Applying Visualization to Customer Experience Transformation

Challenge and Selection

I work as a Customer Experience Transformation consultant primarily dealing with developing or  enhancing customer journeys for Telecom Customers in web/app channels. Most of my projects begin  with capturing requirements/user stories and then followed by UI/UX and IT development.

Telecom Customer Journeys look simple from a user perspective, but from a Telecom Company  perspective this is a complex process with multiple variations with different outcomes for every click the  customer makes while performing the journey in real life. Each customer action and its outcomes need  to be thought through carefully and weighed balancing business outcomes and customer experience.  Imagine a simple scenario- customer clicks on checkout. Looks simple isn’t it? But from a journey  perspective it may lead to multiple outcomes based on the product in the basket – eg some products  may need a credit check some may not, some products may need financing, some products may need  additional customer details to be capture and many more. Then additionally what if customer has 5  Iphones in the basket that they are checking out- is it a fraud case? What should be the journey if fraud  is detected?

I realized the traditional approach of writing down requirements/user stories is limiting the customer  experience transformation that the company wants to achieve as potential variations within the journey  are missed. I realized this traditional approach also lead to UI/UX or IT defects as the developers are not  able to connect the dots in a customer journey. Visualization (drafting User Journeys) help stakeholders  think about the outcomes and variations within each action customer undertakes and developers  understand the nuances of the journey. It unlocks the customer journey variations which a traditional  pen and paper approach won’t have achieved.

Application

I used to draw or map out the existing customer journey my company had and that was my starting  point for every meeting I had with the stakeholders. Along with the journey map I would present some  important data points. As an Example I would present the current customer purchase (JOIN) journey and  present a fact that currently around 30% of prospects would drop off after checking out even after  reaching close to the very end of the journey without completing the purchase.

So on one hand we have the existing or As-Is journey and on the other hand we have the problem  statement of what we are trying to address. I would ask the stakeholders what could be the reason 30%  of prospects drop off without making the purchase. Is the As-IS journey too long? Are we asking  unnecessary details of the customer, can the journey be reduced? Do we give the prospects option to  resume the journey at a later stage? I would give the stakeholders some time to think about these  questions and the journey map which is visible on the screen.

I would record the insights that came out as a group from the stakeholders and address each one of  them and decide how best to enhance the customer journey map with these new insights. The final  agreed to-be customer journey would also act as a visual reference point for the UI/UX and IT teams and  better than user stories

Insight and Approach

Carrying on with the same example as above, the As-Is Journey map gives the stakeholders quick  identification of which steps are necessary in the journey and which are overheads if we want to  quicken the purchase journey so that customers do not drop off without making payment. Each visual  step in the journey map can be weighed in terms of business value (cost + benefit). Say for example in  the Purchase (JOIN) journey I mentioned above, the marketing stakeholders would identify few  customer steps as not required but legal stakeholders would say they are required from a compliance  perspective. We would have a healthy debate and weigh the business value and measure against any  compliance or legal issues. I realized that we can unlock the power to think differently by visualization.  On the same steps both Marketing and Legal teams thought differently from their individual interest  perspective and presented their opinions.

The Other thing I realized with visualization is that user journey maps enabled me to not only help  stakeholders understand what it is we're trying to do but also to help persuade them in the worthiness  of a particular idea which I would bring to the table. Which is a key aspect of my job as I am a Customer  Experience consultant.

Going forward what I believe is I can really build upon visualization and incorporate Learning Launch tool  as a Pilot to test out the customer journey changes we are proposing as a team and do they really  enhance customer experience. This could be a staff trial or a sub-set of customer trial on a sub-set of  products on a single selected customer journey designed. The best thing about customer journeys is that  they could be quickly reversed or scaled depending upon the outcome.

