hello this is Vish Krishnan in this module we are going to discuss one of the fundamental techniques to understand and improve a service system this is called service mapping and Blueprinting this simple but powerful technique becomes a valuable skill to both come up with new Innovative service ideas and also improve existing service organizations our approach entails drawing a picture of the service system to grasp its inner workings the picture helps us understand the customer's Journey how the system functions at its score and how it interacts with its customers and the internal as well as external environment because this is a service system customer interaction is key and mapping the customer journey is one of the first things we will do let's begin at the beginning with some definitions service map is really a diagrammatic description of an existing service system like a theater a restaurant or a bank a map that shows how the system works how it interfaces with its customers fulfills their needs and captures value service blueprint on the other hand is a pictorial description of a proposed system not a current system and it's used in the design and the construction of a new system much like we might use a design blueprint for building a new build building or a new Monument blueprints help us come up with a high performing service system as an outcome these terms maps and blueprints are sometimes used synonymously interchangeably in practice but for our purposes we'll distinguish them as follows a map is used to describe an existing system and a blueprint to conceive design new systems in the mapping case we are trying to describe an exist ing service system in the Blueprinting case we are trying to prescribe a new service system in both cases we are depicting several layers separated by dotted lines demarketing various boundaries we begin at the top with the customer Journey or the actions that a customer undertakes in the service setting customers and organizations and organizational employees interact across the line of interaction such employees who interact with customers are often called Frontline employees below the line of interaction we show the front office contact employees actions below the front office employee actions is the line of visibility that separates what is visible to the customer from what is not so visible to the customer anything below this line of visibility is the back office work that is invisible to the customer and and below this line we show back office employee actions and well below this are the support processes the infrastructural activities that form the core of the organization the last line the line of internal interaction separates specific back office work done for the customer from enterprise-wide support infrastructure that can be leveraged across customers a map or blueprint therefore shows the component steps are activities involved the support activities and the customers experience of the service these are particularly useful in the design and redesign stages of a new service and they also help align the varying views of different people involved in delivering the service customers employees owners managers let's understand the service map and blueprint with a concrete example consider your visit as a customer to your favorite eery restaurant be it A burrito place a pizzeria or even a fancy restaurant your journey as a customer entail several steps starting with your arrival at the eery then you wait to be checked in and seated then you might order drinks appetizers you then decide what ENT entry to order and wait to place an order the food arrives you enjoy it Place more orders like desserts pay and then leave of course some steps are combined in the case of a fast food restaurant for example you order ons all the items you need and may also pay up front for now let's consider a sit in restaurant to understand a service map your journey as a customer involves many points of contact with the service professionals these are called the touch points for the service facility like when you're seated when you place an order when you pay all these are touch points to understand a service we need to map these touch points at the line of interaction between this customer and the Frontline employees if we want the customer to have a good experience want them to become a satisfied delighted customer we must practice and perfect this customer interaction and be prepared to improv as necessary quite often this needs a performance a theatrical performance to entertain and Delight the customer a jayen or show Steven colar be even better but there still need to be some preparation for this show beyond the interaction the service system must exert effort to meet the customer needs food must be prepared a clean Ambiance a nice Ambiance needs to be maintained how how this is done may not be visible to the customer these back office tasks happen below the line of visibility so anything below this line of visibility is invisible to the customer and this is therefore called the back office we strive for efficiency in this area like in a factory we want good food to be prepared as fast as possible in an economical manner like in a factory now deep inside the service system well below the line of visibility there are support systems and infrastructure that help ensure the functioning and the success of the system we need a good differentiated design concept and an appealing menu for customers to come here we must ensure capacity adequate supply of servers even chefs the restaurant must procure ingredients raw materials good ones and it must have the knowhow find finally the system must maintain good relationships with its suppliers and also good financial and accounting systems to ensure smooth functioning so these are at the core of the Enterprise in summary to ensure Superior performance a service system like the restaurant must manage both tangible and intangible elements tangible elements are on the y- AIS good fresh health food is necessary but not sufficient we we need robust interactions the intangible elements we need Superior management of this intangible experience otherwise customers will not return and may even go and complain on sites like Yelp so good service management is about anticipating these interactions to ensure success but also to recover fast from any service failures to achieve a loyal even a cheerleading customer successful management of such high contact service requires empathizing with the customer understanding what they're going through understanding their anxiety their stress levels during the waiting at even arrival and also at the payment so here is a chart that shows how the anxiety or stress level May fluctuate and we want to understand that and the key here is to try to manage the Stress and Anxiety with counter measures such as Rich communication and process design to minimize the anxiety for example by explaining the weight why there is a weight and how much the weight might be suppose you're now considering opening a new restaurant you'll be designing this new service experience this is when you draw a blueprint of the service system to decide how the customer will interact with your system what you anticipate to be the customer's journey and the process and support tasks needed to fulfill the customer you will seek to specify the physical iCal Ambiance for the customers anticipate principal customer interactions Define that line of interaction between the customers and your Frontline front office Personnel you'll Define standards for various front office activities you even demarcate the line of visibility between the front and back office set service standards for back office activities and make sure everything is failure proofed so that we can have a smooth customer experience if you're Blueprinting a restaurant you know you would start by specifying certain standards like manage seating and take order within 5 minutes serve the food in 15 minutes ensure that the food is of good quality by checking with the customer at least once we also decide what to keep below and what to keep above the line of visibility in designing the service experience for example example you may decide whether the customer gets to see the food being made or not these are important choices and have implications for the type of customers you attract and how much they pay and how you grow as a business so compare and contrast two different Mexican fast food places like a Chipotle and a rubias at Chipotle you get to see the food being assembled being made so making food is above the line of visibility at Rubios for example food preparation is below the line of visibility you don't get to see the food being made so these are two different design choices that these organizations have made in their Blueprinting exercise think about it the next time you visit a service facility how they have designed their facility so customers may be entertained by seeing the food being made but it may also slow down the food preparation so there are trade-offs that's the heart of service design so what the service mapping and Blueprinting exercise shows us is that service quality requires enormous cross functional interfunctional collaboration teamwork between operations marketing human resources and other administrative functions of a company um to really deliver a seamless customer experience these teams from oper and marketing have to come together and support each other so mapping and Blueprinting are really helpful uh to organizations to meet their service goals after all most organizations want to not just attract customers but they want to satisfy them if possible Delight them make them come back buy more upgrade and engage in more valuable relationships so they want to retain them as customers for life cheerleading customers by engaging in mapping and Blueprinting we can identify opportunities and also challenges in improving the service quality at our Enterprise as you may have already guessed there are number of ways we can put service mapping and Blueprinting to good use broadly speaking for improving performance performance quality and also to design new services in the area of quality improvement service mapping and Blueprinting can help us in identifying weak touch points recovering from service problems service failures conducting root cause analysis and improving the interfaces and the processes that support the customer but service mapping Blueprinting is also invaluable for new service Innovation and development specifically service Blueprinting it is very useful in developing a service concept so to build a service map or blueprint we begin by defining and identifying the system to be mapped we typically start by mapping the customer Journey or customer experience map as it's sometimes called we Define the customer or the customer segment we are going to map is it a student customer or an older family customer or a tourist or a business customer after finishing this customer Journey or the customer experience map which is the topmost layer you proceed to detail the organizational touch points and interorganizational and support processes so in summary service mapping and Blueprinting are a key approach to put the customer Frontline and service organizations together into a single unified view of how a service works you look at what customers see from outside what the customer does what the Frontline employee does and what goes on behind the scenes on the backstage well mapping helps understand a current service systems operational features performance characteristics service Blueprinting helps us visualize formulate choreograph new service approaches and solutions that are not even available yet so both these approaches are helpful in the design and Analysis of service systems to improve customer satisfaction to create and capture value and to get organizational performance