A future state service blueprint visualizes the future state of a concept for a new product or service based on a specific customer’s (persona) journey and how their new journey is supported by different employee roles, processes, technologies of the business organization and third-party partners.
In this article, we will briefly look at:
- Current state service blueprint
- Challenges of a future state service blueprint
- Example of a future state service blueprint and its impact
Current State Service Blueprint
Current state service blueprints are commonly created by organizations to map the existing customer’s journey across a product or service and how their journey is currently supported by different employee roles, processes, technologies of the business organization and third-party partners (if applicable). Based on the blueprint, the business stakeholders identify the pain points and opportunities for customers and organization.
Challenges of a Future State Service Blueprint
The organization identifies and creates new concepts based on the pain points and opportunities identified from Current State Service Blueprint.
In this phase of validating new concepts with prospective customers, the primary questions focus on whether the concepts provide a value for the customer’s need.
When a concept shows promising feedback from customers, then initial pilots are conducted and based on the responses, the concept could be implemented at a scale as a new product or service.
When do we create a future state service blueprint?
After the concepts are prioritized after validating the success of the value proposition from initial prospective customers, a Future State Service Blueprint could be created with a prototyping mindset with the necessary KPIs.
Example of a Future State Service Blueprint and its Impact
Let us look at an example of a possible future state service blueprint and its impact.
Current State: At a theater in India, their customers can purchase tickets through:
- Digital channels: Website, Mobile App, Third-Party Websites, Third-Party Mobile Apps
- Offline channel: Purchase ticket in person at the theater’s booking office
Opportunity Space: The business stakeholders mapped a current state service blueprint based on customer research and identified that patrons traveling in a group of 4 or more to watch movies could be a prospective new market segment.
Future State Scenario: After brainstorming, the business stakeholders identified two concepts.
First Concept: Provide end-to-end delightful experience by enabling the patrons traveling in group of 4 or more to be picked up from their preferred pickup point anywhere in the city, keep the patrons engaged during their travel to the theater by sharing stories of their favorite movies and stars, and drop them back to their destination using third-party cabs.
Second Concept: Provide end-to-end delightful experience by enabling the patrons traveling in group of 4 or more to be picked up from their preferred pickup point anywhere in the city, keep the patrons engaged during their travel to the theater by sharing stories of their favorite movies and stars, and drop them back to their destination using cabs purchased exclusively by the theater.
Future State Service Blueprint
The business stakeholders conducted the following activities:
- Created primary and secondary personas
- Created a future customer journey map of the personas
- Mapped the organization’s employees’ activities, processes, technologies, third-party partners with an indication whether the above organization’s activities were new or required updates to the existing roles, processes and technologies
- Created KPIs as a range and not as specific numbers
Impact on Business: Based on the data (qualitative and quantitative) collected from prospective customers and prototyping the organization’s back stage activities, the business stakeholders could decide to take a concept forward with a better understanding of implementation challenges including the integration with third-party partners if necessary.
As the fidelity of the concepts change, Future State Service Blueprints should be updated to reflect the latest validated learnings from a prospective customer’s journey. Scaling a concept to a newly launched product or service requires considerable time and investment and Future State Service Blueprints could help to reduce uncertainty regarding the product or service’s success in the the market.
Thoughts on Services and Design 