Customer Journey Mapping A highly effective change management activity that helps a group create a visual map of the key events, touch points, and activities that a customer receives from your organization.

Objectives To create a visual representation or map of how a customer interacts with your service or company. The aim is to identify good practices as well as issues and problems.

When Would You Use It? If you’re getting feedback from customers that your internal processes aren’t meeting their needs then Customer Journey Mapping will help you with the analysis. If you’d like to create a shared understanding within your team / group as to how your customer journey plays out. The map focuses on understanding the ‘as is’ situation; thinking about how things could be different will come later.

Customer Journey Map (start) One swim lane per individual, department or company Customer always at the centre Tech Support Customer Services Customer Event Event Event Event Event Event Event Legal Billing Partner X

Customer Journey Map (finish) What’s Working Well? …. ….. What’s Not Working Well? …. ….. Effective process Tech Support Customer Services Event Event Customer Event Event Event Event Event Issue/Red flags Legal Live document Billing Quotes Partner X

Are There Any Rules? Allocate one swim lane per individual, department or company. Always keep the Customer as the central swim lane as a metaphorical reminder they are in the center.

Resources required 60 mins. Up to 15 willing participants. Very large piece of plain paper stuck on the wall. Lots of space of your participants to move around (HINT: get rid of tables and chairs). Lots of different colored Post-Its and pens Tack to stick things on the wall. Flip-chart and paper.

Process (1) The Facilitator sticks a large piece of paper on the wall and draws the Customer swim lane horizontally down the center. The Participants brainstorm the typical Events that happen to a Customer and add those to the Customer swim lane in chronological order. One Event per Post-It (see example). The Participants brainstorms and agrees the key stakeholders / departments / people / external partners that might be involved the handling of this Customer. TIP: Ensure there are participants who represent these stakeholders in the room (as far as possible). The Facilitator adds these stakeholders as their own swim lanes above and below the Customer. The Facilitator splits the Participants into smaller groups and allocates each group to their own key stakeholder / swim lane.

Process (2) The groups spend 10 mins mapping the activities of each swim lane around each of the ‘Events’ Post-Its in the Customer swim lane. Following the mapping exercise (in swim lanes for different stakeholders), work as a whole group to understand the total picture: For each swim lane, one person from each group takes no more than 2 minutes to walk everyone through the processes that have been mapped out. Does everyone agree that is the current situation? Analyse the Customer Journey Map as a whole and add: Green flags – describing where the process is effective Red flags – describing where the process is broken Quotes – first hand observations from your team

Process (3) The Facilitator summarises the findings of the group under the headings “What’s working well?” and “What’s not working so well?” The Facilitator leads a Plenary Discussion using the questions on the next slide as inspiration.

Plenary Discussion Questions What is this picture telling us: about the different Stakeholders and the way they are working? about the Customer and what they are experiencing? Where can the Customer fall through the net and why? Are there any overlaps and/or gaps in customer service? Are there any key activities that seem to make a difference? What could be done better? How is information shared and by who to who? Are there any gaps in information sharing? How are referrals/hand-offs managed? Is there any follow up to a referral? When? How?

Secret Sauce Ensure there are participants who represent all the key stakeholders in the room (as far as possible). Follow the session with a break so the group can reflect and then with an Action Planning session to ensure the participants go away with clear list of actions. Use different coloured Post-Its to represent different types of activities (e.g. assessments, referrals, solution providers, handoffs etc.) This process can also be used to test the quality of the proposed / new design.