🚀 Transforming CX Management: A 3-Part Approach

It’s fascinating to witness the growing enthusiasm around Customer Journey Mapping and Customer Journey Management. However, the interpretation of CX varies based on where one sits in the organisation or their unique background. In my experience, positioning CX within Business Management as a matrix organisation team has been a game-changer, fostering collaboration in managing, monitoring, and delivering value to both customers and the business. But I haven't always had this mindset.

While I inherently believe in scaling CX from service design, I also advocate for giving CX a seat at the table. In my case, that seat was at the Business Management table. Why? Because if CX resides solely in design within a business-led organisation, its impact may not reach its full potential.

In this 3-part series, I'll delve into the pillars of CX Management that, from my perspective, form the essential building blocks for transitioning toward a more customer-centric organisation. While I don't claim to have all the answers, I trust that these three elements, if carefully addressed, will be pivotal steps towards CX Management at scale and operationalisation of customer journeys.

Part 1: From Customer Journey Mapping to Customer Journey Framework

As service designers and business development managers delve into mapping customer journeys, the challenge emerges in reconciling diverse perspectives. My immersion in the design community underscored the pressing need for standardized templates spanning products and services. It became apparent that each product had its isolated map, impeding collaboration and complicating the linkage of pain points or actions across products.

Upon assuming the CX lead role, my objective evolved into co-creating a Customer Journey Framework, striving for a shared understanding and language across the entire organisation.

It's essential to note that viewing the customer from a singular product perspective is inherently product-centric. However, the establishment of a high-level journey framework transcends this limitation. It enables us to perceive the customer journey holistically, moving beyond individual products to understand the comprehensive journey experienced by the customer with our organisation and therefore our brand.

How did we do it? it involved 3 steps:

1. Gathering and Listening: Understanding the diverse frameworks in use and identifying common ground.

At the start of our CX journey, the crucial first step was bringing together stakeholders from various departments, each accustomed to their unique frameworks. This dynamic workshop aimed at finding common ground and discerning essential elements for our Customer Journey Framework.

During our workshop, discussions allowed us to gain valuable insights into their methodologies, terminology preferences, and expectations regarding this process. The primary objective was to find common ground. What terms were universally significant to all stakeholders? What aspects of the customer journey were crucial from everyone's perspective? These questions guided us in the exploration of shared concepts that could serve as the foundation for our unified Customer Journey Framework.

This phase not only allowed us to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives but also laid the groundwork for collaboration. It was a crucial time for relationship-building, fostering understanding, and paving the way for a collective vision of CX management.

2. Identifying Linear Steps: Forming an end-to-end journey, key phases, steps, and validating them in customer language. 

In the next phase , we delved into Identifying Linear Steps—crafting an end-to-end journey with key phases and steps.

With active stakeholder engagement, discussions revolved around defining the journey's linear progression, key phases, and essential steps. What set this phase apart was our commitment to translating organisational terminology into language directly derived from customer insights.

Simultaneously, to ensure an authentic customer perspective, we conducted validation workshops by directly engaging with identified customer groups.

This dual approach allowed us to authentically align our business processes with the customer journey. By incorporating direct customer input, we ensured that the Customer Journey Framework resonated with our audience, placing their expectations and perceptions at the forefront. This iterative process was instrumental in creating a framework that not only brought internal stakeholders closer to the customer's perspective but also guaranteed further effectiveness in delivering a seamless and customer-centric experience.

3. Framework for the Organisation: Creating a visually clean and easy-to-grasp circular framework. 

In the final stage we aimed at creating a concise and visually impactful framework for the organisation. 

This circular design places the customer journey steps at the center, while the surrounding elements represent various business steps. It enables a holistic view that  integrates customer-centricity into our business processes, emphasising the interconnected nature of each step within the customer journey. The outer layers also illustrate how different facets of our organisation directly contribute to and influence the customer's experience, reinforcing our dedication to prioritising the customer at the core of our operations.

Essentially, crafting a Customer Journey Framework for your company brand provides a structured approach to mapping and understanding the customer journey from awareness to post-purchase and beyond. The benefit is to align the organisation around a common understanding of the customer experience, helping identify touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities for improvement, not just at a product or service level but at a company level.

In the forthcoming parts 2 and 3, I will elaborate on the pivotal role this framework plays in deepening your comprehension of your customers and support you in selecting the right metrics to effectively manage your CX organisation.

Ready to take your first step into journey mapping? Check out the materials that guided me in creating a common B2C framework:

1. Manning, Bodine and Bernoff (2012) Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Centre of Your Business, New Harvest 
2. Bliss (2015) Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine, Wiley
3. Rawson et al. (2013) The truth about customer  experience, HBR 
4. Fernández-Trapiella (2017) Telefónica adopts customer journeys and a process-driven approach, TMForum
5. Lin (2018) Customer Journey Simplification – A journey to business transformation
6. Salazar (2023) Customer-Journey Management : Establish and operationalize journey-level experience design work across functional groups for continuous improvement, NNgp
7. Stickdorn (2022) Journey Map Operations

What's been your experience with CX Management? Share your thoughts below and stay tuned for Part 2! 🌐✨