SERVICE DESIGN TOOL CREATION
Service Blueprinting for Essense and PostNL
Client: Essense Service Design & PostNL, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: 09-12.2015
Role & Responsibilities: Project Planning and leading the process, Co-Creation Research, Concept, Visualisation, Prototyping and Testing
CHALLENGE & CASE
Create a service design tool/template for Essense Design Team will be used as a template in different projects.
There was a need to use a new tool to show the big picture not only in customers point of view but also the organisation. PostNL parcel shipment case was chosen to examine the template framework. As a result, a modular and scalable service blueprint template was created.
DESIGN PROCESS & MY ROLE
My role was leading the project to co-create a design solution with the team. Essense Design Team contributed to co-creation by giving feedback and ideas about the template, whereas PostNL Scrum Team members provided content information and shared their experiences about the selected case.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Why is there was a need for a new tool/ template?
To show the big picture not only in customers point of view but also the organisation.
To show how backend actions linked with the customer journey and how is the interaction between backend actions and the customer journey.
To show what are the roles of the actors in the organisation and how they affect the service experience and interact with the service.
SOLUTION
The solution is a modular and scalable blueprint structure can be adapted according to the case by adding or removing layers.
In the given case, there were more than thirty backstage services in the digital environment. To map out the alignment of these services with customer actions, the idea of scalability occurred. In order to have an easy to read map, we utilised modularity of the template and turned off the front-stage layers.
OUTCOME
We mapped out several cases in PostNL parcel and mail shipment and co-created the modular & scalable service blueprint template.
IMPACT
Blueprints are in use now and will be updated quarterly. Both Essense design team and PostNL scrum team use the delivered work.
These blueprints used for
Understand the big picture
Pitch a new project (for Essense as a consultancy)
Optimisation (refinements, scrum meetings, showing points to improve, plotting out the good and bad experiences and gaps to improve).
Communicate with different departments, co-workers and third parties
Create awareness and process ownership and credibility (By showing the big picture to employees. Plotting out the roles and which part of the journey your role is it, and internal communication tool between departments to understand roles and responsibilities)
These blueprints can also be used for
Learn how does the service work (esp. for new employees)
Show new opportunities and sell new offerings
TESTIMONIALS
Arjen de Jong, Senior Designer at Essense
“It helped me already when Begum is working on it, stating the importance of Collo tracking service. When you see this service takes part all over the journey, immediately communicates the importance of this backend service.”
“The cool thing about the modular idea is that we can plot another layer that which plots the pain points of the customer, and you can start optimising with improvements.”
Karen Groenink, Senior UX Designer at Essense
“Finally, I feel we have a complete picture, from basically the front facing customer touchpoint with PostNL but also what are implications of a user action for PostNL and how do these backend services relate to what the user is doing. So we can basically identify gaps maybe convoluted services maybe things that are not in a right order.”
Harald Lamberts, Founder and Director of Essense
“It was a pleasure having Begum at Essense and great to see she provided real value-add that is actually used in our client work now. We translated the journeys to Dutch, and we use from now on.”