Service mapping

Service mapping is visualizing the service from the customers' perspective. The idea is to map out all services and touch points that customers experience, including your website, phone calls, email contact, etc., so you can identify gaps in customer experience. Once you have recognized these areas for improvement, it will be easier to create a roadmap with goals and strategies for improving on those areas.

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This service map includes all processes, activities, and functions contributing to service delivery to external or internal customers. Service mapping helps organizations understand their strengths and weaknesses to improve any problems with their services, leading to higher customer satisfaction levels.

Types of service Map :

• Storyboards-A storyboard is a tool that helps you create a visual representation of your story. Story mapping allows you to focus on the big picture and then break it down into smaller chunks, which will help you stay organized as you write.

• Customer experience map -A customer experience map represents how someone goes about their day. It can be used to track customers' experience by mapping out all the touch points they have with your company, from when they first hear about you to when they make a purchase or interact with your product.

• User story map-User Story Map is the visual representation of the product vision. It contains a series of sketches that show how users interact with your product and what they want to achieve. These sketches are then grouped into user stories that can be prioritized for development.

• Service blueprint-A service blueprint is essential for any business that offers services. It can help increase customer satisfaction by ensuring they get what they need when they come in contact with your business. A service blueprint is also helpful when identifying areas that need improvement or optimization to serve clients better.

Benefits of service mapping:

• Supports and engages team -With the help of service mapping, you can quickly identify the issue, automate creating an incident, prioritize it, and escalate any issue that drives clear communication between the team. Teams will be alerted more quickly before the business is notified regarding any outrage. Service mapping visualizes any service disturbances making the IT infrastructure more proactive.

• Protect from vulnerabilities-Service mapping enables your team to identify high-risk vulnerabilities that require immediate action. Communication from mapped systems will help you avoid network breaches and data leakage.

• Enhanced risk management-The service management system can be automated to evaluate the risks that occurred after making a change and predicts the impact based on past changes or risks that occurred based on past changes. Automating risk calculation is more effective than traditional methods, making it cost-effective. This allows the resolution advisory board (CAB) to focus more on risk mitigation than identifying the risk.

• Proactive ITSM-A detailed service map can help enterprise architects identify failure points and potential bottlenecks that could disrupt service availability. In addition, system alerts supported to IT components will alert the enterprise architects in case of any disruption. This enables service desk operators to correct any faults before consumers are impacted. The ability to protect the system from outrages keeps the revenue stream and the organization's goodwill intact.

Service mapping use cases:

• Portfolio management-Portfolio management is the foundation for all other tasks in the portfolio management process. It sets out what services will be managed and provides a framework for planning activities to achieve desired outcomes. There are two main types of service mapping - top-down and bottom-up. Top-down focuses on goals (top-level) while bottom up starts with detailing each task (bottom level).

• Relationship management-Relationship management is an essential part of the customer service process, but it can be hard to keep track of all the different interactions with customers. Service mapping in relationship management lets you map out your entire customer service process and identify potential areas for improvement based on how well each step is performing. It also helps you figure out where along the way a problem might have occurred that led to a negative outcome.

• Architecture management-Service mapping is often utilized in architecture management for understanding what the different departments within an organization are providing services and how they relate to one another.

• Configuration management-Configuration management controls and organizes software components for a particular product or application. It allows you to create an inventory of all your services, install them on different servers, monitor their availability and performance, update them when necessary, and retire their use when appropriate. Service mapping is a process in Configuration management that defines the services an organization provides and maps them to specific IT assets. This makes it easier for organizations to identify their critical systems and components and any dependencies between these elements.

Service mapping steps:

• Identify the team-Building a service map can be difficult where different groups manage different components. A service owner cannot have all the required knowledge. In such a scenario, you need to bring a cross-functional team led by a service owner. Build a single team that consists of different representatives managing different components.

• Determine the level of detail-The level of detail needs to be determined, which requires serious thinking as too many details will make communications more complex, and fewer details will not support service processes.

• Service selection-The services must be prioritized as per business needs and mapped according to the organization's capacity. For instance, service owner can choose the service that are top revenue generators as well as customer facing.

• Gather data to draw service maps-Data can be gathered from various sources depending upon the organization. Pull this information at a central location to guide in drawing service maps. The drawing can be done either manually on a whiteboard or with the help of Microsoft Visio.

• Service map maintenance- Once the service map is done, it should be managed by the service owner and communicated to stakeholders. Changes should be made to ensure the maps align with the changing work alignment.