MT221 Unit 6 Service Process Map Example

Twenty-Two Steps From Call to Invoice: A Unit 6 Service Process Map for Mobile Windshield Replacement

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT221: Customer Service

Unit 6 Service Process Map

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Northline Auto Glass, its process and every time and count are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where job records would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.

The Blueprint's Structure

Shostack (1984) proposed drawing a service the way an engineer draws a product, with every step, every place it can break and the time each takes. Bitner et al. (2008) later set out the form used here, with five horizontal lanes. Physical evidence sits at the top: the website, confirmation texts, the branded van, the new glass and the invoice. Below it are customer actions, such as calling, waiting and inspecting the work. Then onstage actions, what schedulers and technicians do in contact with the customer. Then backstage actions, such as dispatch and parts ordering, which the customer never sees. At the bottom are support processes, such as the booking software, the parts supplier and the payment system.

Three lines divide the lanes. The line of interaction separates customer actions from onstage actions. The line of visibility separates what the customer sees from backstage work. The line of internal interaction separates frontline staff from support systems.

The Twenty-Two Steps

The first phase, booking, has six steps: the customer finds the website, calls, gives vehicle details, chooses a window and receives a confirmation text, while the scheduler enters the job and the parts desk orders glass. The second phase, preparation, has five steps: the supplier ships the glass, the parts desk receives and checks it, dispatch assigns the job to a route, the van is loaded and a reminder text goes out. The third phase, the visit, has seven steps: the technician drives to the site, sends an on-the-way text, arrives, inspects the old glass and the new part, removes the old windshield, installs the new one and explains care instructions, including how long to wait before driving. The fourth phase, closing, has four steps: calibration of any camera or sensor, the invoice, payment and a follow-up survey.

Fail Points

Six steps carry a fail point. The booking call fails when the scheduler does not capture the vehicle identification number or the car's camera and sensor features, which leads to the wrong glass. The parts check fails when nobody compares the delivered glass with the vehicle record before it is loaded. Dispatch fails when routes are overbooked and the board's late alerts go unread. The on-the-way text fails when it depends on the technician remembering to send it. The pre-install inspection fails when the technician discovers the wrong glass only at the customer's car. And calibration fails for models the vans cannot calibrate, which sends customers to a dealer.

Waits

Four steps carry a wait the customer feels. The wait for glass delivery is usually one day for common models and up to a week for less common ones. The wait inside the arrival window can stretch past four hours. The wait for an adhesive cure, about an hour before the car can be driven, is necessary and should be explained. And the wait for a replacement part after a failed first visit is the longest, often five days or more.

How the Map Was Built

The map was drawn from three sources: job records for the quarter, two days spent riding with technicians, and a morning at the scheduling desk listening to booking calls with the schedulers' permission. Each step was timed on at least ten jobs, and fail points were marked only where the records showed the step going wrong on more than one job in twenty. The schedulers and technicians reviewed a draft and added two steps the first version missed, the adhesive cure wait and the reminder text, which shows why a blueprint should be checked by the people who do the work.

Timing

Across [1,240] completed jobs last quarter, the median time from booking call to finished job was about [2.1] days when the correct glass was in stock locally. When the glass had to be ordered after a first visit failed, the median rose to about [8.4] days, and the customer experienced two visits, two windows and at least one call to ask about the part.

The difference is almost entirely backstage. The customer's onstage experience on the second visit is usually good; it is the parts check, the missing vehicle details and the lack of a part arrival date that create the extra six days.

Six of the extra days happen in places the customer never sees.

What the Map Suggests

Three changes address the fail points with the largest effect on timing. Capturing the vehicle identification number at booking would let the parts desk order the exact glass, removing most wrong-glass first visits. A parts check against the vehicle record before loading would catch the rest in the shop instead of the driveway. And partnering with a calibration shop, or equipping two vans with calibration tools, would remove the dealer errand. Zeithaml et al. (2018) suggest that the real value of a blueprint is in shifting a team's attention from frontline courtesy to the hidden steps that decide reliability, and Northline's map points directly at its parts desk and booking script.

References

Bitner, M. J., Ostrom, A. L., & Morgan, F. N. (2008). Service blueprinting: A practical technique for service innovation. California Management Review, 50(3), 66-94. https://doi.org/10.2307/41166446

Shostack, G. L. (1984). Designing services that deliver. Harvard Business Review, 62(1), 133-139.

Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., & Gremler, D. D. (2018). Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill.