SERVICE BLUE PRINTING

A Tool to Improve Your Customers Experience

By Melinda Alonzo-Helton, CAPP, Theresa Fletcher-Brown, and Nancy Stephens 26
InTErnaTiOnaL ParKinG InSTiTuTE | JANUARY 2013

hy should you care about your customers experiences? Because that is one of the few places you can win in the service business. It can be a basis of distinguishing you from competitors. This is especially true for private and

municipal parking operators.

In many goods and services industries, competition is at parity; few brands are truly distinctive or better than others. Everyone offers quality on the technical elements. Thus, you can win or lose based on how your customers like the experience of buying from you. Is it easy and convenient? Can customers depend on a positive service experience when interacting with staff at your facility? Do they understand the process of service delivery and what to do? Do they think you care about them? These are vital questions that drive a patrons decision to park at your facility versus a competitors. You can nd the answers by using service blueprinting. It is a tool designed to help you view the service experience through your customers eyes. Here, well look at how two university parking and transit organizations used service blueprinting to analyze and improve their services. The rst, Arizona State University, used blueprinting to produce measurable results in the number of tows and boots in its campus parking facilities. The second, the University of Chicago, has just begun using blueprinting to identify and understand the experience of evening campus shuttle users. such as cooks, who prepare the meal in the kitchen. Onstage and backstage actions are separated by the line of visibility. The customer does not see anything below this line, although he may interact by email or telephone with employees performing backstage actions. Backstage and support actions are separated by the line of internal interaction. For example, in a process the restaurant customer does not see, his order is conveyed to the kitchen, going backstage to support. The top row of the service blueprint is where we place the physical evidence of the service as it unfolds. This means the tangible things that the customer sees. Customers often evaluate the quality of a service by what they can see. Are the premises clean and well-organized? When a service is analyzed with a blueprint, the organization is able to see it in a new light and often notices things that were not previously apparent. It is easier to see customer pain points and opportunities for improvement.

More Boots and Fewer Tows

Arizona State Universitys Parking and Transit Services wanted to improve the negative experience of having a vehicle towed from a campus parking facility while still performing necessary parking enforcement. It decided to use service blueprinting to analyze the experience from the customers point of view. The best and most effective blueprints are drawn by teams of employees who perform actions at each level of the blueprintonstage, backstage, and support. ASU Parking and Transit Services assembled such a team and challenged them with the task of drawing a blueprint of the booting and towing process. They were asked to identify key moments of truth and pain points for customers, as well as opportunities to improve the customers experiences. The result of the teams work is shown in Figure 2 (p. 29). The rst moment of truth for the customer occurs when he discovers his vehicle has been booted and calls parking dispatch. The blueprinting team identied this as an external pain pointa gap that leads the customer to think the organization has low quality. Why was it labeled a pain point? It is because dispatchers do not possess real-time data and, at times, give customers the wrong
JANUARY 2013 | InTErnaTiOnaL ParKinG InSTiTuTE

The ToolService Blueprinting

A service blueprint is a customer-focused process map that is different than other process maps because attention is focused on what the customer is doing, feeling, and thinking as the service is delivered. One begins drawing a service blueprint by stepping through the service as a customer wouldthat is always the starting place. See Figure 1 (p. 28) for a service blueprint of a restaurant visit. You can see the customers actions as green notes on the blueprint. There are three rows of activity below that: onstage, backstage, and support. These are employee actions that are necessary to produce the service. A restaurant has onstage actions performed by employees (servers) who customers can see. In order for the customer to enjoy the restaurant, there are important backstage actions that must occur, such as giving the customer a reservation. And below it all in the service blueprint are support actions that are performed by employees
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Services Blueprint Components

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE customeR actioNs
Be seated
line of interacton

FIGURE 1

Food ce appearan and taste Receive meal Eat food

sess Cleanlinr Dco Ambiance

Order meal

ONSTAGE CONTACT EMPLOYEE ACTIONS

Greet and give menus
line of visibility

Take order

Deliver order

Check on customer

bacKstage CONTACT EMPLOYEE ACTIONS

r Give orde to kitchen
line of internal interaction

Pick up m order fron kitche

suppoRt pRocesses
Cook food Prepare e plate/giv to server

information. The team identied an opportunity to improve that centered on better staff training, although the long-term solution is better technology. The team also identied an internal pain pointa gap in quality that the customer does not see but that makes it harder to deliver service quality. The internal pain point related to not having a complete database and also to having inconsistent processes at the universitys four campuses. The team recognized that from the customers point of view, the experience of being booted can never be pleasant, but it can be improved. Because most of the moments of truth and pain points revolved around giving customers accurate and timely information, the university changed the way it communicated from reactive to proactive, and implemented real-time enforcement equipment for improved accuracy. Now, when a customers vehicle is booted, staff does not immediately call the tow truck or wait for the customer to make contact after he discovers the boot. They initiate communication with the customer by sending electronic notices before the vehicle is booted. If the customer does not respond and the boot is installed, another email and phone message are sent. Customers are advised to call or come in and settle their accounts to avoid having their vehicles towed. The result of the improved booting and towing process at Arizona State University is impressive. Boots have more than doubled. However, tows have declined dramaticallymore than 90 percent from 1,741 to 155. Complaints were signicantly reduced thanks to improved communications. The dramatic results are attributed to the service blueprints drawn by the ASU Parking and Transit Services employee team. The department has also found value in the way the blueprinting process assembles people from different parts of the organization. Staff engagement has improved as onstage, backstage, and support employees discuss their perspectives of service delivery and how it occurs.

