Creating a Customer Ecosystem Map of Your Customer Experience

Presented by: Jim Tincher, Principal Consultant, Heart of the Customer

What is a Customer Ecosystem Map?An internally-created map of the customer journey, matched with the internal teams and resources impacting that journey.

It is often created in conjunction with a Customer Journey Map. Forrester wrote about them in Outside In, but the process has been around for years.

They are often confused with process maps. The biggest difference is that ecosystem maps begin with the customer’s steps, as opposed to the internal processes.

Typical Customer Experience Improvement Process

Create Customer Ecosystem Maps

Research to Validate and

Extend Knowledge

Quick Fixes

Project Prioritization

Long-Term Solutions

Select a Journey

Select a Journey

Typical Customer Experience Improvement Process

Create Customer Ecosystem Maps

Research to Validate and

Extend Knowledge

Quick Fixes

Project Prioritization

Long-Term Solutions

Select a journey where you see significant customer experience impact. Isolate the specific customer impacted by the journey.

In the physicians’ office example that follows, Seniors experience the journey differently than do other segments of customers.

Teams document the customer steps and the resources and processes that impact that experience.

Process

Typical Customer Experience Improvement Process

Create Customer Ecosystem Maps

Research to Validate and

Extend Knowledge

Quick Fixes

Project Prioritization

Long-Term Solutions

Select a Journey

Shared view of the customer journey and items that impact itAreas of customer impact to investigateTop areas of focus to improve your customer experience

Outputs

Typical Customer Experience Improvement Process

Quick FixesCreate Customer Ecosystem Maps

Research to Validate and

Extend Knowledge

Project Prioritization

Long-Term Solutions

Select a Journey

The process often pinpoints short-term opportunities to improve your customer experience until long-term improvements can be made.

Typical Customer Experience Improvement Process

Research to Validate and

Extend Knowledge

Create Customer Ecosystem Maps

Quick Fixes

Project Prioritization

Long-Term Solutions

Select a Journey Research results in a Customer Journey Map. Research can come before or after the Ecosystem Map. If done before, the Research finds the customer pain, which the ecosystem map can delve into.

Research conducted after the Ecosystem map can extend the existing work to uncover areas and pain points that were missed in the ecosystem mapping.

Research-based Customer Journey MapsCustomer Journey Maps extend your knowledge through a disciplined research process – learn more here.

Typical Results of Creating Customer Journey Maps

Discovery of missing touch points and friction points

Reliable measurement of emotional impact broken down by

customer type Additional metrics on each touch point and moment of

truth

Identification of Moments of Truth

Typical Customer Experience Improvement Process

Project Prioritization

Create Customer Ecosystem Maps

Research to Validate and

Extend Knowledge

Quick Fixes

Select a Journey

Long-Term Solutions

Once the source of the customer pain is known, long-term solutions can be developed.

These long-term solutions can improve the customer journey, resulting in higher loyalty, more referrals, and often a lower cost to service customers.

How do you use the Customer Ecosystem Mapping process?

As a way to gather cross-functional input

As a method to determine what you don’t yet know about the problem

As an exercise to create a shared understanding of the issue

As a first step towards more in-depth work or research on the problem

Customer Ecosystem Mapping process

How do you create a Customer Ecosystem Map?

Select Journey

Invite Members

Document Steps

People and Groups

Objects Separate Backstage

Supporting Actions, People, Groups,

Systems & Objects

Friction Points

Customer and Employee

Emotional Reaction

Select a Customer and Journey

• Determine a key customer segment or type.• Select a journey that needs improvement

• Use other forms of research to identify journeys needing improvement

• Start with a small journey (8-12 customer steps) to learn the process

• Once you have the process down, move to more complex journeys Select

Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reaction

Invite mapping team members

• Recruit a mapping team• Include representatives of all groups who impact the process – both customer-facing

and back-end• Include a mixture of management and front-line employees• Consider including customers and/or external partners on you’re more comfortable with the

process • Create a process description with customer impact for members to review• Have members research the issue before the mapping session• Bring all members into a large room for the process

• Needed Supplies• Big paper or mobile white board for the map• sticky notes in seven colors• Red, green and yellow sticky dots

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reaction

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Systems and Objects

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

Actions

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Document your Customer’s stepsHave members write down the series of customer steps on sticky notes

• Choose a customer-facing member to go first, then ask others what steps have been missed

• Do not go into exceptions or friction points yet – this is the journey as it is designed

