How to Improve Customer Service with the use of a Service Blueprint
Susan Silverstone*
National University, College of Professional Studies*

Abstract: With the significant growth worldwide in-service economies, too many companies are failing. How can we address this decline? Service blueprints are an innovative answer. One approach for visualizing service systems is a mapping technique called "blueprinting" (Shostack 1984). Blueprinting is a holistic method of seeing in snapshot form, what is essentially a dynamic, living phenomenon. A service blueprint is a picture or map that portrays the customer experience and the service system, so that different people involved in providing the service can understand it objectively, regardless of their roles or their individual points of view. They are particularly useful at the design stage of service development (Zeithaml et al. 2013). There are five key components that make up a service blueprint: physical evidence, customer actions, employee actions (onstage), employee actions (backstage), and support processes (Zeithaml 2013). The process of designing a blueprint involves the consideration of several issues:

1. Identifying processes
2. Isolating fail points
3. Establishing a time frame.
4. Analysing profitability.

This paper will take a closer look at several United States service organizations: a public company, the first visit to a dental office and filing an insurance claim.

Keywords: Marketing, Service Marketing, Service Blueprints.