Development of a service blueprint for the online-to-offline integration in service

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Development of a service blueprint for the online-to-offline integration in service Do-Hyeon Ryua, Chiehyeon Limb, Kwang-Jae Kima,∗ a

Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, 77 Cheongam-ro, Nam-gu, Pohang, Gyung-buk, 37673, Republic of Korea b School of Management Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, 50 UNIST-gil, Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea

ARTICLE INFO

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Online-to-offline (O2O) integration Service process visualization Service process analysis Service blueprint (SB) O2O SB

Online-to-offline (O2O) integration refers to the incorporation of separate online and offline service processes into a single service delivery. Advances in mobile devices and information and communication technology enable the O2O integration, which has been applied to many services. This study proposes a new service blueprint, called the O2O Service Blueprint (O2O SB), which is specialized in visualizing and analyzing the service processes of the O2O integration. A comprehensive literature review and text mining analysis are conducted on massive quantities of literature, articles, and application introductions to understand characteristics of the O2O integration and extract keywords relevant to the O2O integration. Comparisons of the O2O SB with the conventional service blueprint and Information Service Blueprint validate that our proposal can address the limitations of existing service blueprints. An evaluation through expert interviews confirms the completeness, utility, and versatility of the O2O SB. The proposed O2O SB presents a complete picture of the entire service process, whether online or offline. This SB helps users systematically understand the processes and formulate strategies for service improvement.

1. Introduction Advances in mobile devices and information and communication technology (ICT) have made many services available online and offline (Somani, 2015; Mao et al., 2015). For example, traditional unimodal services such as food delivery, shopping, and hotel reservations that were previously available offline have expanded their services to online. Although these services have separate online and offline processes, these processes are integrated into a single service delivery. This integration is called online-to-offline (O2O) integration. The O2O integration is defined as the combination of online and offline service processes in which service providers attract and interact with customers through advanced technologies and devices (Weng and Zhang, 2015). The O2O integration was introduced to services as an efficient and satisfactory method of meeting customers’ needs (Pan et al., 2017; Xu and Zhang, 2015). Unlike traditional unimodal services, the services that apply the O2O integration can provide valuable customer experience (Chang et al., 2018; Tsai et al., 2015; Yang et al., 2016) by providing the expanded service processes through various channels (Du and Tang, 2014; Souiden et al., 2018; Zhang, 2014). Owing to these advantages of the O2O integration, the O2O market has been growing

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consistently in various industries (Hsu and Lin, 2018; Shen et al., 2018). For example, e-commerce companies, such as Amazon and Alibaba, are increasing their brick-and-mortar investments. These companies started to build offline stores to provide customers an experience that allows them to hold, touch, and try on various products. Offline companies, such as IKEA and Starbucks, are adopting online services by utilizing websites or apps to enable personalization and efficiency of orders. Visualizing and analyzing the integrated process between online and offline are important to maximize the utilization of the O2O integration in a service. Service providers generally use a service blueprint to clearly visualize the dynamic service delivery process (Bitner et al., 2008). Understanding a service process down to the essential components or key features is important and enabled by a service blueprint (Gummesson and Kingman-Brundage, 1992; Kostopoulos et al., 2012). In this respect, a service blueprint can be an appropriate tool to visualize and analyze the service process of the O2O integration. However, the existing service blueprints, such as the conventional service blueprint (Bitner et al., 2008) and Information Service Blueprint (ISB) (Lim and Kim, 2014), cannot be directly used because their structures do not consider the aforementioned characteristics of the O2O integration. These SBs have limitations in presenting online and

Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.-H. Ryu), [email protected] (C. Lim), [email protected] (K.-J. Kim).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101944 Received 2 April 2019; Received in revised form 18 July 2019; Accepted 3 September 2019 0969-6989/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Do-Hyeon Ryu, Chiehyeon Lim and Kwang-Jae Kim, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101944

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offline processes simultaneously as a single service delivery. This problem causes difficulty in understanding how key elements in online and offline interact in the O2O integration. In addition, following a customer journey is difficult in the O2O integration, where a customer can freely move between online and offline to consume a service. This study proposes the O2O Service Blueprint (O2O SB), which is specialized in visualizing and analyzing the service processes of the O2O integration. Key components of the O2O SB are extracted through a literature review and text mining analysis. Text mining is useful for discovering new and valuable information (Gupta and Lehal, 2009) by efficiently processing a variety of textual data (Yee Liau and Pei Tan, 2014). As the O2O integration has been frequently mentioned in articles and used in many services (especially through smartphones), articles and application introductions as well as literature are analyzed by text mining. Then, the components are arranged in a suitable structure by mapping various services that apply the O2O integration. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the O2O integration and its application, and describes the limitations of existing service blueprints in detail. Section 3 presents the characteristics and keywords relevant to the O2O integration that were extracted through the literature review and text mining analysis. Section 4 deals with the structure of the O2O SB and visualizations of the Uber taxi service and American Airlines service on the O2O SB. Section 5 discusses the advantages of the O2O SB compared with the two existing service blueprints, namely, the conventional service blueprint (Bitner et al., 2008) and ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014) by using an illustrative example and conducting an evaluation through expert interviews. Section 5 presents the managerial implications obtained through the research process. Section 6 discusses the contributions of this study and future research directions.

