Article
Linking customer, business and IT through service blueprinting.
Published
14 August 2024
Did you know that while 80% of service companies believe they deliver a superior service proposition, only 8% of their customers actually agree?
Would you rather be among the 80% living in a bubble of self-assurance or join the elite 8% who truly excel in delivering exceptional service?
Challenges in translating business needs to IT requirements
Customer experience and overall satisfaction are often negatively affected when business requirements, representing customer needs, are lost in translation in the IT requirement specification phase.
Common pitfalls include:
- Strong internal focus instead of creating customer value
- Inefficient internal alignment
- Disconnection between IT development and business requirements
- Insufficient transparency across the organisation
- Setting up operations for carrying out service delivery
Transition to the elite 8% with service blueprints
Imagine a company as a patient visiting a hospital. To treat the patient effectively, a doctor must first diagnose the underlying issue. This diagnostic process often involves various scans such as X-rays, MRIs and CT scans, each offering unique insights into the patient’s condition. Similarly, in a business context, a service blueprint acts as a comprehensive diagnostic tool, examining the complex interactions between legislation, customer, business operations and IT requirements.
Just as different scans reveal different layers of the patient’s health, the service blueprint visualises the multiple layers of the organisation’s processes, interactions and touchpoints. It supports identifying inefficiencies, misalignments and areas requiring improvement by providing a holistic view of the customer journey, business processes and IT landscape. This methodology ensures that the root causes of issues are addressed rather than merely treating the symptoms.
The service blueprint helps align different departments and stakeholders, similar to how multidisciplinary team meetings in healthcare provide a holistic 360-degree patient assessment.
By establishing a common language and shared understanding, service blueprint bridges the gap between customer, business and IT, ensuring that all efforts are aligned towards enhancing the overall customer experience.
The service blueprint
A service blueprint visually maps how an organisation provides services to customers, showing the interactions, processes and systems involved:
Is service blueprinting right for you?
Consider service blueprinting if:
- You manage services with both digital and physical touchpoints.
- You are implementing a new IT system or doing major upgrades.
- You face complex issues requiring comprehensive root-cause analysis, e.g. regulatory.
- Your customers report low satisfaction with your service.
Key benefits of service blueprinting
Across multiple projects, these benefits are most common:
Want to talk?
Reach out to our service blueprint experts:
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