5.1
Francesca Toolkit
Circular Service Blueprint
The Circular Service Blueprint is designed to map how customer actions connect with internal and external processes within a service, viewed through a circular perspective. It can be used to manage an entire service journey or focus on a specific stage, such as ordering products online or handling returns of used products. The tool is structured around customer action phases and distinguishes between different layers of service delivery: customer actions and interactions, frontstage activities visible to the customer, and backstage processes and support functions that remain invisible. This structure enables a comprehensive view of the activities and systems required to deliver the service. By organizing the service into a blueprint, the tool helps clarify the customer experience, highlight key actions, and identify opportunities and barriers within the process. It also supports alignment among stakeholders and generates actionable insights by revealing how different layers and activities interact in delivering the service.
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Phase
Format
Expertise
Objective
The Circular Service Blueprint is designed to map how customer actions connect with internal and external processes within a service, viewed through a circular perspective. It can be used to manage an entire service journey or focus on a specific stage, such as ordering products online or handling returns of used products.
The tool is structured around customer action phases and distinguishes between different layers of service delivery: customer actions and interactions, frontstage activities visible to the customer, and backstage processes and support functions that remain invisible. This structure enables a comprehensive view of the activities and systems required to deliver the service.
By organizing the service into a blueprint, the tool helps clarify the customer experience, highlight key actions, and identify opportunities and barriers within the process. It also supports alignment among stakeholders and generates actionable insights by revealing how different layers and activities interact in delivering the service.
What the Tool Is
The Circular Service Blueprint is a blueprint canvas identifying different internal actions connected to the customer service.
Mapping out these different actions helps to:
- understand the connection between internal and external activities from a customer perspective
- identify gaps, barriers, opportunities or critical moments in the service delivery
- consider circular perspectives during each phase, customer touchpoint, and lifecycle
- improve or create parts of certain services or completely new service paths
When to Use the Tool
The Circular Service Blueprint can be utilized when creating new service models, servitization of current product offerings, improving or understanding certain parts of the service path, considering service from circular perspective, or better understanding the connections between customer experience and internal activities.
Expected Output
This tool helps to create a blueprint outlining a service based on:
- customer experience and interface
- internal and external actions
- supporting circular activities and stakeholders
This blueprint can help in upgrading current services for circular offerings, creating new services, or identifying opportunities or issues in certain parts of the service.
Identify the Service Path or Service Journey Section to Analyze/Create
Utilize current data on service or ideate new service path/servitization for current product offering. Define if focus is on the whole service path or certain part of it.
Map Customer Journey through Touchpoints and Physical Elements
Identify the different ways your customer engages with the service throughout the use phases.
Identify Frontstage and Backstage Actions connected to each Touchpoint
Analyze from the data what the different actions are connected to the touchpoints, what kind of pain points there are or might be, and what opportunities the company could offer/create for each lifecycle phase and touchpoints.
Consider Supporting Circular Actions
What other stakeholders are involved? Policies, metrics? How is circularity considered at this stage?
Update Blueprint based on Supporting Evidence
Gather data to supplement gaps, prototype the service path, or model possible service.
Re-evaluate, Implement and Restart
Estimate updates, implement findings to the service blueprint, and continually evaluate possible changes or blind spots.
Furniture retailer: A furniture retailer designs a refurbishment-service workflow covering product return, inspection, repair and resale through a dedicated second-life channel — a route comparable to premium resale programmes such as Vitra Circle.
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