delivery. The systematic and close relationship of service providers can provide a seamless service process and eventually increase customer satisfaction (Lu and Liu, 2016; Wang and Batmunkh, 2012). Numerous services have recently applied the O2O integration. Uber taxi service (www.uber.com) is a prominent service that applies such integration (Chang et al., 2018; Hsu and Lin, 2018; Kong et al., 2017; Xiao and Dong, 2015). Uber is an online platform and the Uber taxi service is operated on the platform. In the Uber taxi service, booking services (online) and traditional taxi services (offline) are integrated, and customers access the service via the Uber taxi app. In the past, customers had to wait for a taxi along the road. Today, customers use the Uber taxi app to book a ride and are able to save time in finding a taxi. By adopting the O2O integration in the taxi industry, the Uber service provides numerous benefits to passengers and drivers. For the passengers, this service is convenient, inexpensive, and safe. Unlike in the past, passengers can now select the type of car that they wish to ride and can obtain driver information. Drivers can easily pick up passengers who call for a cab by referring to the customer location information via the Uber taxi app. The benefits of applying the O2O integration have enabled Uber to spread its services exponentially across the world. 2.2. Limitations of existing service blueprints Various methodologies for designing and developing a service and supporting tools for each step in a service design process have been developed. The service design architecture (Patrício et al., 2011) is helpful in systematically designing a service (Grenha Teixeira et al., 2017; Ostrom et al., 2015; Trischler et al., 2018). The design architecture consists of three parts: designing the service concept, designing the service system, and designing the service encounter. In the second and third parts, a service blueprint can be a diagrammatic tool to map all key systems and encounters in service delivery (Patrício et al., 2011). A service blueprint is employed to visualize a service process from the customer's viewpoint. The service blueprint not only presents a complete picture of how processes flow during a service but also clarifies touchpoints and interactions across the entire processes from the customer's perspective (Bitner et al., 2008). Shostack (1982) also emphasized the advantages of service blueprinting, such as its capacity to help service providers clarify their jobs and scope of responsibility. With these advantages and benefits, various types of service blueprints have been developed and used. The conventional service blueprint (Shostack, 1982; Bitner et al., 2008) is a representative service blueprinting framework that focuses on customers as the central component in the innovation and improvement of a service (Bitner et al., 2008). The Service Experience Blueprint (SEB) (Patrício et al., 2008) was created to present multiple interfaces to perform technology infusion into services. The SEB focuses on blueprinting the service process in which customers access multiinterface services. By contrast, the Extended Service Blueprint (Hara et al., 2009) is a framework that focuses not only on human but also on physical processes. This type of blueprint emphasizes that these processes should be unified to maximize the service value for customers. The Product–Service Blueprint (Geum and Park, 2011) and Product–Service System (PSS) Board (Lim et al., 2012) are frameworks that emphasize the PSS process. These frameworks focus on visualizing a PSS in which products and services are integrated systematically to deliver sustainability and increase customer value (Geum and Park, 2011). The ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014) was developed for informationintensive services in which information interactions are important for service value creation. This blueprint mainly focuses on identifying and visualizing the flow of information during a service. Although the existing service blueprints have a fundamental capacity to present the processes of the O2O integration in a service, some limitations are involved in directly using them. Basically, none of the existing service blueprints has a structure for presenting online and offline sides at the same time. The ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014) focuses only

2. Literature review 2.1. O2O integration and application The O2O integration is a new model in which service providers use online and offline to provide improved experiences to customers (Chen et al., 2018). Customers can obtain further information through the O2O integration instead of using only one aspect of online and offline services (Rigby, 2011; Tsai et al., 2015). In the O2O integration, online and offline service processes are continuously and consistently integrated in a single service delivery (Xue et al., 2016). For the O2O integration, a channel is one of the important elements (Chen et al., 2016). Tsai et al. (2015) argued that a service can be conveniently and efficiently delivered through various channels in the O2O integration. Online channels could be an app or a website, and offline channels could be a mall or a shop. In the O2O integration, unlike in a conventional service, channels are not only the touchpoint through which a service provider interacts with a customer (Halvorsrud et al., 2016) but are also a medium to combine online and offline for customers (Chen and Cheng, 2013; Barrutia et al., 2009). The use of multiple or mixed channels offers customers a wide range of choices to freely access a service in online and offline, thereby providing the customers with an improved and satisfactory experience (Coelho and Easingwood, 2004; Shen and Wang, 2014). To achieve these advantages, service providers should understand which channels are preferred by customers and when the channels are integrated for a service offering (Følstad and Kvale, 2018; Patrício et al., 2003). Another important element is the cooperation of service providers in online and offline (Zhu et al., 2016). In the O2O integration, although service providers are diverse and located in different spaces, they should cooperate with one another in handling the requirements of customers. Service providers should recognize their roles in the O2O integration and understand when they cooperate with each other (Long and Shi, 2017). Kong et al. (2017) argued that the cooperation of service providers in online and offline enables offering a single service 2

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on online service processes, and other most service blueprints focus only on offline service processes. Therefore, these service blueprints have limitations in presenting the connection between online and offline and in understanding a customer's location and service direction between online and offline. The SEB (Patrício et al., 2008) could be a generic service blueprint that presents online and offline service processes by using an interface part. However, the SEB involves limitations in presenting activities of various service providers in online and offline and the interactions between service providers on different sides. The SEB requires a user to draw each blueprint for the individual service provider and service area, online and offline. With the separate multiple blueprints, understanding the entire service process from the O2O integration perspective is difficult. This limit presents difficulties in identifying critical points such as touchpoints with customers and cooperation points for a continuous service. In addition, the problem causes difficulty in understanding a customer journey in which a customer consumes a service without constraints between online and offline. The existing service blueprints could be utilized to present new service processes by extending and adapting them. However, considerable effort and time is needed to revise an existing service blueprint. Therefore, to address the need for change of foundational components and structure for a new service, a new service blueprinting framework for a specific service has been developed (Lim and Kim, 2014; Patrício et al., 2008; Shimomura et al., 2009). The scope of this study involves proposing a new service blueprint specifically for blueprinting service processes in the O2O integration. With this service blueprint, a user can present service processes of the O2O integration without extra effort and time in amending the existing service blueprints.

and coupon). Table 1 shows the three characteristics of the O2O integration, main keywords, and related studies. The most important characteristic is that online and offline service processes are integrated in a single service delivery. Online and offline service processes should be closely connected to allow customers to use a continuous and consistent service (Hsieh, 2017; Piercy and Archer-Brown, 2014; Sun et al., 2015). This connection is also important to build a seamless experience between online and offline service processes (Lee et al., 2007; Shen et al., 2018) as a competitive strategy for enterprises (Lu and Liu, 2016). When online and offline service processes are systematically integrated, service providers can offer convenient, efficient, and high-quality services to customers (Chang et al., 2018; Zhang, 2014). Additionally, the integration of online and offline service processes also provides opportunities for customers to experience new interactions with various service providers, which can influence customer loyalty and satisfaction (Chen and Cheng, 2013; Chen et al., 2016). Second, the roles of channels are emphasized among the important characteristics. Channels enable the integration of online and offline services regardless of time and location (Yang et al., 2011; Van Dijk et al., 2007). Different channels can provide different journeys and experiences (Harris et al., 2018), and each customer may have a different preferred channel (Cassab and MacLachlan, 2009). Therefore, connecting and sharing data or information between different channels is important for a consistent and seamless O2O integration (Rangaswamy and Van Bruggen, 2005; Stone et al., 2002; Surjadjaja et al., 2003). The integration achieved by channels has advantages for customers such as convenience, efficiency, and time saving (Berman and Thelen, 2004; Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2004). Therefore, service providers should seek a comprehensive understanding of the interactions between customers and various channels (Larivière et al., 2011; Montoya-Weiss et al., 2003; Ryzhkova, 2015) and dedicate their best efforts to select appropriate channels (Cortiñas et al., 2010; Lin, 2012; Yang et al., 2013). Third, cooperation between online and offline service providers is highlighted as an important characteristic of the O2O integration. Many studies have emphasized that the close relationship between online and offline service providers is foundational to improve the quality of the O2O integration (Ahn et al., 2004; Du and Tang, 2014). For the cooperation, service providers from different sides should understand each other's role and the point where cooperation is required (Roh and Park, 2018; Kotorov, 2002; Wang and Batmunkh, 2012). In addition, service providers should know the channels and support systems needed to cooperate with others on a different side (Coughlan et al., 2001; Somani, 2015; Wang and Zhang, 2018). The activities of each service provider on a different side can influence overall customer experience and satisfaction; thus, the active cooperation should simultaneously occur in online and offline (Jain et al., 2017; Semeijn et al., 2005; Xu and Zhang, 2015). Apart from the keywords relevant to the three characteristics, other keywords extracted from the literature are “model,” “system,” “description,” and “platform.” These keywords imply that the O2O integration is a new type with a unique process. In this regard, many researchers have argued the need for a tool that visualizes service processes of the O2O integration (Chen et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2015; Tsai et al., 2015). The next section proposes the new O2O SB, which is designed to incorporate the characteristics of the O2O integration.

3. Characteristics of O2O integration This study conducted a literature review as a qualitative method and text mining analysis as a quantitative method. Through a literature review, we attempted to understand the variety of backgrounds, definitions, and models relevant to the O2O integration from different perspectives. Through the text mining analysis, we extracted keywords to investigate essential elements for the O2O integration. The result was utilized to support the literature review. For the analysis, we collected the literature from Google Scholar, articles from Google, and app introductions from Google Player and the App Store by using various search keywords relevant to the O2O integration. Google Scholar includes more journals and research areas than other research websites, such as PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science; thus, Google Scholar has been actively used to collect existing studies (Falagas et al., 2008). Thereafter, we used the Selector Gadget crawling technique, which is an open widget provided by Google Chrome (Cirillo, 2016) on the articles and app introductions to select the relevant sentences and filter out noise such as advertisements and copyright notices. We implemented a model in R studio to preprocess and analyze a large amount of unstructured text data. We applied term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF–IDF) technique, which is a useful and effective keyword extraction technique (Kaur and Gupta, 2010; Lim and Maglio, 2018), to extract high-ranking keywords. TF–IDF value indicates the importance of a word included in the document and in the entire dataset (Lee and Kim, 2008; Lim and Maglio, 2018; Menaka and Radha, 2013). In this study, the highranking keywords refer to the top 10 words with the highest TF–IDF values. The rest of the words were not included because they were irrelevant to the O2O integration. We extracted the high-ranking keywords from the literature, articles, and app introductions. Among 30 keywords, the 5 keywords relevant for each characteristic of the O2O integration (Table 1) were selected and distributed. The other 15 keywords were removed because they simply indicated types of services (i.e., laundry and restaurant) and products or services (i.e., car, food,

4. O2O SB This section first explains the rows and lines of the O2O SB and its structure. The rows and lines were decided based on the characteristics and keywords explained in Section 3. The structure was finalized by mapping various services that apply the O2O integration. While developing the structure, we focused on three aspects, namely, simplicity, intuitiveness, and smoothness, as fundamental properties of the service 3

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Table 1 Findings from literature review and text mining analysis. Characteristics of the O2O integration

Main keywords for each characteristic

Related studies

References

Integration of online and offline service processes

Combine, integrate, expand, connect, seamless

Chang et al., 2018; Chen and Cheng, 2013; Chen et al., 2016; Hsieh, 2017; Lee et al., 2007; Lu and Liu, 2016; Piercy and Archer-Brown, 2014; Shen et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2015; Zhang, 2014

Roles of channels

Mobile, app, information, data, touchpoint

Cooperation between online and offline service providers

Business, retail, stores, interact, relationship

Customers can freely move online and offline in a continuous and consistent service processes; Service providers can offer convenient and efficient services based on the integrated service processes; The O2O integration provides customers new interaction experiences with various service providers; The O2O integration delivers a seamless and connected service for customers Various channels enable to provide better experience, and to build close relationships with customers; Customers access a service anytime and anywhere through channels, and obtain convenience and time savings; Different combinations of channels makes different interactions and customer experiences; Service providers should select appropriate channels and understand the interactions between them Online and offline service providers should understand their roles and cooperation points in the integration; Online and offline service providers cooperate for better customer experience and high quality of the integration; Service providers should know the necessary channels and support systems for the close relationships; Service providers should recognize that their services influence on the overall customer satisfaction and loyalty

Berman and Thelen, 2004; Cassab and MacLachlan, 2009; Cortiñas et al., 2010; Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2004; Harris et al., 2018; Larivière et al., 2011; Lin, 2012; Montoya-Weiss et al., 2003; Rangaswamy and Van Bruggen, 2005; Ryzhkova, 2015; Stone et al., 2002; Surjadjaja et al., 2003; Yang et al., 2011; Van Dijk et al., 2007 Ahn et al., 2004; Coughlan et al., 2001; Du and Tang, 2014; Jain et al., 2017; Roh and Park, 2018; Kotorov, 2002; Semeijn et al., 2005; Somani, 2015; Wang and Batmunkh, 2012; Xu and Zhang, 2015

The four-line phases of the O2O SB are composed of Online Support System, Channel for Online Interaction, Channel for Offline Interaction, and Offline Support System. They are placed between rows because they connect the rows located on either side. The online and offline support systems are devices and technologies that enable the connection of the online and offline services and support the online and offline channel operations. The support system can be a computer, mobile phone, or the Internet. The channels for online and offline interactions include channels that aid customers in accessing a service and interacting with online or offline service providers. Online channels include apps, websites, and TV broadcasting stations, whereas some examples of offline channels are malls, airports, and taxis. The arrangement of the rows and lines was optimized to intuitively and clearly visualize service processes of the O2O integration from the customer's perspective. As shown in Fig. 1, the same online and offline components were arranged both ways along the side of the customer actions. This arrangement enables service providers to understand each process that occurs on the two different sides at a glance, so that the providers from different sides can collaborate. In addition, service providers easily comprehend which service provider interacts with the customer and which channels are used by customers online or offline. Moreover, they determine which support systems are required and how they respond to customer actions. Finally, online and offline evidence are positioned at either edge of the O2O SB. This position well presents how the evidence is delivered and which evidence is exchanged at the time during a service. The components and structures of the O2O SB effectively reflect the characteristics of the O2O integration. Therefore, the O2O SB can help service providers design systems and encounters so that the providers can understand customer experiences that occur through the systems and encounters in the O2O integration.

blueprint (Bitner et al., 2008; Patrício et al., 2008; Lim and Kim, 2014). Second, two illustrative examples are presented: Uber taxi and American Airlines services. We drew various services applying the different types of the O2O integration on the developed O2O SB to validate whether the O2O SB has the appropriate components and structure to visualize and analyze the service processes of the O2O integration. The process we followed was typically employed in previous studies (Bitner et al., 2008; Patrício et al., 2008; Lim and Kim, 2014) to validate blueprints. 4.1. Structure of O2O SB The characteristics and keywords extracted are integrated into the O2O SB. First, online and offline service processes should be presented at the same time. Components of the online and offline are included and arranged well to visualize the integrated processes. In particular, channels are properly arranged so that service providers can understand how online and offline service processes are integrated and how a customer uses the service. Fig. 1 shows that the O2O SB consists of five rows and four lines. The five rows represent Online Evidence, Online Service Provider Activities, Customer Actions, Offline Service Provider Activities, and Offline Evidence. In the O2O integration, various tangible and intangible evidence occur through different interactions. In online, only intangible evidence is necessary, but both types of evidence can also exist offline. Therefore, classifying the evidence as either online or offline is important. The offline evidence refers to all tangible and intangible evidence exchanged between a customer and service provider or between service providers offline. Furthermore, the online evidence refers to intangible evidence exchanged online. Specific examples are provided in Section 4.2. Online service provider activities are activities in which online service providers interact with customers through online channels and support systems. These activities may involve an online banking or entertainment provider who handles customer needs through a computer, an application, or the Internet. Similarly, activities conducted by offline service providers are presented in the Offline Service Provider Activities row. Offline service providers can be officers, receptionists, or doctors who meet a customer face to face. Finally, Customer Actions refer to actions that customers perform during a service.

