Client Problem Statement

In Fall 2021, an e-commerce furniture company engaged the JSR Collective (a team from the University of Michigan - School of Information) to help them seek to understand the customer experience in order to make decisions with a customer-centric perspective. The company had noticed that there is sometimes a disconnect between their customers’ pain points and desires and the decisions made by the company that directly affect those customers.

This “Empathy Network” as designed by the JSR Collective will be used by existing and future employees to understand the customer journey.

Through analysis of qualitative data sources, this report seeks to interpret the company’s existing sentiments toward Customer Experience, as well as validate accuracy of those assumptions toward the customer journey.

Research Goals

• Understand the company’s current sentiments toward Customer Experience

• Validate assumptions made by the company’s leadership toward the customer journey

• Provide recommendations to support the embedding of a culture of customer-centricity in current and future employees.

Methodology

The team conducted a 6 week virtual study to synthesize internal employee and external customer feedback toward customer experience.
Employee participants were dispersed across the continental US. Customer participants were located in key markets for the company.

Phase 1 | x8 1:1 employee interviews across 4 job roles

• Customer Experience

• Marketing

• Product

• Operations
  

Phase 2 | x4 1:1 customer interviews

• x2 positive experience

• x2 negative experience
  

Phase 3 | Other artifact synthesis

• x2 video recordings of Product-led customer interviews (website usability testing)

• x1 walkthrough of Customer Support platform

• x1 walkthrough of e-Commerce testing platform

My Role

Within the JSR Collective (5 teammates), I played the role of project manager and lead researcher. Direct responsibilities included:

• Acting as lead interviewer for Marketing, Operations, and Customer interviewees.

• Ownership of project team management, meeting organization, and client status updates.

• Coaching other teammates on client communication and presentation.

Recruiting

Employee interviewees were chosen by the client contact for the project.

x1 customer interviewee was provided by the client’s Customer Experience team.
The other x3 interviewees were recruited by the JSR Collective through a survey posted on social networks.

x5 interview protocols were developed by the team for the employee job roles and customers.
Each interview was lead by x1 interviewer accompanied by x1 notetaker.

All interviews were conducted over Zoom.

Affinity map

Using Miro, the team transcribed the interview notes into virtual sticky notes used to develop an affinity wall with 3 levels of thematic hierarchy.

Customer Journey Map Validation

During employee interviews, an artifact was surfaced showing a rough draft of the company’s customer journey. This was developed as part of a Leadership Team strategy meeting.

The team validated accuracy of the company’s assumptions against affinity wall insights. The team also provided a revised journey map, including mapping of job roles against customer journey phases and recommendations for future focus.

Background research

In order to better serve our client, all 5 members of the JSR Collective also embarked on individual background research around the problem space of customer experience and cross-functional collaboration. Altogether, the team reviewed existing literature and produced 20000+ words of relevant reporting.

You can read my background research report here: Defining the customer experience and operational implications for customer-centric firms

Customer experience definition

The company’s definition of customer experience is the intersection of good product design and seamless delivery fulfillment. These two mindsets can sometimes feel at odds with each other, causing a cultural clash between teams.

Current sentiments toward the customer

Despite the client’s assumption that the company is making decisions without considering the customer experience, most of the company is experiencing a cultural change that pushes for customer-centric thinking. The catalyst to this shift was a series of failures during a recent product launch, resulting in bad press that required systemic company triage.

Employees define “customer-centricity” as moving away from reactive customer problem-solving, building out the Customer Experience Team, and making customer data-driven decisions.

However, the Leadership Team caveats that there must be a balance between customer input and company vision, as it is the vision that attracts their company base.

Customer journey map

As drafted by the leadership team, the existing customer journey map is generally accurate to real customer desires. Based on the customer insights from our analysis, we recommended emphasizing the following components:

• More AR visualization to allow customers to envision furniture products in their own home (in lieu of physically seeing the product before purchase)

• Improve the customer’s ability to access the Customer Support Team during Research and Purchases phases (currently mostly supporting Delivery and Returns)

• Update the post-delivery Product Satisfaction Survey to include Delivery Experience feedback

Since the drafted journey map is a recent exercise, employees outside of the Leadership Team have an ambiguous understanding of how their team and personal actions influence the customer experience, as well as how teams can work together to improve specific customer touch points.

Customer journey map socialization

Make the customer journey map accessible to the entire team. Through our analysis, we found that some team members were aware of the customer journey map draft whereas others were not, leading to disparate views on impactful customer touch points.

It’s recommended to house the customer journey map on a Customer Experience Home Page in the company wiki.

Customer experience as a priority

Create opportunities to stimulate cross-functional activity / collaboration, mobilize resources, and co-create iterative improvements toward a better customer experience. Following current company norms in product co-creation, this can include “hackathons” where cross-functional teams work together to solve the most common customer support use cases.

The company may also consider the inclusion of “customer-centricity” as a core competency for future company recruitment, as all departments are rapidly expanding.

Continued customer research

Continue to conduct customer research and experiments (using scientific methods). In the last couple months, the E-Commerce team has begun conducting A/B tests on the company’s website using Heap. This has already added value by dispelling previously rooted assumptions on their customer values, such as sustainability being a “nice to have” in furniture decisions, rather than a necessity.

During these customer research activities, invite other teams / employees to participate as observers. Customer research has been lead by the Product Team; historically, the Product Team has been very protective of their work and invites other teams into the product development process only at specific stages. This has resulted in uneven dissemination across teams of insights that step outside the realm of product development and into the world of customer experience.