• Leave spaces between each, as you may discover missed steps later

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Later steps are omitted here for space reasons

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Receptionist

Systems and Objects

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

Actions

Receptionist

Scheduler

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Receptionist

Document People and Groups interacting with your Customer

Have members write down the people and groups your customer interacts with on a differently-colored sticky note

• Have a volunteer place these directly below the matching customer-focused step

• Have others members add teams that the first volunteer missed

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Receptionist

Systems and Objects

Phone system

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

Actions

Receptionist

Scheduler

Email system

Phone system

Appointment System

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Receptionist

Document Customer-facing Objects in the journeyUse a different color of sticky note and document

the objects your customer interacts with at each step of the journey

• Include both physical objects (such as forms) and virtual (such as websites)

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Receptionist

Systems and Objects

Phone system

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

Actions

Receptionist

Scheduler

Email system

Phone system

Appointment System

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Receptionist

Draw a line to separate the Backstage processes

Items below this line are not seen by the customer, but can have significant impact on their experience

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Receptionist

Systems and Objects

Phone system

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

CRM

Actions

Need for call

generated

Physician

Appt created

Nurse

Receptionist

Scheduler

Email system

Email Sent

Phone system

Appointment System

CRMAppointment System

CRM

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Receptionist

Constant Contact

Document “Invisible” items impacting the journeyCreate sticky notes documenting the actions, people, groups

and objects that support the actions above

• Examples can include finance, the teams printing bills, IT systems, etc.

• This will take a bit longer, as many invisible items impact the experience

• Have one member give his/her perspectives, then open it up for debate

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Physician not available for 2+ weeks

Senior patients prefer physical mail

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Receptionist

Systems and Objects

Phone system

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

CRM

Actions

Need for call

generated

Physician

Appt created

Nurse

Receptionist

Scheduler

Email system

Email Sent

Phone system

Appointment System

CRMAppointment System

CRM

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Receptionist

Constant Contact

Find the Friction PointsIdentify the places in the journey where things tend to go wrong• Use call center logs, surveys, customer journey maps and other research to

discover these friction points• Focus on the most important areas – those impacting the most people• Including all possible friction points will bog down this process – call out only

those most commonly experienced

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Physician not available for 2+ weeks

Senior patients prefer physical mail

Friction pointsPeople

interacting with

customer

Receptionist

Systems and Objects

Phone system

Internal Teams

Systems and Objects

CRM

Actions

Need for call

generated

Physician

Appt created

Nurse

Receptionist

Scheduler

Email system

Email Sent

Phone system

Appointment System

CRMAppointment System

CRM

Patient returns call to schedule appointment

Patient receives an emailed reminder

Customer Steps

Patient receives reminder call for appointment

Receptionist

Constant Contact

Estimate the Emotional ReactionsFor each person involved in the process, place green, yellow or red dots (positive, neutral, negative) on each part of the journey to represent whether it is working well from the perspective of the person touching it• Document customer reactions first, then the employees• Have one member place his/her thoughts on the map, then debate• If you have a customer journey map, use that to help estimate the customer reaction• Notice that employees are often perfectly happy with a process that frustrates your

customers

Select Journey

Invite Membe

rsDocum

ent Steps

People and

Groups

Objects

Separate

Backstage

Supporting

Actions, People, Groups, Systems

& Objects

Friction Points

Emotional

Reactions

Recapping is one of the most critical parts of the process• What was learned?• What surprised members?

Are there quick changes that can improve the experience?

Are there parts of the process that we still don’t know? Are there additional teams we need to engage?

Do we need more details?

Follow-up meetings are common especially the first few times you go through this process

Notes on the processTypical length = 2

hours for simple map

Save time by having participants do research beforehand

Longer processes can take 4-8 hours

Discussion = Magic

Creating a shared view is critical

Iteration Happens

Some questions can’t be immediately answered

Avoid finger-pointing

The goal is not to judge, but uncover opportunities

Even broken processes exist for a reason

Look for the quick fixes

Often, both simple and long-term solutions come to mind

Quick fixes build a sense of momentum

Questions? Reach out to Jim

• Customer Experience Consultant, Researcher, Blogger and Speaker

• Heart of the Customer Blog (www.HeartoftheCustomer.com/blog)

• Speaker Profile: www.speakermatch.com/profile/JimTincher/

• CXPA Member612.747.4021jim@heartofthecustomer.comLinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/jimtincher

Jim Tincher