4.2. Illustration of O2O SB Although only two services (i.e., Uber taxi and American Airlines) are illustrated in this section, various services applying different types of the O2O integration were mapped on the developed O2O SB. Mapping the services on the O2O SB validated the following points: generality, which means that the O2O SB covers various types of the O2O integration, and functionality, which signifies that the O2O SB has a suitable structure to visualize and analyze service processes of the 4

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Online Evidence Online Support System

Personal information / Past record

Promotions / Credit cards information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud Online Service Provider Activities

Check the information

Channel for Online Interaction

Save credit cards information

Location information of departure and destination

Selected Taxi availability / Expected Fee

Payment information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / GPS

Mobile / Computer / Internet

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Check the locations

Receive and notify the reservation to the taxi driver

Record and deliver the payment information to the customer

Uber taxi application Customer Actions

Start Uber app / Log in

Get promotions / Register credit cards

Uber taxi application

Search the location of departure and destination

Select a type of taxi / Make a reservation

Take the taxi

Pay taxi fare / Check the payment information

Taxi

Taxi / Payment application

Drive to the destination

Support the payment

Wait for the taxi

Channel for Offline Interaction Offline Service Provider Activities

Check the reservation

Offline Support System

Move to the customer

Mobile / Internet

Mobile / Internet / Card reader

Offline Evidence

Currency / Credit card

Ride

Fig. 1. Illustration of Uber taxi service on the O2O SB.

Online Evidence

Online Support System Online Service Provider Activities

The boarding information

The current and restroom location information

The changed boarding time

The fastest way

The boarding information

Mobile / Internet

Mobile / Internet / Bluetooth

Mobile / Computer / Internet

Mobile / Internet / Bluetooth

Mobile / Internet

Upload the boarding information

Find and recommend the close-by restroom

Check and notify the changed barding time

Find and show the fastest way

Display the boarding information

Channel for Online Interaction

American Airlines application

Customer Actions

Channel for Offline Interaction Offline Service Provider Activities

Offline Support System

Start boarding

Airport

Airport / Gate

Check and update the changed schedule in real time

Check the customer’s location

Support boarding

Beacon / Bluetooth

Computer / Internet

Beacon / Bluetooth

Computer

The current location

The changed schedule

The current location

Boarding pass

Go shopping

Find close-by restroom

Airport / Front desk

Airport / Stores

Airport

Support Check-in

Receive customers

Check the customer’s location

Boarding pass

Products

Use the restroom

Find the way to go to the gate

Start check-in

Computer / Internet Offline Evidence

American Airlines application

Check boarding time

Fig. 2. Illustration of American Airlines service on the O2O SB.

O2O integration. The Uber taxi service has only one main direction from online to offline, but the American Airlines service has multiple directions between online and offline. The two examples show that the O2O SB can visualize the complex O2O integration in which the direction of service process constantly changes. Fig. 1 illustrates the Uber taxi service on the O2O SB. A customer uses the Uber taxi app to search for a taxi within an area after supplemental actions such as login and registration. Then, the customer searches for points of departure and arrival destination on the map provided through the app. The customer can then select the type of taxi and finish the reservation process. Details of the reservation are saved by online service providers who deliver the customer's requirements to a driver. The driver who accepts the reservation moves to pick up the passenger. When the customer arrives at the destination, the fare is paid

automatically through the credit card registered on the Uber taxi app or directly through cash. Fig. 1 presents a sharp distinction between the online and offline areas with the Customer Actions row as the center. Specific elements and interactions on each side are minutely described. At the same time, Fig. 1 shows the point where online and offline service processes are integrated (e.g., delivering the information of the customer's reservation to a taxi driver). At this integrated point, the most important consideration is that the information about the customer's requirement should be consistently delivered from online (the Uber taxi app) to offline (a taxi driver). For example, the taxi type and locations for customer pick-up and drop-off collected through the app should be accurately delivered to the offline taxi driver without distortion. Fig. 1 adequately shows that the O2O SB can present the process 5

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that occurs through each channel. When the customer accesses the Uber taxi service, the app acts as a touchpoint between the customer and the online service provider and facilitates their interaction. After the customer reserves a taxi, the main service process happens offline. At this point, the taxi is an offline channel and the customer and taxi driver meet in the taxi. The O2O SB also shows when online and offline service providers cooperate with one another. Based on Fig. 1, the online service provider should quickly deliver accurate information to the driver. Then, the driver should pick up the customer and take him/her to the destination based on the information from the online service provider. The American Airlines service applied a different type of O2O integration from the Uber taxi service and the process has a complicated integration. As shown in Fig. 2, online and offline channels are continually changed, and the integration happens each time customers need a service. Various elements and their interactions are spread out in online and offline. As an example of interactions from offline to online, the flight information that was transmitted between customer and employee at the airport is delivered to the app. Then, the information is continuously updated so that the customer can check it anytime through the app. As an example of the O2O interaction, a customer uses the app to find the nearest restroom and fastest way to the gate, and he/ she moves at the airport based on the information. This situation shows that the O2O SB can visualize and analyze service processes although they have various types of O2O integration.