Where Is My Ride?
The University of Chicago Transportation and Parking Services wants to provide safe rides around campus at night for its customersstudents, faculty, and staffand it wants the experience to be of good quality. A quality experience means that the customer who calls requesting a ride is given accurate information, picked up in a timely fashion, and transported without incident to a destination. The universitys task is complicated by the fact that the program is dependent on bus drivers who are contractors rather than university employees. Thus, the university does not have control over their hiring, training, or compensation. Transportation Services had never examined the SafeRide process completely from the customers point of view and decided to do so. It was especially interested in identifying opportunities to improve the experience for students, faculty, and staff. The initial blueprint produced by the department is shown in Figure 3. The blueprinting initiative at Chicago is in the rst stage, which consists of identifying moments of truth, pain points, and opportunities for improvement. The very rst moment of truth occurs when the customer calls the dispatcher. It is vital that this rst call go well and that the customer is given an estimated time of arrival and treated politely. However, as the blueprint shows, things can go awry because the dispatcher is busy handling other calls. The blueprint reveals that an external pain point can occur if the bus does not arrive by the time the dispatcher indicated, and that often triggers another call from the customer. This creates a negative experience for the customer and causes him to question the quality of the experience. Based on this realization from the blueprint, bus schedules will be analyzed to make improvements. The second moment of truth in the customer experience occurs when a agger, someone on campus who ags down the bus, has not entered the dispatchers system. This may cause the inaccurate

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InTErnaTiOnaL ParKinG InSTiTuTE | JANUARY 2013

Arizona State UniversityVehicle Boot/Tow/Release Process

PTS employee appearance, appearance of boot, boot/tow notice Moment of Truth Dispatcher provides citation history and process Appearance of towing vendor staff and truck PTS website, ecommerce site, Dispatch ofce/staff appearance

FIGURE 2

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

cUSTOmER AcTIONS

Customer arrives at booted vehicle

Customer calls PTS dispatch

Customer decision to not pay/doesnt meet deadline

Customer arrives at Dispatch

Moment of Truth Process is explained and what next steps are

Dispatch ofce/staff appearance

Appearance of tow yard and staff

Opportunity to Improve Train staffneed accurate release information

Provides proof of ownership/ Pays fees

Comes to tow yard to retrieve vehicle

Vehicle is released

line of interaction cONTAcT EmpLOYEE AcTIONS bAcKSTAGE ONSTAGE AcTION AcTION

Enforcement ofcer boots vehicle and gives customer dispatch number

External Point Point Most current information not available. OR incorrect information given to customer.

Opportunity to Improve Staff Training for accuracy

3
Towing vendor takes vehicle to impound lot

External Point Point All fees with tow not communicated. Full release process not explained.

Ownership is veried and copy of release paper given to customer

Towing vendor releases vehicle

line of visibility
Internal Pain Points All data not in database to assist customer. Inconsistent at each campus.

2
Dispatch provides balanced due and resolution options Towing vendor is contacted at 8 p.m. to tow vehicle Release information faxed to tow yard

line of internal interaction

Parking management system (Flex), Handhelds

Flex database, Phone System

Opportunity to Improve Update handheld equipment to real-time; Train staff on resolution options/consistency

Website content, ecommerce site, Flex

NANcY STEphENS is associate professor of marketing at Arizona State University, Tempe Campus. She can be reached at nancy. stephens@asu.edu or 480.965.2323.

SUppORT pROcESS AcTION

University of ChicagoSafe Ride Program

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
T&P website, Transit maps, O-week presentations DSS Website, Common Sense & UChicago collateral External appearance of shuttlebus Driver appearance, Interior appearance of shuttlebus Campus appearance/ lightinh

FIGURE 3

cUSTOmER AcTIONS

Customer needs Safe Ride Services

Customer calls Safe Ride (UCPD Comm Center) and provides trip info Moment of Truth What is the customers experience with the dispatcher? External Pain Point If bus does not arrive by the ETA provided, customer has to call again.

Shuttle arrives at scheduled ETA

Customer boards shuttle

Shuttle drives customer to destination

Customer arrives at destination

Opportunity to Improve Eliminate customers need to call again

Moment of Truth Flagger enters system unknown to dispatcher

line of interaction

cONTAcT EmpLOYEE AcTIONS bAcKSTAGE ONSTAGE AcTION AcTION

Internal Pain Point Dedicated Safe Ride dispatcher also handles non-emergency calls in call queue

Dispatch receives call, takes customer info

If bus has not arrived, customer will call second time

Shuttle driver picks up customer

Shuttle driver proceeds to destination

line of visibility
Dispatch contacts driver with customer location Shuttle driver proceeds to pickup location

ThERESA FLETchERBROWN is director, transportation & parking services, department of safety and security with the University of Chicago. She can be reached at tetcher@uchicago. edu or 773.834.5774.

line of internal interaction

Website content Marketing Collateral CAD System Phone System Shuttle maintenance

time estimate to be given to the rst customer because the dispatcher doesnt know the driver has picked up a agger. Thus, the university plans to examine this process more closely to gure out how to improve the overall service delivery of the program.

SUppORT pROcESS AcTION

Summary
The parking and transportation services departments at Arizona State University and the University of Chicago have found service blueprinting to be a valuable tool for
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improving their customers experiences. Although having a vehicle booted or waiting at night for a shuttle bus are disagreeable experiences, blueprinting revealed places where each could be made better. The 92 percent decline in vehicles towed at Arizona State University is especially revealing of the benets of looking at a customer process using a service blueprint. Both universities parking and transportation programs are using service blueprinting to examine, dissect, and improve other process to make them better experiences for customers.

MELINDA ALONZOHELTON, CAPP, is director, parking and transit services at Arizona State University. She can be reached at melinda. helton@asu.edu or 480.965.5994.

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