A service is something that helps someone do something such as buy a car. Service design is a creative and collaborative practice that is all about making the service you deliver useful, usable, efficient, effective and desirable. It helps improve the experiences of both the user and employee by designing and aligning the operations of the organisation. It also helps an organisation to see their services from a customers perspective so they can aim to provide a seamless and quality service experience.
<aside> đź’ When developing my A&E waiting service, taking into the service design principles is crucial in supporting its success. My taking a more human centred approach, I am able to not only take into consideration the needs and requirements of those who use my new service but also those impacted by it such as the A&E staff experience and the experience of family members who are supporting the patient use the service. By using an collaborative approach throughout my project, I have been able to get different perspectives on the current A&E system from stakeholders, experts and users and hope to be able to redesign a service which helps improve the overall patient satisfaction as well as supporting patients and their families needs and preferences. At times we can also be iterative by changing the overall idea and designs based on others feedback and what will make the service the most productive and the best user experience. I can also use a sequential approach of my service with touchpoints for users to use along the way which are practical, functional and effective for the users. Overall to do this, I need to take a holistic approach to ensure it considers all aspects from the design of physical touchpoints to the sensory and emotional service aspects. By following these principles I hopefully should create a good service,
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A service blueprint is a diagram that visualises the relationships between different service components that are directly tied to touchpoints in a specific customer journey. The service design process normally starts with the current state blueprint before the research, user journey, ideation, storyboard and then the future state blueprint and touchpoints.
A current state service blueprint looks at an existing service experience and answers questions such as what is the current client experience of this service for particular scenarios? how is the organisation delivering that service experience through processes, systems, people, policies, and more? Some people refer to it as an “audit” of the current experience and the current organisational practices that result in that experience. Unlike the current state blueprint, a future state service blueprint is about inventing something new, both for the client and for the organisation. When trying to imagine a new service, you have to consider what the service should be offering, what's their ideal experience and how the organisation might deliver the desired client experience. Future state service blueprinting can help your team to balance the tough conversations about resourcing, process, systems, implementation and support that are necessary in order to create a great, new client experience.
Group Task
The outcome from creating blueprints and a service is the touchpoints that the end users will use. To start thinking about different ways our services could be used in a healthcare setting we picked two healthcare setting from the following list: Local GP/Health Centre, Accident and Emergency Department, Hospital Outpatients, Dental Services and Private Healthcare.
My group looked at Accident and Emergency Department and Dental Services and started thinking of different touchpoints both more common ones that comes to mind such a apps and websites but also more out there ideas such as signs, leaflets and letters.
A service blueprint expands on a customer journey map, detailing every interaction a customer has with an organisation however unlike a journey map, a blueprint goes deeper and examines all supporting physical and digital interactions. Blueprints are usually used when designing a new service or improving/ understanding an existing service. It allows you to create service prototypes as well as identify, eliminate or improve pain points.
A service blueprint is broken up into 5 main lanes: