Imagine the pilot episode of an ensemble television show; you meet each character one by one, find out their storylines and woes, before they all end up at the same coffee shop discussing their days and helping each other with their problems – for each episode, you need the main cast, a storyline, as well as a whole camera crew, production team, and directors to make it as realistic and believable for the audience as possible. Being able to understand and orchestrate all the different pieces that go into a pilot episode is like the making of a service blueprint. A service blueprint is a visual representation of the process of service delivery with all the key players in your business involved; from the actors, directors, production team, and script writers. Or in our case, from our clients to our web editors to our accountants.
Creating a service blueprint for your products may reveal your weak spots, redundant methodology, and most importantly, engage and cater to your customers in a way that they want. At Impact Signal, we have the knowledge, tools, and ambition to do just that. Here are several thoughts we have around creating an ideal service blueprint.
Find out more about your customers
The first important part is to find out who your customers are. Research their buying habits, read their reviews about your products or services, and dive into understanding their sentiment about your company or your brands. What do you think the customers are missing from having an overarching positive experience? You can find answers through both existing data and by conducting further research like interviews, focus groups, and product surveys.
Envision your customer’s POV
When it comes to successful service blueprinting, you also need to review your back-end players. This is where we tend to see clients struggle the most. In order to complete the service blueprint, you need to take into account everything your customer interacts with from their point of view, as well as all the teams and tools that would enable a positive customer experience to happen. Going back to our television show analogy, the teams would consist of wardrobe, hair and make up, lighting, and special effects. The result would be an amazing show that is an enjoyable viewing experience (we really love Friends!). By tracking KPI measurements and data analytics, it allows you to measure and track desired outcomes in relation to your customer’s experience.
Find those key moments for desired outcomes
By identifying and pulling together all the key moments, goals, and front and back end players, you can now prioritize measurable steps in what it would take to achieve your outcomes. Create call-to-actions, enable all your key players to assist in the needed experience outcomes, and figure out exactly what it is your team and customers need. In addition, don’t be afraid of learning about negative customer experiences as it provides a huge opportunity to make lasting service improvements. The service blueprint is simply a tool to follow and the reality of refining and iterating on it to achieve the desired outcomes is part of the process.
Your service blueprint isn’t just an overview of how your company offers its products and services now, it is a plan for the future and how to optimize your user’s experiences over time.
If you’re interested in creating or discussing how we can help you create an ideal service blueprint to optimize your deliverables, get in touch with us at hello@impactsignal.com.
