Service Blueprint Development for China’s College Campus Express Delivery based on Grey Relational Analysis and TRIZ

Abstract

The express delivery industry has developed rapidly because of the success of e-commerce. The products provided by this industry are “services,” while the nearest contact with consumers is the “distribution” link, which best reflects service satisfaction. If the quality of express delivery service is improved, then such improvement will facilitate the enhancement of consumer satisfaction. At present, college students have become one of the main consumer groups of e-commerce in China. The previous literature mainly discusses the problems and solutions of campus express service, but it lacks the combination with the campus express service process. Therefore, this study uses China’s domestic A and B colleges as examples to discuss important key factors of the satisfaction of college students with campus express delivery services. The six dimensions (service quality, express delivery cost, delivery quality, delivery time and delivery efficiency, delivery location, and information security) are designed to evaluate the satisfaction degree of the express delivery service of colleges. Based these six dimensions, the evaluation indicators of the satisfaction with express delivery service in colleges are designed to investigate the importance of the evaluation indicators of college express service satisfaction. Results of reliability and validity analysis show that the content of the indicators of each research dimension in the questionnaires conforms to the research structure and the reliability of the questionnaire is good. Moreover, results of the grey relational analysis indicate that four important key factors affect the satisfaction with express delivery services of colleges: “B1. Rationality of picking service charge”; “A2. Home delivery services”; “D2. Pick up quickly, no need to queue long”; and “B2. Reasonable charges for different courier companies.” Thereafter, Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch (TRIZ) analysis is performed to establish seven improved strategies for these factors. These strategies can be divided into external delivery (i.e., S1, S2, S3, and S5) and internal management optimization (i.e., S4, S6, and S7). Lastly, service blueprint is used to decompose the campus express delivery service into process steps. The solution strategies formulated from TRIZ analysis is integrated into the service blueprint to optimize the campus express delivery service process in China. The optimized service blueprint is used as basis to establish workflow guidelines, thereby providing an efficient work advice for campus express delivery services in China.