The lines for channels are located between the Online/Offline Service Provider Activities row and Customer Actions row so that the O2O SB can intuitively show how customers and service providers interact with each other through the channels. Finally, limitation 3 can be solved by providing the Online Service Provider Activities row and the Offline Service Provider Activities row. As the O2O SB clearly divides the online and offline sides, the activities of online and offline service providers can be separated easily. Considering this separation, we can also classify which support systems are used for the online and offline services. Fig. 4(a) shows the result from mapping the Uber taxi service on the ISB. Contrary to the CSB, the ISB does not have a row to visualize the offline evidence (limitation 1). The ISB only describes the flow of information; thus, it has limitations in presenting the offline evidence such as money, coupons, and products. Second, the ISB also focuses only on online channels and support systems (limitation 2). However, offline channels such as stores and malls are among the main elements in the O2O integration, so they should be present. Limitations 1 and 2 are from the absence of the offline side. This problem causes difficulty in understanding how online and offline can be integrated. Finally, the ISB has rows to visualize ICT systems and roles of employees in detail. However, the ISB does not have a row for offline service providers (limitation 3). Therefore, the ISB is limited in showing activities of offline service providers and their interactions with online service providers. Fig. 4(b) shows how the O2O SB can solve the limitations of the ISB. Limitation 1 can be solved by providing the Offline Evidence row. Second, limitation 2 can be solved with the Channel for Online/Offline Interaction and Online/Offline Support Systems lines. These lines can help us understand how service providers operate channels by using relevant support systems. Limitation 3 can be solved with the Offline Service Provider Activities row. By adding this row, we can understand the role of offline service providers and when they interact with customers and online service providers for the service.

5. Discussion This section first discusses the results of comparison between the two existing service blueprints, the conventional service blueprint (Bitner et al., 2008) and ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014), and the proposed O2O SB. The results show that the O2O SB completely addresses the limitations of the existing service blueprints. Second, the O2O SB is evaluated through expert interviews that consider three aspects: completeness, utility, and versatility. Finally, the managerial implications that show the advantages of the O2O integration for users are discussed. The implications can be a guide in utilizing the O2O SB as an effective tool for designing or improving service processes of the O2O integration.

5.2. Evaluation of O2O SB through expert interviews The O2O SB was evaluated from three aspects, namely, completeness, utility, and versatility, which existing studies (Bitner et al., 2008; Lim and Kim, 2014, 2018; Patrício et al., 2008) had emphasized as requirements for a service blueprint. We demonstrated the O2O SB and illustrations of the Uber taxi service to three experts. One-on-one interviews were conducted to collect the experts’ comments, and each interview lasted for approximately an hour. One interviewee (Expert A) is a specialist in the O2O domain and has research experience in mobile location-based services and product-service systems. Another interviewee (Expert B) is a specialist in service design and has research experience in designing various services (e.g., vehicle operations management and safety driving services). The last interviewee (Expert C) is a service consultant who has used various service blueprints in diverse products and services for more than five years. Completeness The experts were guided by one question: From the experts' perspective, does the O2O SB have appropriate components and a structure to visualize service processes of the O2O integration? All of the experts confirmed that the O2O SB had a suitable structure to intuitively visualize service processes of the O2O integration as well as clearly divide the online and offline sides. In particular, the experts agreed that the central location of the Customer Actions row would be helpful to understand the service directions between online and offline from the customer's perspective. For the components of the O2O SB, all of the experts agreed that the O2O SB had essential components. However, the experts added that the components should be customized depending on the user's role and goal. Expert C commented that “The desired level of description presented by the O2O SB would be different depending on the user's role and goal. Therefore, users might need to customize the components according to their role and goal.” In

5.1. Comparison of O2O SB and existing service blueprints The conventional service blueprint (CSB) (Bitner et al., 2008) has been frequently used to visualize offline service processes. The ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014) is one of the blueprints that show online service processes. By considering the two blueprints specialized in the offline and online processes, we selected them as targets for comparison with the O2O SB. Fig. 3(a) illustrates the result of mapping the Uber taxi service on the CSB. Fig. 3(a) also indicates the limitations of the CSB. The CSB has no area for visualizing the online side. Therefore, the online evidence collected for reserving a taxi cannot be presented (limitation 1). In addition, the channel for online interaction, the Uber taxi app, cannot be described on the CSB (limitation 2). This problem causes difficulty in presenting how customers and service providers meet and what they exchange through the app. Finally, although the CSB has a row to present the activities of service providers, it does not separate the online and offline processes. Therefore, classifying the activities of online and offline service providers is difficult (limitation 3). This problem causes difficulty in figuring out where the activities of service providers happen between online and offline, and how service providers in different sides cooperate with each other. Fig. 3(b) shows how the O2O SB solves the limitations of the CSB. First, limitation 1 can be solved by providing the Online Evidence row. In the O2O SB, the online and offline evidence can be clearly separated because they locate in the opposite sides. Second, limitation 2 can be solved by providing the Channel for Online/Offline Interaction line. 6

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(a) Limitation 1 Physical Evidence

Taxi

Limitation 2 Customer Actions

Start Uber app / Log in

Get promotions / Register credit card

Check the information

Save credit card information

Search the location Select a type of taxi of departure and / Make a destination reservation

Wait for the taxi

Take the taxi

Pay taxi fare / Check the payment information

Limitation 3 Onstage Employee Actions

Check the location

Receive and notify the reservation to the taxi driver Check the reservation

Record and deliver the payment information to the customer Move to the customer

Drive to the destination

Support the payment

Backstage Employee Actions

Support Processes

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Mobile / Computer / Internet / GPS

Mobile / Computer / Internet

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Limitation 1: Difficult to present online evidence Limitation 2: Difficult to present online and offline channels and their interactions Limitation 3: Difficult to classify activities of online and offline service providers

(b) Online Evidence Online Support System

Personal information / Past record

Promotions / Credit cards information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Online Service Provider Activities

