Design Thinking- Final Assignment: Storytelling

1. Challenge

My job at the organization that I work with is all about CX, where I have to be able to understand  customers and convey their messages and feeling to leaders. Essentially I do a lot of Storytelling.

In this case, my challenge was to convey a specific customer journey to the organization through  the means of storytelling. For the purpose of communicating opportunities that could be taken for  all the organization’s departments to improve customer experience.

Therefore, the customer’s journey for this company had to effectively be conveyed to move  managers and make them aware of the customer’s pains and needs. Highlighting the pain areas.

Customer journey is the experience an organization’s client has by buying its products or receiving  its service. For example, buying some fruit from Walmart or getting a credit card at HSBC bank.  This begins from the very first moment a client has contact with the company may it be through  the internet, a friend, etc; and up to when a client experiences the result of the product or the  service itself. This process then just iterates. In this analysis mostly qualitative data is gathered and  the results are guided by insight, which are composed of opinions and feelings. Then it is  important to choose the most impactful opinions and emotions to present in the best way.

2. Selection

For this challenge, I’ve selected the tool of: Storytelling.

Storytelling essentially is a tool that helps tell a story just as it’s writing in its name, it conveys a  message with emotional connection and a larger purpose. It is now used by organizations to  transmit their brand’s essence and story because “connects to the emotions, the characters, the  values of the people that live that product [or service] everyday”. Then, if I wanted to achieve a  powerful moving impact to transmit the customer’s journey, storytelling is a good tool to achieve  this.

The Journey that is also composed of the customer’s opinions and feelings plays along nicely with  the storytelling tool, since it is supported by an emotional connection but also by a larger purpose  which is the achieve CX improvement throughout the organization. Therefore, through this tool I  would be able to “take the listener along on their journey”, inspire and make them want to take  action.

3. Application

Discussing on how to portray the customer’s journey we came up with an idea. In order to achieve  storytelling effectively we first noted all the relevant pain points throughout the analysis. Since we  did interviews we were able to note down the exact words said by the customers but also their  facial expressions. In turn, we extracted the video parts where relevant quotes on their pain points  were mentioned. These extracts were then categorized into pain points. These would be useful to  portray the customer’s feelings and expressions during their journey.

After showing the videos relevant insights were needed, therefore for every customer journey  phase, the pain points were noted down with qualitative data that would finish sustaining the pain  point.

Design Thinking- Final Assignment: Storytelling

Lastly the opportunities were noted after the data for each phase beside several quotes to obtain  again an emotional connection. This was all presented to the organization’s leaders, mentioning  first the challenge and that they could be part of the action plan, followed by the videos displaying  the profile of each interviewee and the insights gathered for each phase. Lastly the opportunities  and suggestions we gathered that could be taken for them to improve all of the interviewees and  their client’s journey.

In result, I believe the tool was applied effectively however there could have been missing some  lingering questions for the audience.

4. Insight

The presentation giving with the help of storytelling was a success. The emotional connection we  were able to convey specially through the videos was amazing, and the story follow up of the  interviewees with the insights and opportunities was at its point. Leaders were able to closely feel  their clients and get moved by their opinions. One of the most important aspects is not just  showing the information but really engaging the audience on the story of each customer and  letting them know their opinions. Therefore, the speaking part is very important and has to be a  prepared person that know the context and the data. However, the data was also important since  the audience were leaders they were specially looking for number and relevance.

5. Approach

Next time we would include more “lingering” questions to better engage the audience, maybe use  more visual context for the opportunities to create an emotional connection as well. Like, “how do  you think Maria felt after this issue?”.  On the other hand, mind mapping could have been another  tool to display to leaders their customer’s journey and get them maybe more emotionally engaged  and inspired into taking action. By showing them scattered pieces of quotes and emotions but also  data, that they could see and determine then by themselves opportunity areas needed to get rid  of the customer’s pain points.

