Service Blueprinting for Customer Engagement | John Ayers
Listen to this episode:
“When industries have shifted because of technology, the way they work shifts. I think service design is reflecting the need to better understand those changes.”
Service Design is unique in its customer-centric practices because it views each experience in two components - the frontstage and backstage interactions. For every customer-facing activity (frontstage), there is a series of behind-the-scenes technology, training, and processes (backstage) required to create a positive interaction.
John Ayers, an LA-based service designer and customer experience designer, tells us all about why service blueprinting is a crucial element and how a business can adopt this process. He uses examples from his own work at a major university, to show that each step of a customer's journey has important components that must be acknowledged and perfected in order to provide a delightful experience.
John mentioned some great resources in the service design community, that anyone can use. Here are just a few to get you started:
Mary Meeker's Internet Trends Report - You can download the 2015 version, since the 2016 report has not yet been released.
Service Designs Tools - A huge resource of templates supporting the design process (including service blueprint templates).
Cooper - a design and strategy firm that wrote a great summary of service blueprinting.
Practical Service Design - a community resource by two service designers with a detailed download on service blueprinting.
This is Service Design Thinking - the definitive book on service design.
AND - if you are in the Los Angeles area, join John's Service Design LA meetup group.
This Episode's Design Challenge:
Think about a service that you typically interact with in your everyday life. What do you think are the backstage processes that went into creating this piece of the experience? Then, map the frontstage or backstage