Reflection- Mind Mapping

Challenge  Recently, I was a stream leader in an consulting assignment with a team of two consultants at a Consumer Durable  Client in India. The client is a leader in manufacturing and distribution of Reverse Osmosis (RO) Water Filters and  was the first one to offer this product in Indian market. The product is used by every middle and upper class  household for filtering the water and makes it fit for drinking. The product uses many consumables (like filters,  membranes etc.) which requires regular servicing and also has many electro mechanical parts which can  breakdown due to incorrect handling or many other external factors (like Voltage Fluctuation, Pressure burst in  supply pipes etc.). In view of above, the client has a dedicated after-sales department which takes care of servicing  needs of the their products across the country. The customer facing teams in this department include a captive call  centre and a large fleet of field service team which manages the servicing of the sold RO filters. In the past, the  client was witnessing decrease in sales growth due to increased competition and below average customer  satisfaction in after-sales experience. A market research survey conducted by an agency also suggested that the  customer ranks after-sales experience as the second parameter in their purchase criteria while making a purchase  of the filter (first one being the price).

In view of above, the team brainstormed internally and defined the objective of the project as

“To carry out an after-sales transformation to achieve the following 3 goals in order of priority:

·  Provide a best-in-class after-sales experience to the customer

·  Significantly enhance employee productivity within the after-sales department

·  Provide a best-in-class experience to the after-sales call centre executive (CCE) and field executive (FE)  throughout the process.”

Selection  We started the project by first understanding the current after-sales process and then gathered insights around  the issues and challenges through Data Analysis; Ethnographic Interviews of each type of customer persona;  Shadowing the CCE & FE; Focus Group Discussions with CCE and FE; Face to Face interviews of Call Centre, Field  Managers and Backend teams; Mystery shopping on competitor’s processes.  We then decided to present all the gathered qualitative and quantitative insights in form of a mind mapping  workshop as it is one of the most powerful tools in the design thinker’s toolbox. This can be used for looking for  patterns and insights, which can lead to more creative solutions. Broadly speaking, mind mapping is a tool that can  be used for looking patterns and insights in the large quantity of quantitative and qualitative data that the team  has collected during the “What is” phase.

Application  We started this work by creating as-is journey of the customer across touch points and channels, collated  ethnographic interview insights, data analysis insights (in form of charts, frequency plots, regression results) etc..  We took a print of these on A3 sheets and pasted them on a large wall of a meeting room. We invited all the  stakeholders i.e. Board members, CEO, COO, National Service Heads, Regional Service Heads, FEs, CCEs and  managers to the mind mapping workshop and gave them a walkthrough of the all the material.  We also handed over a bunch of post-it slips to workshop participants of three different colors - one each for  Customer Experience, Productivity and Employee Experience - our design themes. We asked them to browse  through the entire gallery and stick post-its across the 3 themes on the charts with all the insights and innovative  ideas that come in their minds. After this, we grouped all the workshop participants in four groups of 5 members  each and asked them to discuss the list of insights among the group and translate them into design criteria. The  group was then asked to present it the entire group across the three themes one by one. The group also

questioned few insights to go deeper and know the exact reason behind it and tried to come up with design  criteria which could address the underlying issue. By the end of this workshop, we had an exhaustive list of insights  and design criteria agreed upon by the group.

Insight and Approach  Mind mapping is one of the efficient methods to organize ideas and analyze complex situations and organize all of  these in a formation and in a brain friendly method. It helps in understanding ideas and collaborate during the  meetings. The creative intuitive mind-mapping workshop we conducted turned to be a great way to align the  organization around a common understanding of current states, underlying issues and challenges. This was also a  big help to the team as we moved forward to the “What if” phase, as we had a bouquet of design criteria and  many high level solutions (which got discussed in the workshop) which resonated well with all stakeholders. As we  progress into the “What if” phase, the team will now brainstorm in smaller teams and come up with solutions  which satisfy the design criteria. The team will then create napkin pitches for each of the solution and present it to  the client for prioritization and prototyping.  The only issue we faced during the mind mapping workshop was that at times the participants start getting into  the solution rather than thinking of a design criteria. Next time, in order to avoid such discussions we will have a 2  minute briefing on what is expected from the workshop and what is the difference between a design criteria and  solution.  This course helped me in structuring this project in a new and more engaging way. Earlier we used have 80-100  page report which we used to run past through the client, but this was more brain friendly and stakeholder  friendly. Moving forward, I will now use this in all my engagements!!

