The full question

What type of research and preparation should I do before I start designing a service blueprint?

My two cents

To create a good summary. You need to know the content that you're trying to summarize.

The Service Blueprint summarizes how an experience will be felt by the people who are using it, and what is needed to make this experience happen?

So here we already see that there are two separate worlds that we have to analyze and understand.We have to understand the processes, the tools, the systems in place. That's, what service designers call the backstage.We have to understand the different interactions, the different moments or different emotions, that people go through in the service.

There are plenty of ways to get to these informations:

Observation

Look at how people really use the service. Shadow employees while they are working in order to make the service happen.

Interviews

Speak with customers. Speak with employees, speak with external partners.

They will quickly let you know, what's really great about the service and where it really sucks. Which are information that are really useful to put in a Service Blueprint.

Use existing data

In many existing services we have already a lot of data.

It can be documents that explain the process, analytics tools, standard operating procedures, or just good old PowerPoints.

You don't have to start from scratch because in many companies, there is already a lot of research, analysis that has been done.So definitely you can use the work done by others to make your work much quicker.

And it also shows respect for the work that has already been done.

Don't speak just with experts

What's important when you do this type of research is that you don't speak only to the experts, but that you speak also to the people who are doing the work.

So don't just speak to the managers.For example, speak to the receptionist and the front office workers.

And also speak with the people who are usually hidden.For example, the cleaning team usually knows a lot about what happens in a company.

Know when to stop

And it's once that you feel that you have a good understanding about how the service works, that you can really start building a Service Blueprint.

But you might ask Daniele: How do I know if now I really understood how the service works?

If you feel that your understanding of how the service works has really changed from your first assumptions, that's usually the sign that you have learned something, and that now you are at a more mature understanding.

And therefore you can start mapping a service blueprint.

But if you feel that you just discovered stuff that you already knew, that might mean that you still need to do a bit more research.

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