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Items Description of Module

Subject Name Management

Paper Name Services Marketing

Module Title Service Blueprinting

Module Id Module no.-12

Pre- ComprehensiveUnderstanding of Importance of Service Blueprinting in

Requisites Services Marketing

Objectives ToBuild Framework of Service Blueprinting for Effective Services Delivery

Keywords Service Blueprinting, Framework, Components, Service Mapping, Services

Delivery

QUADRANT-I

TEXT

Introduction

SERVICE BLUEPRINTING

The service process is an element of augmented marketing mix and vital point of value chain.
Service process is a way of undertaking transaction, supplying information and providing
services in a way which is acceptable to the customer and effective to the organization. One
of the keys to matching service specification to customer expectation is the ability to describe
the critical service process characteristics objectively and to depict them so that the
employees, customers and managers alike know what the service is, can see their roles and
understand all the steps and flows involved in the process. Shostack introduced the concept of
Blueprinting for designing and specifying intangible service processes. (M.K.Rampal,
S.L.Gupta)
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A service blueprint is a visual portrayal of the service plan that displays the service by
simultaneously depicting the process of service delivery, the point of customer contact, the
role of customer and employees and the visible element of the service. It allows the marketer
to evaluate which tasks are more critical and which are prone to failure. This technique can
be used not only for developing new innovative services as well as for improving the existing
services. (Valarie A. Zeithaml)

Building a Service Blueprint

The development of the blueprint needs to involve a variety of functional representatives as

well as information from the customer. Following points should be considered.

Step 1- Identify the service process to be blueprinted - Oneshould break down the
complex process into small steps and identify those parts of services which are not visible to
the clients. Example: Purchasing of supplies.

Step 2- Identify the customer or the customer segment experiencing the service-
The needs of the each customer segment is different and requires the variation in the service
design. Blueprints are useful when developed for customer or the customer segment
assuming that the service processes varies across the service segment. Separate blueprint
should be developed to avoid confusion and maximize their usefulness.

Step 3 - Map the service process from the customer’s point of view -

This step involves charting the choices and actions of the customers in purchasing,
consuming and evaluating the service. This step will help avoid focusing on processes and
the steps that have no customer impact. This step focuses on who the customer is and
involves the considerable research and observation to determine exactly how the customer
experiences the service. Sometimes the beginning and ending of the service from the
customer‟s point of view are not obvious.

Step 4- Map contact employee actions - First the lines of interaction and visibility are
drawn and the process from the customer contact person‟s point of view is mapped,
distinguishing visible onstage activities from the invisible backstage activities. For the
existing services this step involves preparing frontline operation employee to learn what they
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need to do and which activities they are expected to perform in full view of customers versus
which activities are carried out in back-office.

Step 5- Link contact activities to needed support functions - The line of internal
interaction can be drawn and linkages from contact activities to internal support functions can
be identified. In this process, the direct and indirect impact of internal actions on the
customer becomes apparent. Internal service processes take on added importance viewed in
connection with their link to the customer. Alternatively, certain steps in the process may be
viewed as unnecessary if there is no clear link to essential internal support service.

Step 6 - Add evidence of service at each customer action step - Finally, the
evidence of the service can be added to blueprint to demonstrate what the customer see and
experience as tangible evidence of the service at each step in the process. A photographic
blueprint, including photos, slides or the video of the process can be very useful at this stage
to aid in analyzing the impact of the tangible evidence and its consistency with the overall
strategy and service positioning.

Step 7 - Isolate fail points - In this step the expert should build failure-safe sub process in
order to correct possible errors

Step 8- Establish time frame - The execution time frame of services is a major cost
determinant factor for calculating maximum of deviation.

Step 9- Analyze profitability - The expert must quantify the cost of delay and establish
the time of service execution standard in order to analyze the profitability from the
distribution of service. (Valarie A Zeithaml)

Different Components of Service Blueprinting

The convention for drawing service blueprint is not rigidly defined. Thus, the particular
symbols used the number of horizontal lines in the blueprint and the labels for each part of
blueprint may vary somewhat depending on complexity of blueprint being described. One of
the service blue printing‟s major strengths is its flexibility when compared with other
mapping approaches. The key components of the service blueprint are given below with the
example of Hotel Stay Service:-
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(http://www.csia.com.au/~csiacoma/wp-content/uploads/2011)

1. Customer actions: This area involves the steps, choices activities and interactions that a
customer performs in the process of purchasing, experiencing and evaluating the service. The
total customer experience is apparent in this area of blueprint. For example, as shown in
above blueprint for the overnight hotel stay service customer is actively involved and his
activities and interactions in the hotel at various point of time is shown in customer action
component such as arrive at hotel , checks in , sleep shower receive food ,checks out and
leave.

2. Contact employee action: Parallel to the customer action there are two areas of
contact employee action which are as follow-:
(i) Onstage/Visible contact employee action-: The activities that the
contact employee performs that are visible to customer are onstage /
visible contact employee actions.(Valarie A Zeithaml) For example in
above diagram employees directly interact with the customer through
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the activities such as greet and take bag, process registration, deliver
bags , deliver food , process checkout.
(ii) Backstage/invisible contact employee action-: These are the actions
that occur behind the scenes to support the onstage activities. In the
above example backstage activities include take the bag to room and
take food order.

3. Support processes: This section covers the internal services, steps, and interactions that
take place to support the contact employees in delivering the service. As in the above
example activities which are performed to support frontline employee actions are registration
system, prepare food and registration system.
4. Physical evidence: In the blueprint physical evidence is listed at the top of each point
of contact. These are also known as peripheral evidence. These are not essential for the
operation of core service, but have important bearing on the service delivery. A customer
may get attracted or detracted from the services because of these peripheral evidence such as
newspapers or magazines to read, appointment cards. As in the above example, each step in
the customer section area is also associated with various forms of physical evidence, from the
hotel parking area and hotel exterior and interior used at guest registration, the lobby, the
room and the food. (R.Srinivasan)

Preparation of Service Blue Print

The stages involved in blue printing preparation are:-
1. Representation of Product (Service) in its molecular structure: In case of services the
intangible elements dominates in the blueprint design. In blue print design intangibles
elements are represented by circles, whereas tangible elements are represented by square. As
each intangible element of molecular structure have varying degree of importance. The size
of element will be drawn according to its prominence. For example in hair dressing service
the larger circle will be drawn for hair cutting skills as it is a key intangible element of the
hair dressing service whereas for the skills like hair styling will be shown by smaller circles
as it is subsidiary intangible element.
Though some service providers argue that the molecular structure stage could be omitted in
the preparation of service blue printing and final version of molecular diagram may seem
very obvious but it may be undertaken for the following reasons.
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a) It concentrates the mind and provokes the valuable discussion: This stage helps in knowing
actual skills required to meet the customer wants.
b) It increases the understanding of the services being offered: In this stage we establish the
importance of the different skills required for the service by evaluating these skills which
further helps us in better understanding of the services being offered.
2. Breaking down the process into logical steps: At this stage the whole service process is
broken down into logical steps. To affect a satisfying experience, service provider develops a
script which is defined as pre-determined, stereotype sequence of actions that defined a well-
known situation. The script basically tells the customer what his role should be in the
sequence of the events and what other people are likely to do. For each step in the process
performance is monitored and set against organizations specifications and customer
expectations. More the service received confirms to the script more is the customer
satisfaction.
3. Recognizing the variability in the process: In the service blueprint fan symbol is used to
denote variability within the process. The variability can be either planned or unplanned.
Where the variability is planned the fan follows a rectangle whereas variability is unplanned
the fan follows the circle. It is important, at this stage, in the service design process to design
where the unplanned variation may occur and to anticipate a potential service failure point.
Also set the executional standards that are tolerance around each function which are
acceptable from the customer and the cost point of view.
4. Identify the back stage elements in the process: Backstage elements are shown in the
process after the line of visibility, which distinguishes front office from the back office.
These elements include the activities which are performed to support visible actions of the
employees. Many of the backstage elements themselves can be represented as processes.
(M.K. Rampal, S.L. Gupta)
Service Mapping
It is a technique which is used to portray an existing service situation and provides a useful
tool to assess and identify service evidence opportunities. These are built on blueprints and
provide two important additional information features to the service provider.
1. Provide greater attention to customer interaction that is paying more attention on front
stage activities.
2. Provide visual representation of the structure of the service by drawing additional vertical
layers. ( R.Srinivasan).
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In the service map the horizontal axis represent the process and the vertical axis represent the
structure of the service. A service map may be read horizontally from left to right to
understand the actions or steps that might be performed by either customer or the contact
employees of firm, or it may be read vertically to understand structural relationship that exist
to support the actions of the customer and the employees. Larger the service organization the
greater the need to make clear structure in order that service logic is understood by
employees.(M.K. Rampal, S.L. Gupta) In service map, the service organization structure
depicted on the vertical axis becomes more clear through dividing lines. These lines are as
follows:-

SERVICE BLUEPRINT COMPONENTS

1. Line of Interaction: This denotes the distinction between the customers and the
frontline employees. (R. Srinivasan)
2. Line of Visibility: This line separates all the service activities visible to customer from
those not visible to customer. This line also separates what the contact employees do onstage
from what they do backstage. For example in a medical examination situation the doctor
would perform the actual exam and answer the patient‟s questions above the line of visibility
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or onstage, whereas the doctor might reads the patients chart in advance and dictates notes
following the exam below the line of visibility or backstage.(Valarie A Zeithaml)
3. Line of Internal Interaction: This line separates the customer-contact employee activities
from the operations support staff activities. The interaction between them normally occurs
out of sight of customers.
4. Line of Implementation: This line divides the operations staff and general management
services. The latter may be located physically at a distance from the former and are not
therefore directly involved with implementing the service. (M.K. Rampal, S.L. Gupta)
Advantages of Blueprinting
1. Provides an overview: The employees can relate „what I do‟ to the service viewed as an
integrated whole, thus reinforcing a customer oriented focus among employee.

