User Journey Maps

(Bron: Jungleminds) Customer journey mapping is een klantgerichte techniek voor het ontwikkelen van innovatieve bedieningsconcepten en het optimaliseren van klantprocessen en diensten. Het maakt zichtbaar waar in het klantcontact verbeteringen mogelijk zijn om een optimale klantbeleving te realiseren over alle kanalen heen.

(Bron: Desonance) 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. Businesses love organisational impact assessment and stakeholder management plans, but often forget the customer and users and the fact that services deliver to customers. This is where design can provide a means.

What’s a customer experience map?

It’s a graphical representation of the service journey of a customer. It shows their perspective from the beginning, middle and end as they engage a service to achieve their goal, showing the range of tangible and quantitative interactions, triggers and touchpoints, as well as the intangible and qualitative motivations, frustrations and meanings.

Why is understanding experience important?

Because with all the competing noise in the world, competing processes from other businesses, agencies, institutions, social networks, life etc it is through understanding and supporting experience that we make services more effective for customers. With effectiveness comes trust. Consequently, when we change processes or introduce new ways of doing things, customers trust what we’re doing works because they’ve experienced it in a way that was meaningful to them to get what they need. Their confidence ultimately translates to effective and efficient engagement for the customer and for the business.

Why and when are they useful?

For designing

• Makes visible the end-to-end experience from the customers’ point of view, showing the significant interactions, pathways or expectations we need to understand
• Explicitly calls out experience factors that were implicitly known, or not known at all
• Enables conversation based on evidence of what customers actually think, do and use (not assumption or gut feel)

For implementing

• Provides the human context for the service blueprint and the connection to the business change that is proposed
• Enables the team to really understand what it is to be in the customers’ shoes
• Ensures the customers’ voice is easily represented and referenced during development and building

As communication tool

• Provides a focus and reference for conversations and workshopping with many different people
• Captures at a visual level complex information and saves time in getting people on the same page because it doesn’t require lengthy text to explain it

What’s in a customer experience map?

There are six dimensions and three components of experience the map should capture. These represent important reference points for features of the service design – e.g. how the service is found, who uses it, what they’re looking for, what information they use, who and what is of most help etc. By capturing these experiential aspects we ensure the customers’ voice is represented as the service is designed and implemented.

6 Dimensions: These dimensions help extract content for the map and generate conversation during the mapping. The responses help in considering what is to be recommended in the design.

1. Time/duration
2. Interactivity
3. Intensity
4. Breadth/consistency
5. Sensoral/cognitive triggers
6. Siginificance/meaning

3 components: These represent the key content of the map itself. Simply put, what people:

1. Think
2. Do
3. Use

So how do you make one?

Ideally begin as a team, using the research outputs (frameworks, models, insights) and shared knowledge to plot the journey. The point of the initial mapping is generating team conversation.

• Ask a simple question from the customers’ perspective in terms of their goal, for example: “what is the experience of going through a drive-through?” and plot a simple journey using the most typical customer type
• Draw out the journey – on a whiteboard/with post-its/on a wall – whatever works for the team
• Make sure you explore the whole experience, not just when it touches the service. You can use scenarios and storytelling to plot the details. If you have developed personas or customer typologies plot their journey through the service experience

After your initial plot refer to the six dimensions and three components in detail to ensure all aspects of experience are addressed. (This may have started this during the initial plot to generate conversation or identify and dig into details). You may go through multiple maps but you want to get to a single summarising map which includes:

• A name, event trigger(s), customer types, a key to the symbols, the map itself of what customer think, do and use from beginning, middle and end of their experience, specific breakdown of all touchpoints/interactions, and breakdown of level of intensity/emotion, and conclusions about map in terms of opportunity to improve or leverage change.
• Make sure to capture the design decisions or recommendations as you map – the map is just the vehicle for your evidence. The conclusions you make from the exercise are what informs the recommended changes to meet the intent.

The key aspects in terms of customer actions are now able to be plotted for the service blueprint. To further draw out design decisions, compare the service blueprint with the customer experience:

• For points of pain/failpoints – what are the responses/options the service solution address?
• For points of pleasure – what are the things the service must keep?
• Are there areas that take more time for the customer than we expect – what does this mean for the design and implementation of the service?
• Are all the touchpoints and interactions within our control? Are there interactions the customer relies on that we aren’t aware of or may be able to leverage?
• Is the reason why a customer interacts with us reconciled with how we treat the service?

Maps and Service Blueprints

While the Customer Experience Map represents the experience from the customers’ perspective, a Service Blueprint represents the service from the customer and business perspective. The blueprint 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. So it also illustrates the stages and complexity of the encounter and distinguishes between the customer experiences (and decisions) and the systems, invisible to the customer, that operate backstage to ensure that these are delivered.

Together the map and blueprint represent the two key components of service – how it’s experienced and how it works

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Customer Journey Mapping

Brief Description:

Customer journey mapping is the process of tracking and describing all the experiences that customers have as they encounter a service or set of services, taking into account not only what happens to them, but also their responses to their experiences

Description:

Customer Journey Mapping comes from the corporate sector and market research. It can be used as a form of consultation to improve a service through finding out how people use the service and how they interact with the service provider. It provides a map of the interactions and emotions that take place, and can help an organisation provide its customers with the experience it wants them to have. It acts a strategic tool to ensure that every interaction with the customer is as positive as it can be, giving an opportunity for the service provider and the system to see the picture together for the first time, bringing the customers stories to life.

Used For:

It can help organisations understand:

• Opportunities for improvement and innovation.
• How prospective and current customers use a service and when they interact with staff and the system.

