SERVICE BLUEPRINTS

A system of touchpoints is used for delivering products and services that cross channels and which has a mixture of both digital and human interactions. The service blueprint is a picture or a drawing that enables the designers to see even behind what goes on when the service is to be offered and exam the systems that makes it possible to deliver the services to the customers. It makes possible to understand service creation and delivery systems possible through an extensive description of the service process (Koljonen and Reid, 2000). It does have some pitfalls though. One demerit is that it normally looks at the processes from a company's perspective than from customer's perspective. Also, the blueprint can only explain actions or events which are observable (Kingman-Brundage 1989). Thus, for an effective analysis of the flowchart managers require to replace their own perceptions of the service delivery with customers' experience of the service delivery.