Customer Journey
A customer journey is an end-to-end process that a customer going through while accomplishing some task(s). A customer journey represents a coherent whole from the customer’s perspective in a certain context. It is a completeness that is meaningful to examine as a coherent whole.
Definition: A customer journey is a specialisation of a journey, which expresses what people go through in their lives: what a person feels, does or experiences over time. A journey represents a ‘slice of life’. It is a chronological and simplified representation of complex experiences.
A customer journey expresses what people go through: what a person feels, does or experiences over time.
Journey. A customer journey consists of a series of activities, the journey steps, that a customer is taking when accomplishing certain task(s). Those journey steps represent events and activities a customer experiences and does during the journey. With journey steps, it is possible to make visible what a customer feels, does or experiences when trying to accomplish a task. Note! A journey can be, not only customer journey, but also e.g. employee journey (if we want to design what an employee experiences while doing some tasks or uses services).
Customer Experience. The definite customer experience is an aggregation, combined influence, of all the journey steps of the customer journey. In addition, the customer experience is influenced, not only by moments in the customer journey, but also by the brand of the enterprise, and all the contacts and interactions with the enterprise, as well as all the marketing and media content that reach the customer. Customer Experience can be recognised in the following levels: a) functional, b) emotional and c) purposeful.
Customer Experience conveys how the customer feels after using a service, how the customer values the service quality against value propositions promised by the enterprise, and to what extent the service fulfills the customer’s expectations.
Channel. The journey steps can consist of touchpoints, with which the customer interacts with the enterprise. These touchpoints can be attached with channels, that represent the interactions with products and/or services provided by the enterprise.
Tasks. The purpose of a customer journey is to accomplish some task(s). There can be an ultimate task that a customer wants to achieve, and several sub-tasks on the intermediate steps of the journey. Serving those tasks makes the customer journey interesting from the enterprise’s point of view. The tasks represent the needs of a customer. The enterprise tries to fulfill the customer’s needs by providing services and/or products.
EDGY provides elements with which a customer journey can be modelled. EDGY is a simple language that consists of only four base elements: 1) People, 2) Activity, 3) Object and 4) Outcome. These base elements can be specialised as Experience facet elements accordingly Journey (Activity), Channel (Object) and Task (Outcome). People element can be specialised into any stakeholder group, for example customer(s). These specialisations are shown in the figure below.
A customer journey is a specialisation of a journey, which can be expressed as shown below.
A customer journey is an end-to-end process that a customer is going through while accomplishing some task(s).
On the journey and for the tasks customers use products and/or services provided by the enterprise. Products and/or services are “what an enterprise makes, offers and delivers for people’s benefit.” A customer journey visualisation can be enriched with the services and/or products that are serving the tasks as shown in the figure below.
Products and/or services are “what an enterprise makes, offers and delivers for people’s benefit.”
Customer Journey Map. Mapping is matching elements together: matching actors to roles, people to profiles (skills & competencies), and in the case of customer journeys, matching tasks to products and/or services.
This view can be used for positioning customer tasks (a.k.a. customer needs) in line with products and/or services the enterprise offers. With this analysis, it is possible to find opportunities for possible new products/services.
The customer journey is just half of the whole story. As a customer journey focuses on the customer perspective, with a service blueprint it is possible to complement the whole picture to cover also the organisation perspective.
Service Blueprint
When a customer journey is enriched with services and/or products, we are getting closer to what we call a service blueprint (service model). That is a representation that is focused on the customer and customer journey, but also representing what activities are made by the enterprise that offers the products and/or services. As such a service blueprint is an overall view that connects customer experience to the operations of the enterprise.
The service blueprint defines a customer journey of customer’s activities together with the services and/or products and activities of the enterprise. The service blueprint is one of the most comprehensive customer-driven visualisations. There are many variations of them. The main idea is to show what is the customer doing while trying to accomplish task(s), and how is he/she served by the enterprise. As such, a service blueprint combines a) customer experience in the form of the journey with b) the task(s) to be accomplished, c) the products and/or services, provided by the enterprise, and d) the back-office processes and e) supporting applications.