· How customers perceive the organisation at each interaction and how they would really like the customer experience to be.

· How departments and functions need to work together.

· The potential barriers and obstacles that customers encounter.

• How to see things from the customer’s point of view – forcing individuals to think beyond their own priorities or policy agenda.
• To set performance indicators and standards, so progress can be tracked and measured over time.

When To Use / What It Can Deliver:

It can be used:

· to improve efficiency within an organisation or service

· to gain an understanding from the perspective of the customer / service user – seeing things from their point of view.

· to identify the interdependencies of processes that interact with the customer

· to identify where customers are being confused by different touchpoints.

· to identify the different perspectives and priorities of different user groups

· to encourage a flexible approach to working to ensure that the process remains aligned with service user needs

· to deliver a seamless, streamlined experience that cuts across silos, by recognising where and when it makes sense to join things up for the customer.

· To understand how much you can expect people to do and recognise where you might be imposing undue stress.

Getting close to Customers

Journey Mapping isn’t an end in itself……It’s one of a range of tools that can contribute to a better Customer understanding.

Customer journey mapping builds a mirror and enables us to question why we do the things we do. It makes things visible, which might have been right in front of us, but were so familiar we did not notice them or question them. It never occurred to us we could change them. It brings knowledge, already embedded in the organisation, to the surface and makes explicit what is implicitly already there.

‘Walking in their shoes, can lead to great insights!’

It allows us to take a step back from where we are, away from our internal targets and agendas and lets us be open-minded and put our creative energy to good use. And the beauty of it: there is no lengthy report, which no one actually reads. Customer journey mapping is a creative tool and works with visualisations. It is meant to inspire, energize and kick-start good conversations and ideation. And it’s the conversation that matters - and the opinions and ideas it brings to the surface.

Greater Efficiency:

Journey Mapping helps you to:

• Target limited resource for maximum impact
• Plan the most efficient and effective experience by reducing duplication and shortening the length of process
• Anticipate demands on the system and plan so you can meet these
• Prioritise between competing calls and on resources by showing where and when the needs are the greatest and the service most valued.
• Identify baton-change points, where service or communication break down is most likely.
• Identify problems without attributing blame
• Set performance indicators and standards, so that you can measure and track progress over time.

When Not To Use / What It Cannot Deliver:

· It cannot deliver an understanding of the wider community as only service users will be consulted.

Strengths:

· It can encourage a more participatory approach to service design and improvement.

Weaknesses:

• Only works for specific services and may not be seen externally as consultation or engagement.

How to approach Customer Journey Mapping:

The process is started by consideration of when your customers interact with the organisation. They are typically grouped as follows;

· any ‘marketing’ communication, for example

Ø an advertisement

Ø website visit

Ø company literature

· any human contact, for example

Ø by telephone – to your staff, call centres, telesales/telemarketing personnel, administration staff, and so on

Ø in person – through reception, business development or sales people, delivery and assessment team.

· Any physical interaction, for example

Ø Visiting your premises

Ø Using your facilities

Ø Even parking in your car park

Ø

Touch points:

Each point or interaction can be referred to as a moment of truth……

“Any time a customer comes into contact with any aspect of business, no matter how ever remote, is an opportunity to form an impression.”

All interactions are touchpoints, but not all have the same impact – think about their relative importance.

If you understand the opportunities touchpoints open for you, good use of them will improve the journey for the customers.

Hot Spots:

These are primary ‘moments of truth’ where you can win over or greatly disappoint the customer.

Journey steps

· capture the major journey steps, not every element of the process

· key points typically associated with customer interaction.

· Out of these there will be three or four hot spots that are considered real make or break points of an existing or potential relationship.

Customer experience at each step:

· Capture here the actions that matter

· Experiences that you want the customer to have.

· What delivers good experience?

Customer experience map:

· tracks the main steps in customers experience,

· records how they think, feel and act at each step

· Qualitative rather than quantitative

· used to drive a deep customer understanding.

Broaden the definition of the journey:

Which customers do you want to engage with?

The starting point for the journey mapping is the customer; you need to decide which customers to engage with.

Set out your map:

Objectives, scope and journey type

Ø What this map needs to do – Single well defined journey with clear start and finish points

Customer Segments

Ø The specific group that you are mapping here – use key defining characteristics to distinguish them from other groups.

Ø Who they are, their behaviours or attitudes.

Bring findings to life with photographs and videos – use the customers words to have greater inpact.

Think onions!!!

Layer 1 – Actions

Layer 2 – Responses

Layer 3 – Language

Layer 4 – Feelings

Layer 5 – Deep emotions

Make it a good customer experience map by…..

Ø truly bringing the customer to life

Ø building a deep understanding of thoughts and feelings

Ø it’s clear and easy to follow – No jargon!

Ø It engages people in the issue

Ø It’s totally unambiguous

The action steps don’t have to be black words on white paper. Don’t stick to an A4 page. Use much larger maps, make them highly visual. Include photographs and quotes from the customer. It should engage and inspire.

Taking Action:

Developing a set of customer maps is not the end point of the process, it’s just the beginning. The most important part of the exercise is what you do with the maps to improve or transform the customer experience.

Ø Go back to your original check list and remind yourself how you intended to use the maps and by whom.

Ø Keep sight of your objectives

Ø Think about what the ideal journey would look like.

Ø Plan how you can move towards the ideal.

Ø Be innovative

Ø Plan how to engage other partners / Agencies.

Ø Sell what you’ve done.

Ø Create an Action Plan – make it ‘SMART’