Check the information

Channel for Online Interaction

Save credit cards information

Location information of departure and destination

Selected Taxi availability / Expected Fee

Payment information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / GPS

Mobile / Computer / Internet

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Check the locations

Receive and notify the reservation to the taxi driver

Record and deliver the payment information to the customer

Uber taxi application

Customer Actions

Start Uber app / Log in

Get promotions / Register credit cards

Search the location of departure and destination

Solve the Limitation 1

Uber taxi application Select a type of taxi / Make a reservation

Wait for the taxi

Channel for Offline Interaction Offline Service Provider Activities

Check the reservation

Offline Support System

Move to the customer

Take the taxi

Pay taxi fare / Check the payment information

Taxi

Taxi / Payment application

Drive to the destination

Support the payment

Mobile / Internet

Offline Evidence

Solve the Limitation 2

Solve the Limitation 3

Mobile / Internet / Card reader

Ride

Currency / Credit card

Fig. 3. Comparison of illustrations between the O2O SB and CSB (Bitner et al., 2008), (a) Limitations when mapping Uber taxi service on the CSB (Bitner et al., 2008). (b) Solutions to limitations by using the O2O SB.

addition, Expert A highlighted that “Service developers might need a more detailed level than the level of the Online/Offline Service Provider Activities rows of the O2O SB. However, the O2O SB can provide a big picture of the service process with which various stakeholders can understand others' role and integrated points in their service.” With regard to these comments, the service blueprints generally present a high-level overview of the service delivery process (Lim and Kim, 2014). The blueprints can be used to investigate a further service action or function (Apte et al., 2012). The O2O SB was developed by considering the general characteristic and corresponds with comments

from the experts. Utility The utility includes the effectiveness and efficiency of the O2O SB. The experts were guided by one question: From the experts' perspective, does the O2O SB help service designers, developers, and providers to intuitively and accurately (effectiveness) and easily and quickly (efficiency) visualize the complicated service processes of the O2O integration? All of the experts showed an interest in applying the O2O SB in their work. They agreed that users can carefully present every important element and interaction for the O2O integration using the O2O SB. Expert B said that “The user can recognize the service 7

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(a) Customer Action

Start Uber app / Log in

Get promotions / Register credit card

Search the location of departure and destination

Select a type of taxi / Make a reservation

Personal information / Past record

Promotions / Credit card information

Location information of departure and destination

Selected Taxi availability / Expected Fee

Wait for the taxi

Take the taxi

Pay taxi fare / Check the payment information

Limitation 1 Information

Payment information

Limitation 2 ICT Systems

Roles of Employees

Uber taxi application

Uber taxi application

Information Delivery Limitation 3 System Roles of Employees

Check the information

Information Production System

Save credit cards information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

ICT Systems

Deliver the location of the taxi

Notify the reservation to the taxi driver

Deliver the payment information to the customer

Check the locations

Receive the reservation

Record the payment information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / GPS

Mobile / Computer / Internet

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Taxi company

Partners

Uber company Uber company

Uber company Limitation 1: Difficult to present offline evidence Limitation 2: Difficult to present offline channels and support systems Limitation 3: Difficult to present activities of offline service providers

(b) Online Evidence Online Support System

Personal information / Past record

Promotions / Credit cards information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Online Service Provider Activities

Check the information

Channel for Online Interaction

Save credit cards information

Location information of departure and destination

Selected Taxi availability / Expected Fee

Payment information

Mobile / Computer / Internet / GPS

Mobile / Computer / Internet

Mobile / Computer / Internet / Cloud

Check the locations

Receive and notify the reservation to the taxi driver

Record and deliver the payment information to the customer

Uber taxi application

Customer Actions

Start Uber app / Log in

Get promotions / Register credit cards

Search the location of departure and destination

Uber taxi application Select a type of taxi / Make a reservation

Wait for the taxi

Channel for Offline Interaction Offline Service Provider Activities

Check the reservation

Offline Support System

Move to the customer

Take the taxi

Pay taxi fare / Check the payment information

Taxi

Taxi / Payment application

Drive to the destination

Support the payment

Mobile / Internet

Offline Evidence

Solve the Limitation 2

Solve the Limitation 3

Mobile / Internet / Card reader

Ride

Currency / Credit card

Solve the Limitation 1

Fig. 4. Comparison of illustrations between the O2O SB and ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014). (a) Limitations when mapping the Uber taxi service on the ISB (Lim and Kim, 2014). (b) Solutions to limitations by using the O2O SB.

directions based on the customer actions. In addition, the arrows used in the O2O SB help to understand the sequence of service provider activities.” All of the experts also agreed that the O2O SB can reduce the user's effort and time by providing essential components for the O2O integration. Expert A said that “Most companies are generally pressed for time when designing or developing a new service because of the fast release. In this situation, the O2O SB can be a useful tool to briefly visualize high-level service processes as a draft for further detailed design or development.” Versatility The experts were guided by one question: From the experts’ perspective, can the O2O SB be utilized to visualize various

service processes of the O2O integration regardless of service types? All of the experts confirmed the illustrations of the Uber taxi and American Airlines services. Additionally, the experts had time to infer how well other services applying the O2O integration could be mapped. All of the experts agreed that the components and their terminologies have an appropriate level to cover various service types. According to Expert B, “The components of the O2O SB represent basic attributes that the service applying the O2O integration generally share, so the blueprint is effective for understanding such a variety of services.” Expert C mentioned that “As the O2O SB has a balanced structure for online and offline, every service type can be presented although they focus on 8

