foundation for roadmapping and piloting the reinvention or creation of an experience. Through increased collaboration and orchestration across functions, service blueprints allow organizations to deliver and maintain its envisioned experience for customers and employees.
IT Architects provides a service to develop Service Blueprints (also referred to as Service Designs) by applying design methods that formulate the definition and orchestration of products, communications, and interactions (i.e. service touchpoints), as well as the operations, values, and structure of an organization. It requires looking not only at the customer experience, but also the business experience. Thus, service design differs from what we know as user experience design (UXD). Service design examines value and experience from a multi-user perspective (customer, employee, and business), and is largely agnostic to channel and medium, and connects experience delivery to the operations and technology that produce it. IT Architects provides a flexible pre-built service blueprint template which is robust enough to manage the complexity that comes with multiple dimensions of service experiences, such as experiences with multiple digital touchpoints or experiences that cross multiple channels and business silos.