Customers’ tasks are served by the products and/or services made by the organisation. Organisation builds a brand (or several brands for each product- and/or service areas) to communicate and represent the offerings.
The products and/or services are created by the processes of the organisation. Products and/or services require assets (such as applications, data, facilities, devices etc.).
An example service blueprint basic pattern is shown below. A service blueprint is a layered view that is built based on the customer journey on the top. All the elements are mapped with the journey steps and/or tasks.
A service blueprint is based on a customer journey that is a ‘timeline’ of customer experiences. The customer journey of a service blueprint can be divided into periods. Typical these periods are: 1) Pre-Service Period, 2) Service Period and 3) Post-Service Period. This simple time-based splitting into phases makes the overall service blueprint easy to understand and easy to design.
The service blueprint defines a customer journey of customer’s activities together with the services and activities of the enterprise.
Note! There is no typical or ‘standard’ service blueprint with commonly agreed terminology and visualization. Instead, there are many variations of it, some of which are shown here.
Simple basic structure:
Extended Basic structure:
Basic set of service blueprint EDGY elements are introduced in the table below.
Wikipedia: The service blueprint is a technique originally used for service design, but has also found applications in diagnosing problems with operational efficiency. The technique was first described by G. Lynn Shostack, a bank executive, in the Harvard Business Review in 1984.
Customer View
The products and/or services represent the waterline of the service blueprint. Products and/or services are what a customer sees. They represent the front stage according to the theater analogy. Other elements are not visible to the customer. Those elements are the backstage elements that are what the enterprise does.
Another example explaining the dualistic role of a service blueprint is the theater analogy. What a customer can see is visible on the front stage. What is invisible to the customer is on the back stage.
EDGY elements Product and Brand compose the customer-facing interface, whereas the Process, Asset and Organisation elements represent all that is needed so that the services and/or products can be delivered (realised & operated).
Customer Tasks (jobs to be done)
Customer-oriented design can be started by analysing the customer needs a.k.a. tasks. Tasks are crucial elements of service blueprints as they represent what is the most important: tasks are whatever a customer wants to do. As such the tasks represent the customer insight and what the customer wants to achieve. This is a fundamental starting point for analysing what products and/or services are needed to be provided by the enterprise.
Tasks can be harvested e.g. with surveys, or just observing and interviewing the customers. When the tasks are harvested, they can be grouped for further analysis.
When visualized, top tasks can be color-coded so that they can be easily recognized. Top tasks are the most important tasks for the customers, from which they gain the most benefit. From the enterprise’s point of view, top tasks are the tasks to which to focus and put effort – for to enable the best possible customer experience.
Tasks are whatever a customer wants to do.
Channels
Channels play an important role in serving the customers. Channels are the touchpoints via which the customers interact with the services of the enterprise. Channels can be visualised in the service blueprints in a layer between the customer journey and services and/or products.
Channels are the touchpoints via which the customers interact with the services of the enterprise.
Service Blueprint versions
A service blueprint can be variated in many different ways, some of which are shown below.
This simplified version below introduces only the mapping between customer tasks, services/products and back-end processes.
This version below depicts explicit journey steps.
This version below introduces channels between the journey steps and tasks.
…Channels can be positioned next to tasks if that makes more sense in some cases. For example, it is clear that tasks are part of the journey and connected directly with journey steps, whereas channels are positioned between tasks and products/services as channels are representing only entry points to products/services. That is, customers access products/services via the channels.
A service blueprint can be visualised in many different ways according to what is appropriate and fit for purpose.
Service Blueprint examples
Customer perspective and experience can be covered with these layers..
A simple basic example…
Same same but with organisation structures in the backstage showing ‘who is doing what’….
An advanced example…
Another example..
In addition to the customer perspective only, the enterprise’s operations can be visualised. Capabilities instead of processes used in back stage. This version combines customer experience and the enterprise’s architectural aspects.
