Service Design Blueprint

When to use it

Use this tool to visualize and make sense of how a customer or user experiences a service by mapping out the interactions and relationships between different components.

What’s the purpose

A ‘Service Design Blueprint’ helps you to understand how a customer moves through the journey of engaging with your service by mapping out the interactions and relationships between different components.

How to do it

Start by giving your journey a name.
Using the example provided in the template and the guidance below, complete each row in the blueprint:Phase labels: These should be macro labels that might encompass more than one column. E.g. Explore and select an airline, check-in and boarding, in-transit, after journey.
Physical evidence: In this row, outline anything that the user comes into contact with along the journey. E.g. a website, a phone call or a concierge clerk.

Customer actions: Here you will map out the steps that the user themselves takes as they move through the journey of using or engaging with your service.

Frontstage actions: These are actions that occur during the service journey that CAN be seen by the user. E.g. ‘clerk checks customer bags in’.

Backstage actions: These are actions that occur during the service journey that CANNOT be seen by the user. E.g. ‘the customer’s bags are delivered to the airplane’.

Support processes: These are internal activities that support those who are delivering the service. E.g. the airline check-in system records that the customer has checked in and has two bags.

Helpful tips

Sometimes it’s easier to complete the ‘physical evidence’ row after you have done everything else, as it helps you to think through everything that’s happening and capture the touchpoints involved.
While completing each row, step into the shoes of the particular user you are focusing on. E.g. Empathize with the customer when completing ‘customer actions’, and with those delivering the service when completing the ‘frontstage actions’ and ‘backstage actions’.

Using this method in your day-to-day work

Practice using this method with your existing business, or to introduce others to it, pick something external that they will be familiar with, such as the local transportation system. This will help generate empathy and get them thinking with a systems’ mindset.