How to use service blueprinting to achieve competitive advantage Monique Steijger, MSc One of the most powerful tools for creating competitive advantage is the Service Blueprint, a detailed description of the people, processes and systems involved in the delivery of a service. Service innovations such as pizza delivery and web tracking of packages are the result of service blueprinting. Companies often don’t start looking at the customer experience until sales have started to drop and complaint levels have gone up; a sure-fire way to loose any competitive advantage you may have had. But sales and complaint levels will not tell you why customers are deserting you. The service blueprint is a practical tool that offers identification of bottlenecks and innovation opportunities as well as opportunities to improve service quality. How service blueprinting works One of the most distinctive characteristics of services is their process nature. Unlike physical goods, services are dynamic, unfolding over a period of time through a sequence of events and steps. The service blueprint is a picture or map that accurately portrays the service processes. Before starting, you must decide which service process and which customer segment to focus on. Using input from cross-functional teams and, if possibly, customers, map the service process, starting from the customer’s point of view, and containing the following three elements (adapted from Zeithaml and Bitner): Customer actions and physical evidence These are the steps that customers take as part of the service delivery process, for example making a hotel reservation. Physical evidence, in the form of the tangibles that the customer is exposed to, is also mapped as this can influence quality perceptions. A “line of interaction” separates the customer actions from the next element: Contact employee actions There are two types of contact employee actions: © Copyright Monique Steijger, 2008. 1 www.silvercrestconsulting.com How to use Service Blueprinting to achieve competitive advantage • Direct interactions with the customer by contact employees as part of a face-toface encounter, for example registration of the customer when they present for check-in • Non-visible activities carried out by contact employees, for example taking the customer’s hotel reservation over the phone. A “line of direct experience” separates the two types of employee actions from the next element: Support processes and systems These are activities carried out by non-contact employees and information systems in order to enable delivery of the service, for example the reservation system and room preparation activities. The blueprint should also capture time needed for an action and time elapsing between actions. Redesigning the service process When your service process has been blueprinted, you can look at opportunities for redesign. Areas to focus on are the tangibles, timings, inefficiencies, and the employees delivering the service. Benefits are achieved when people do something differently in the delivery of their work, which is an improvement required by the business. Benefits should be measurable and aligned to the organisational strategy. To decide on the efficiency of specific tasks in the process and the benefits of potential new tasks, perform the following steps: Categorise the tasks in the service process Assign each task in the service process to one of the following three categories: Effective tasks A task is effective if it makes money, saves money, saves time or improves the quality of customer service and this fact can be measured. Hold on to these tasks. Necessary tasks A task is necessary if it is required by law, it supports an effective task or you are bound by an agreement to perform it. You may want to consider automation or outsourcing of these tasks to achieve efficiencies. Not yet effective tasks All other tasks fall into this category. They cost time, money or do nothing to improve the quality of service (yet). © Copyright Monique Steijger, 2008. 2 www.silvercrestconsulting.com How to use Service Blueprinting to achieve competitive advantage If there is a good chance that a task in this category will become effective in the near future, then you need to write down your assumptions and implement a way to measure the expected benefits. Review the need for this task within a set timescale. If it doesn’t look like this task will ever become effective, then you may need to get rid of it. Make sure you estimate how much time and money you save, but also what the business risk is, by doing this. Prioritise for new processes If you’re applying this tool to a new business process, you may need to decide which tasks to focus on first. For each effective task and not yet effective task document the potential benefit to your business (measured in terms of money made, time saved and quality of service improvement), costs, the chances of success and the assumptions you made. Tasks with a high success and benefit potential and low cost implications are obvious candidates for inclusion in your process. Reaping the benefits If you follow the above approach, you have a good chance to significantly increase your competitive advantage. It specifically allows you to: • Reinforce a costomer-oriented focus among employees • Identify process bottlenecks • Promote conscious decisions of which actions customers should experience • Clarify interdepartmental interfaces • Highlight the use of resources such as employee time and costs • Provide a rational basis to facilitate strategic and tactical decisions (e.g. for marketing and automation potential) • encourage quality improvement suggestions by all involved • Spot potential service innovations • Pinpoint where customers are inconvenienced, for example if the service is not reliable, consistent or keeping up with the times. Can you afford to have no overview of your service processes? Bibliography Debbie Jenkins: “Detox your marketing” Zeithaml & Bitner: “Services Marketing” © Copyright Monique Steijger, 2008. 3 www.silvercrestconsulting.com