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either online or offline.” In addition, all of the experts highlighted the need for a tradeoff between utility and versatility, which users should manage. All of the experts highlighted the need for and importance of the O2O SB because the services applying the O2O integration have rapidly grown due to recent innovations in ICT. The experts pointed out that although the O2O integration has become popular, specialized tools are lacking. In this situation, the O2O SB can be helpful for researchers and practitioners. In addition, the experts suggested several ideas to improve the utility of the O2O SB. First is to provide a guideline for blueprinting services that apply the O2O integration. The guideline could be developed by combining existing studies, for example, the Universal Job Map (Bettencourt and Ulwick, 2008) that proposes systematic phases to accomplish a customer goal. Second is to provide users with universal and essential candidates for each row and line of the O2O SB. The user can then determine the elements that he/she wants to use for blueprinting the service in question.

an Uber taxi (Fig. 1). Service providers can utilize this area to provide greater value to the customer. For example, Uber can provide video clips while the customer is waiting for a taxi, which can reduce boredom and increase customer satisfaction. Similarly, when a customer goes shopping at the airport, as shown in Fig. 2, the AA service can provide discount coupons or recommend products. Additionally, service providers can understand which channels and support systems are needed to expand their service areas and how these channels and support systems can be merged into the existing service process by visualizing them on the O2O SB. Through this expansion, service providers not only offer a diverse range of services to customers but also establish multiple revenue streams and branding opportunities. 6. Concluding remarks This paper presents the development of the O2O SB, which specializes in blueprinting service processes of the O2O integration, by analyzing the characteristics of the O2O integration through the literature review and text mining analysis. Two examples, namely, Uber taxi and American Airlines services, were mapped to validate the generality and functionality of the developed O2O SB. Furthermore, the O2O SB was compared with the CSB and ISB. The results indicate that the O2O SB is capable of solving the limitations when mapping services apply the O2O integration on the existing service blueprints. In addition, the results of the evaluation by three experts showed that the O2O SB satisfies completeness, utility, and versatility. Finally, the managerial implications that helps users employ the O2O SB for various purposes were discussed. This study contributes toward the development of the O2O SB in a systematic procedure. In the development process, we conducted literature review and text mining analysis. Through this approach, massive quantities of literature, articles, and application introductions were examined, and rich insights and information were integrated into the O2O SB. The O2O SB can visualize and analyze various types of services and overcome the limitations of the existing service blueprints. The O2O SB would be a useful tool to clearly and accurately blueprint key elements and their interactions in a single service delivery. The O2O SB provides the advantage of showing a complete picture of the entire service processes across online and offline. Thus, this SB helps users systematically understand the processes and establish strategies to improve services. Future studies can be suggested with reference to the development of the O2O SB. Thus far, service blueprints have been usually developed through qualitative methods such as literature reviews and case analyses. Recently, customer behavior and events during a service can be collected as historical data due to technological advancements. For example, most applications and websites collect real-time event logs incurred by a customer during a service. With the richness of data, service processes can be identified and analyzed effectively and accurately with analytical methods such as data and process mining. This approach can extract realistic and practical insights and information to develop a customer-oriented service blueprint.

5.3. Managerial implications This section discusses three managerial implications of the O2O SB to operate and manage the O2O integration. First, the O2O SB is useful in identifying various directions of the O2O integration. The service process of the O2O integration is more complicated and diverse than the traditional unimodal service process. Xu and Zhang (2015) argued that the analysis of the direction is crucial to develop a healthy cycle of the O2O integration. Service providers can easily identify the turning point of the direction by using the O2O SB. For example, the turning point of the Uber taxi service happens when a customer makes a reservation and rides the taxi, as shown in Fig. 1. Service providers should thoroughly manage the point for the complete O2O integration. If the point is not smoothly integrated, service providers cannot provide a seamless and consistent service to customers. Eventually, this problem reduces the customers’ loyalty and satisfaction. The O2O SB can also help service providers understand which elements should be managed for the integration.Furthermore, the service providers can add channels and support systems at the point to improve their services based on the blueprint presented by the O2O SB. Second, service providers can understand their roles and communicate with partners who cooperate for the O2O integration by using the O2O SB. Many types of service providers exist in the O2O integration and have a role at different points during a service. Du and Tang (2014) emphasized that service providers in the O2O integration should be appropriately responsible for the interests of customer toward attaining equal service quality in both online and offline. In the AA service, workers for check-in and store and a schedule manager exist offline, and the AA app system exists online, as shown in Fig. 2. Therefore, the service providers can identify their roles and expect a ripple effect on the entire service process based on the blueprint. In addition, they can see partners and their roles, which is important for cooperation in the O2O integration. Various service providers frequently communicate to develop the complete O2O integration and they need a universal blueprint that visualizes the overall service processes of the O2O integration. Service providers can use the O2O SB as the communication tool for concurrent engineering, which can decrease service design time, thereby leading to improved service quality. Finally, service providers can utilize the O2O SB to discover extensible areas online and offline for new or improved services. One of the reasons why many companies adopt the O2O integration is to expand their service areas (Ho et al., 2012; Lee and Li, 2016; Rampell, 2010). Service providers can increase their competitiveness and attract a larger number of customers by expanding the area. Service providers can find potentially extensible areas by visualizing their service processes on the O2O SB. Figs. 1 and 2 show concentrated areas where interactions are active and empty areas where interactions are nonexistent. For example, an empty area exists when a customer waits for

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