Capabilities in back stage as capabilities are higher level elements. To use process- or capability elements in the back stage depends on the abstraction level used, which depends on the case and what is appropriate and fit for purpose.
Service Blueprint combines primarily experience and architecture facet elements.
To use process- or capability elements depends on the abstraction level used and what is appropriate and fit for purpose.
A service blueprint connects customer experience to the operational architecture of the enterprise.
Customer View and Organisation View
Customer View and Organisation View can be covered with the service blueprint, which can depict certain logical completeness from the customer’s experience to the operations.
- Customer has task(s) to do,
- which are supported and served by the products and/or services,
- that are produced by the capabilities
- of the organization,
- that have a purpose
- which is manifested by the brand
- to the customers.
What the customer sees is on the left, and what is hidden behind the scenes is on the right.
Customer View is taken from the customer’s point of view where the focus is on the customer.
A stakeholder map can be visualised from the customer’s perspective where the customer is put in the middle. The other stakeholders are positioned based on the visibility: those stakeholders that are in direct interaction with the customer are put in the next circle from the center. Those stakeholders that are invisible to the customer, but are involved with backstage processes, are put in the outer circle.
From Experience to operational architecture of an enterprise.
Design by Goals
All the designs, including service design and service blueprints, shall be derived from the goals of the enterprise. The high-level strategic goals and detailed operational-level goals can be further specified into measurable goals or outcomes. There has to be connection and traceability between the goals and designs in both directions. Otherwise either the goals can be disconnected from the operational reality and change activities, or the designs can be disconnected from the enterprise’s goals.
Goals connect design elements from the EDGY experience and architecture facets to the identity facet elements. An extended view introducing the EDGY elements with which a service blueprint can be modelled is shown below.
Goals without connection to design are useless, and design without linking to goals is an unnecessary waste of time.
Analyses
Security by Design
The security issues such as customer data protection and diverse security risks concerning applications, can be – have to be – covered already in the early phases of design. As a service blueprint makes all the activities visible, it is possible to analyse security matters and risks per each activity.
Value Demand vs. Failure Demand
When analysing a service blueprint it is possible to identify the most important tasks that the customers want to be accomplished. The tasks represent the value demand of the customers. In addition, by mapping the tasks against the products and/or services and operations behind them, it is possible to identify the potential points of failure demand. Failure demand represents customer demands that result from problems, errors, or failures in an enterprise’s products or services. Failure demand can be minimised or eliminated by improving products, services and processes to prevent such issues from occurring in the first place, ultimately leading to better customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Service Blueprint Layers
EDGY facets and intersections
EDGY facet- and intersection elements.
Customer Journey mapping and service blueprinting with the EDGY.
Load free EDGY Powerpoint templates
Material
“EDGY Webinar March 2022 covers also the service blueprint theme:
- EDGY: A visual language for collaborative Enterprise Design, Webinar by Milan Guenther & Wolfgang Goebl, Youtube link.
EDGY tools
The Enterprise Design language, EDGY, from the Intersection Group, enables people to design well-designed outcomes for better enterprises!
EDGY diagrams can be created with several tools, such as:
- Draw.io (available as Confluence plugin, which enables lots of features for combining diagrams, text and tables)
- Miro
- QualiWare
- BlueDolphin
- Powerpoint
More to come.
EDGY stencils (+ lots of information) can be found on the Intersection Group’s Enterprise Design with EDGY pages:
References
[1] Intersection Group pages, https://intersection.group
[2] Enterprise Design with EDGY pages, https://enterprise.design/
[3] EDGY language foundations, book, 2023, (available as pdf), link
[4] EDGY 23 Language Foundations, Online course (4 weeks), Milan Guenther & Wolfgang Goebl, link
[5] Enterprise Design Patterns, Intersection Group book, 2020, (available as pdf), link
[6] EDGY 23 product release, launch on 29th March 2023, webinar recording, Milan Guenther & Wolfgang Goebl, link
— Eero Hosiaisluoma