2. Identifies fail points: Blueprint helps to identify weak points of the chain of service
activities. These points can be the target of the continuous quality improvement.

3. Improves service design: Line of interaction between internal customers and employees
illuminates the customer‟s role and demonstrate where the customer experiences the quality,
thus contributing to informed service design.

4. Rational service design: line of visibility promotes a conscious decision on what the
customer should see and which employee will be in contact with customer, thus facilitating
the rational service design.

5. Continuous qualityimprovement: line of the internal interaction clarifies interfaces

across departmental lines, with their inherent interdependencies thus strengthening
continuous quality improvements.

6. Identifies resources-: Provide the basis for identifying and assessing cost, revenue, and
capital invested in each element of service.

7. Facilitates top down bottom up approach to quality improvement: It enables the

manager to identify channels and support quality improvement efforts of gross root employee
working both frontline and support teams. Employee work team can create a service map and
thus more clearly apply and communicate their experience and suggestion for improvement.
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8. Constitute a rational basis for internal and external marketing: Service blue print
becomes a rational basis for internal and external marketing. For example the service map
makes it easier for an in-house promotion team to overview a service and select essential
messages for communication.(M.K. Rampal, S.L. Gupta)

Service Failure

Whether it is drawing a blueprint or a service map, failures cannot be totally avoided.

However, the points of potential service failures can be identified and “Fail Safe” can be
designed to reduce their occurrences. According to Chase and Stewart, server errors can be
described as a task, treatment or tangibles.

 Task errors-: These errors include doing work incorrectly or work not requested, or
doing work in the wrong order or too slowly.
 Treatment errors-: These errors include failure to acknowledge, listen to, or react
appropriately to a customer.
 Tangible errors -: These errors may be caused by failure to clean facilities or provide
clean uniforms, or by failure to control the ambient conditions in the physical
environment.
In the case of auto dealer service, all these types of errors do commonly occur. It is only by a
reduction of such errors does a service quality improve. Customer errors can be related to
preparation of the service encounter, the encounter itself, or to the resolution of the
encounter.

 Preparation errors -: These errors may occur because of the failure of the customers
to understand their roles properly in a service encounter.
 Encounter errors-: These errors may be due to customers‟ failures to follow the
service process properly.
 Resolution errors-: these errors may be due to failures of the customers to point out
the service failures, lack of learning from experience, or lack of appropriate post-
encounter actions.
By taking proper proactive strategies, potential service failure points can be minimized.

Application of Service Blue Print

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The service blue print of existing service displays the real moments of the service provision.
It is possible to have a better understanding of the process success factors. Further analysis of
service can be done with different goals in the mind.

Possible objectives could be to increase the client satisfaction, to diminish the process times,
to reduce costs or to increase the service quality. The service blueprint can be used as starting
point for process cost analysis. Service blue print based simulation can aid in service analysis.
Depicting a service with service blueprinting does not automatically guarantee its validity.
With the help of simulations, trouble spots in the process design can often be exposed.

Complexity, Divergence and Service Positioning using Blue Prints

According to Shostack blueprints can be used to determine the level of complexity and
degree of divergence of a service. Complexity relates to the number of steps and intricacies,
the greater is the complexity. The extent of planned scope or latitude which contact personnel
are given refers to the degree of divergence. Low divergence can result in a high level of
standardization. The symbol fan on the blueprints refers to points where varying degrees of
divergence can be considered. This complexity is related to the size and number of elements
in the blueprint, and divergence depends on the number of fans in the diagram. Any change in
complexity and divergence reflects on service provider‟s judgments on the current and
potential customer base. The molecular diagram of the blueprint will focus on the elements of
the process which affects the positioning and operation (R. Srinivasan).

Conclusion

The service process is the vital element of the marketing mix and it is designed to identify the
fail points and set executional standards of the service to customer expectations. For
introducing the process, there is need of thorough understanding of customer wants and
pattern of behavior. While designing a process, a process designer has to maintain a balance
between functionality, security, aesthetics and ease of use by staff. The blueprinting or flow
charting is a technique which is used when planning a new or revised process and prescribing
how it ought to function. The blueprint provides a visual portrayal of a service plan. Service
mapping is a technique which is used to portray an existing service situation and provides a
useful tool to assess and identify service evidence opportunities, the process of service