Promised an experience; given a map: Filing a Tax Return Experience Map (Part B) « In my last post: Promised the world; given an atlas: A personal service experience (Part A) I shared my service experience as I attempted to file a tax return online in a new country. In this post I share how I captured that research as a Customer Experience Map. Interestingly as I worked on the mapping, it emerged that this post and the experience of capturing the experience provided additional sub-parts that have occupied my thinking. Therefore Part B consists of two sub-parts: The presentation of a map of current state experience, fully prefaced with a raft of disclaimers to qualify its existenceA postscript on the daily, sometimes hourly, round of inputs from other designers, design thinking, stimuli. Be it tweets, links, emails, thoughts, challenges, conversations. Mapping the experience was (as it always is) challenging. In that context here are some disclaimers to the map I’ve produced: I’m a functional gal. Like this: Like Loading...
Creating Your Own "Customer Journey Map" This week we have talked about Servant Selling in a Competitive Environment and how to use outstanding service as a competitive advantage. Customer Journey Mapping is yet another way to examine the experiences you are giving your customers and map out ways to improve that service. As you work through the map, initially resist the urge to include the service other people in your organization are giving. (To print this out, hold your curser over the document, single right click, select copy, then paste it into a document in a program like Microsoft Publisher, Word, or Apple Pages.
Service design is Dead. The New Product is Alive. So, I changed my job title a few months ago. I dropped the ’service’ bit. I’m now just Sidekick’s Design Director. I’m now MASSIVELY EXCITED about a new thing – designing products. But not your old products. No, I’m excited about designing a new type of evolving, networked product that requires a multi-disciplinary team just to keep it alive, let alone make it awesome. Service design is dead Ok, it’s not that I think service design is dead, its just that its pretty much used up its interest for me, and I think for Sidekick. First, the uninteresting bit. Its quite an isolating view, and not very helpful for actually making change happen, and creating new cool stuff. Second, the interesting bit. Probably this is just me getting older and more experienced, but I think its also a bit that I’m reaping the rewards of moving away from strategic consulting, and towards making and inventing new things. The New Product is alive The New Product design is the new rave All we have to do now is ship.
Identify Your Buried Treasurepoints with a Touchpoint Map | Touchpoint Dashboard The other day I came across a discussion thread on LinkedIn. Several thought leaders in the customer experience management field have weighed in and shared some thought-provoking commentary, which, in turn prompted me to create this post. So, what do you think? Should equal emphasis be placed on all touchpoints, and should we aim to wow customers at every interaction? My thought is no. What I’m getting at here is that there are specific spots in a customer journey where the customer simply expects or needs more. If you invest more time and resources in designing these Treaurepoints, and focus your teams so they can deliver some serious wow during those points, you’ll reap the rewards in loyalty and advocacy. But first, you have to know what your Treasurepoints are. Here’s How You Can Identify Your Hidden Treasurepoints & Deliver the Wow in the Right Places! 1) Review & Organize Your Customer Profiles & Feedback. 2) Create a Touchpoint Map & Analyze Your Touchpoints. Be Sociable, Share!
What is a Customer Experience Map? | Touchpoint Dashboard Although you may not want to admit it, your customers have probably at one time or another experienced some type of pain while doing business with your company. It could’ve been a minor inconvenience, rather than a huge deal-breaking issue, but any way you look at it, it’s pain. So, ask yourself these questions: Can you clearly pinpoint where the customer pain points are in your organization?Do you and your employees have a clear picture of the process different types of customers go through when interacting with your company? A Customer Experience map (or journey map) is a tool that can help you answer YES to all of these questions. A quick description… A Customer Experience map visually identifies and organizes every encounter a customer has (or could have) with your company and brand. Creating a map is one of the best methods for understanding how customers interact with your company and uncovers opportunities for where and how you can improve a customer’s experience. 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.)
