Designing a Customer Journey from Day 1

Hi All,

I would love your input! I am working on re-designing a customer journey from scratch. I would love to know how you designed yours, what you took into consideration, and even how you laid it out.

I appreciate any insight you can provide!

Thank you,
Gala

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Comments

Brian Hansen

This is great, Ed, and I agree. Starting with the "people" aspect of the project sounds like a great bet because that's what it comes down to - people make buying, usage, and renewal decisions, so where are the people, what do they care about, how are your people interacting with them, and where are the moments in those interactions that feel good/not so good? Looking forward to following along as well!

Diane Johnson

I love what @Ed Powers said.

You should also look at what your best CSMs are doing. What do they consider the key moments and how do they approach them? What feedback have they received from customers? And just as importantly, what gaps are they noticing? Where do they feel they are letting customers down

Gala Samokieszyn

SO AMAZING Andrew! I would love to meet and chat. Same link to book?

Andrew Marks

Gala,

You might find our CSEB tool helpful in your effort. We can hop on a quick Zoom and I can walk you through it.

Andrew

Ed Powers

I'd welcome it, @Gala Samokieszyn! My email: ed@se-partners.com

Gala Samokieszyn

WOW Ed, thank you! Do you mind if I reach out to you personally to chat more?

Gala Samokieszyn

As always......you are amazing.......

Jordan Silverman

Not yet! We use Totango and are definitely planning on integrating it soon.

Ed Powers

Hi @Gala Samokieszyn--

A few thoughts:

Start outside-in. I've found the best results come from a deep understanding of customers, their journey and how they work, what they expect (expressed and implied), and what they find valuable. When you anchor your processes on customers, you always get better designs.
It's not about the map. Most people view customer journey mapping as a documentation exercise, but I've learned it's about creating a shared understanding, a shared vision, and a shared commitment with they key people who can assist you making the change. It's a means to an end.
Execution is the hard part. You'll surface a very long list of gaps between what you have ("Is") and what you want ("Should Be"). Organizations always struggle to turning the crank. Some ways to address it:
1. Ensure alignment and commitment with your executive team from the very beginning. Recruit an executive sponsor who will work with you to obtain money, resources, and help overcome internal resistance
2. Use process improvement methods. Whether you choose Six Sigma, Lean, PDCA, or whatever you like, disciplines such as before/after measurements and root cause analysis to ensure what you change actually has an impact
3. Make the time. Surprisingly few organizations succeed simply because they don't set aside the time to improve things. You and your improvement team must set aside at least 2 hours/week just for improvement project execution.
4. Manage the change. People naturally resist change, especially when it comes to 're-designs.' Learn about the process and managing change and integrate practices into your project. Research from Prosci says you're 6x more likely to be successful.

I've been doing process mapping and leading breakthrough improvements for 25 years in my own operations and as a consultant. I'm happy to share more, if you're interested, including what I learned leading a 12x reduction in Time-to-Value through an enterprise-wide onboarding redesign: ed@se-partners.com

Bridget Lamb

@Gala Samokieszyn I'm very interested in this as well. Following this conversation.

@Jordan Silverman thanks for sharing your workflow. I'm curious to know if you've incorporated this into a CS platform? I'm evaluating options to implement at my company and one of the things I'd like is the ability to create journeys and associate them with playbooks and alerts.

Jordan Silverman

This is still a work in progress and will evolve over the next few weeks and months significantly.

We have began specializing our team. So we used to just have CSMs who did onboarding, customer service, training, etc.

Then we added onboarding specialists so CSMs could focus on customer service, training, and value.

Now we have four different roles:
Onboarding Specialist - responsible for helping client populate system (we are inventory management, so takes time)
Trainers - show the client how to use the platform
Customer Service Agents - reactive support via chat, email, and phone
CSMs - focus on showing the client value

Check out the workflow here - https://lucid.app/lucidchart/e0c485a6-694d-4f34-b3b3-703a8f641f0e/view

Would love thoughts, insights, and questions!