Expressive Service Blueprinting
Charting the Emotive Qualities of a Service Experience
Susan Spraragen
Page 1TJ Watson Research Center | Hawthorne New York
IBM
© 2009 IBM Corporation
Outline
Overview of Expressive Service Blueprinting
Form Groups – consider scenarios
Follow the first steps for constructing a
blueprint – using Service Design Workbook
Construct blueprint with your team
Share Results
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What is a designed service?
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SERVICE DESIGN
is about creating and taking decisive and deliberate
actions that will promote, support, and sustain
positive service experiences.
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If you wanted to design a service what would you do?
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Using design methods to meet your goals:
As you collect ideas and plans for acting on achieving
these goals –
 consider the client’s perspective
Service Blueprinting is a collaborative, thoughtful, and
revealing effort that produces a visualization of customer
interactions and behaviors as they are linked with provider
backstage events. This technique facilitates the
examination of how to align your service goals with the
client’s expectations and needs.
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Customer
Actions
Customer
Actions
Customer
Actions
Provider actions
Line of knowledge, awareness
Provider actions
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Provider actions
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An example of a traditional blueprint
How will my energy meter help me use energy more efficiently?
 Receiving a home metering device to measure
personal energy consumption
 Basic customer steps and backstage activities are
mapped out
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Back Stage Processes
On Stage Journey
Evidence
Client
Steps
Energy
Provider Steps
Energy
Provider Steps
Backend
Applications
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Back Stage Processes
On Stage Journey
Evidence
New Energy
meter arrives
Client Steps
Energy Provider
Steps
Follow meter
instructions
Energy
consumption
visualized
Conduct
normal
appliance
usage
Read
meter
Gee – how would
consumption
differ if I selected
“light” load for
my dishwasher?
Reduced
usage
Run
appliance
again
Read
meter
Install Meter, give
client instruction
package
Energy Provider
Steps
Backend
Applications
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Push feedback of
use to meter in
home
Push feedback of
use to meter in
home
Add readout to data base for
future analytics
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Introducing human qualities to the
service blueprint
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Acknowledging client emotions
GOAL: Design for a positive outcome that reinforces the value
of your service.
HOW:
“Emotion as an integral part to preparing action…is a tool for
making decisions….”
• How do you apply actions to your good intentions? What
can you do to bring customer from state of uncertainty
to understanding?
• What can you do to build trust and loyalty in the
relationship?
• Introducing Emotive States to the Design Process
Berthoz, Alain, Emotion and Reason: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Decision Making, Oxford University
Press, 2006.
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Making it Expressive
Collaborating with a service designer produces
unpredicted yet desirable outcomes.
“… A designer looks for the real thing we are trying to
accomplish, unvarnished by the residue of years of
organizational habit.”
Richard Boland Jr. and Fred Collopy, “Design Matters for Management”, Rotman Magazine
Spring/Summer 2006.
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Back Stage Processes
On Stage Journey
Evidence
New Energy
meter arrives
Energy
consumption
visualized
Reduced usage
Participation Points
Client State Skeptical, Uncertain
Enlightened, Enthused
Conduct
normal
appliance
usage
Client Steps
Follow meter
instructions
Energy
Provider
Steps
Install well packaged
Meter, give client
clear inviting
instruction package
Provider
State
Read
meter
Hopeful, driven
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Run
appliance
again
Read
meter
Pro-active, assurance
Energy
Provider
Steps
Backend
Applications
Gee – how would
consumption
differ if I selected
“light” load for
my dishwasher?
help consumer set
goals; suggest
alternative behaviors
Push feedback of use
to meter in home
Add readout to community
usage table for aggregated
compare
Push encouraging
enticing message to
user for changing
consumption behavior .
Share comparison data.
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Form Groups
Identify possible scenarios
Take out the workbooks
Let’s begin on page: 4
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1. Motivation
Why are you building this blueprint? How will it be used?
To create a new communications channel – online communities
To discover why service is failing
To design new service element
To monitor the health of the service relationship
To train new service team member – manage consistent delivery
To predict client responses so you can be better prepared
To define the client experience – for a variety of clients
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During a single service episode, the client’s emotive state may vary.
Expressive service blueprinting helps you find the right moment for
proactively preventing downturns in the client’s perception of the
service.
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2. Identify relevant emotive states
GOAL: Move Client from Negative to Positive Emotive responses during service
Worried,
Overwhelmed
Understanding
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Confused,
Frustrated
Clarity,
Calm
Resistant
Trust,
Acceptance
Unclear, Skeptical
Knowledgeable,
Credible
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3. Decompose Related Service Steps
 It is difficult and cumbersome to map out an entire
service, so it may be more helpful to focus on a
critical, unique, or problematic service segment first.
 Then within that service segment, roles, context,
setting, branch points can be explored.
 This foundation better sets the stage for producing a
blueprint in a timely and useful manner
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On Stage Journey
Back Stage Processes
Evidence
Action
Client
Steps
Emotive
State
Provider
Steps
Provider
Steps
Backend
Applications
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References
Gilmore, James, Pine II, B. Joseph, Authenticity: What
Consumers Really Want, Harvard Business School
Press, Boston, 2007.
Shaw, Colin, The DNA of Customer Experience: How
Emotions Drive Value, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Shostack, L.G., “Designing Services That Deliver”,
Harvard Business Review, January-February 1984.
Zeithaml, V., Bitner, M.J., Gremler, D.D., Services
Marketing-Integrating Customer Focus Across the
Firm, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2006.
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