Cooking Up a Winning Customer Journey Map | Touchpoint Dashboard At Touchpoint Dashboard, our goal is to take the guesswork out of the customer journey mapping process and put you on the road to success. We know you have questions, and we want to help. That is why we’re offering free tutorials that cover a wide range of customer journey map-related topics. We want to be your go-to resource for your customer experience and journey map needs. So, check back often and leave your comments. New resources will be posted each month. Recipe for a Winning Customer Journey Map – Part I: The Ingredients The first post in our series will reveal the ingredients you should include in your customer journey map. You probably haven’t thought about your map in terms of “ingredients” and “a recipe” before, but mapping is like cooking in many ways. That’s exactly how it works with a customer journey map. Let’s get started! 1) Customer Lifecycle Phases: How does a customer become your customer? AwarenessInformation-gatheringSelectionPurchaseSatisfactionLoyaltyAdvocacy
Customer journey mapping: Mapping out customer experience excellence Customer journey mapping could hold the key to analysing and improving the customer experience. Only recently a report from the Cabinet Office recommended CJM for authorities to provide a more efficient and cost-effective service. Arne van Oosterom outlines how it can help organisations - and lists the 10 key ingredents to a customer journey map. A product or service is merely a means to an end. I don’t want to own a coffee maker - I need to wake up early with a little help from a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, most organisations are not capable of listening to stories. People-centred approaches like Design Thinking, Social Design and Service Design have emerged because it provides us with useful methods and tools to bridge the gap. I like the description given to it in an article by Kable: "CJM maps the route people take as they interact with services, taking quantitative measures such as number of contacts made and the time taken to access a service. Change causes friction
Cooking Up a Winning Customer Journey Map Part II: The Recipe | Touchpoint Dashboard If you’ve never designed a customer journey map, it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why we wanted to share a five-step recipe for how to build a basic map. It’s important to note that if you haven’t read our post that outlines the ingredients for a winning customer journey map, we highly recommend that you read it first. For those of you who have read the first post and have gathered all of your ingredients, let’s get cookin’! Step 1: Determine Your Mapping Method & Design Figuring out how to design your map can be tricky because there are dozens of ways to do it. If you opt to design your own map without the power of Touchpoint Dashboard, we recommend the streamlined “Swim Lane” design, where touchpoints and data are organized and displayed in horizontal rows and vertical columns. Step 2: Define Swim Lane Headers Now that we’ve settled on a design, it’s time to start adding the ingredients you gathered back in post #1 and build your map’s framework. Step 3: Create a Key Next Steps…
& Service Blueprinting « See also: Customer Experience Mapping & What follows is my approach to service blueprinting. It’s a companion technique and output to customer experience mapping. And as with experience mapping it doesn’t and can’t exist in isolation from other techniques. Both blueprint and map provide a tangible means for businesses to assess the impact of change on customers and services. Businesses love business process modelling and context diagrams, but to avoid playing lip service to the impact on customers maps and blueprints and design thinking provides an evidence-based means. What is a service blueprint? Because it maps out chronologically and in sequence all the various interactions and actions that occur in parallel when customer and company meet, it shows all the interactions by and with the customer. When and why are they useful? For designing: For implementing: As a communication tool: Unlike a customer experience map this framework remains the same for each map. So how do you make one?
Customer Experience Mapping & « See also: & Service Blueprinting What follows is my approach to customer experience mapping. I’m not saying it’s perfect – or easy, and I am most certainly saying it doesn’t and can’t exist in isolation from other techniques – research gives you the evidence, frameworks help sort the interpreted and synthesised information and good old fashioned collaboration is required. And finally, for these to be meaningful in a business setting I advocate a companion service blueprint. I pitch the map and blueprint as both technique and output. They provide a tangible means for businesses to assess the impact of change on customers and services. What’s a customer experience map? Why is understanding experience important? Why and when are they useful? For designing For implementing As communication tool What’s in a customer experience map? There are six dimensions and three components of experience the map should capture. 3 components: These represent the key content of the map itself. ThinkDoUse
How To Map The Emotional Customer Experience Most customer experience maps exclude one of the most important, most influential indicators related to driving loyalty, which is customer emotion. Bored during Hurrican Irene, I was perusing Twitter updates and stumbled upon a link called “Mapping The Emotional Customer Experience”. I clicked to learn more, because the topic sounded intriguing. The related projects I had been involved in to date were all process or technically oriented and did not consider emotions or feelings. I clicked on the link and spent quite awhile reading an article and then listening to a webinar called, “See What Your Customers See: Mapping Your Real Customer Experience” from Beyond Philosophy, a customer experience consulting firm with offices in the US and UK. A customer experience map is created to chart the customer experience from the beginning to the end of your buying process and the beginning to end (or ongoing) of your post purchase process. Why should we care? What did Berkman’s map determine?
What’s Your Touchpoint ROI? | Touchpoint Dashboard I was talking with a friend who works in the public relations field about an issue he was having with receiving funding for a project at his company. Even though this conversation occurred several months ago, a comment he made continues to linger in my mind: “It’s making a difference, but if you can’t prove it works with financial figures, you might as well kiss it good-bye.” I think we can all relate to that statement. It’s no secret that companies are more and more strategic and stringent with how they go about allocating resources across their organizations. A Touchpoint Dashboard Map can help you determine the return on investment (ROI) of all your touchpoints and identify and prove their value and effectiveness. Follow this 5-step process to find your Touchpoint ROI. 1) Analyze Your Customer Data & Touchpoints & Map it Out: Take a look at your overall customer journey and all the touchpoints and customer feedback involved. Be Sociable, Share!
Customer Journey Map | Continuous Improvement | Customer Experience Go here to view a customer journey map video explanation and download a free template. In a prior post, I discussed how most Lean practitioners focus primarily on the mechanical aspects of a process and often ignore the emotions of the customer. In other words, one can improve the process, but with complete disregard for the customer’s feelings as they go through the process. To be fair, they can be mutually exclusive. In this post, I’ll explain (1) What is a Customer Journey Map, show the process of (2) Customer Experience Mapping, (3) it’s role in continuous improvement, (4) show several examples of customer journey maps, and (5) provide a free customer journey map template that you can download. What I’m arguing for is the opportunity to add the customer’s emotions in our approach to process improvement. Lean Uses Maps – Many of Them So, in Lean, there are many maps. So, what ought we do about it? Customer Journey Map Let’s define a Customer Journey Map: Customer Journey Mapping Examples