Cool, I know how CX works. But where do I go first?

Portuguese version here!

Have you ever stopped to realize - i.e., become aware of - the titanic number of tips, theories, free courses, and all manner of Customer Experience (or so the famous, CX) content we have at our disposal? And so, it is with everything that is in the hype. New trends and theories cover a lot of interesting things! Now, how to take advantage of them? And how to effectively start a CX project? This has been a recurring question in Product and CX classes.

Before following, two important notes:

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

1. There is no one process - It may sound frustrating, there is no definitive cake recipe. Every methodology or practice must necessarily pass through your critical sense and have it adapted to your context and needs. Including the suggestions, you will find in this article.
2. Along the way you will be able to understand which tool you need - following this reasoning, don't try to fit your needs into pre-made models. It is good for you to walk and understand, as the conditions of each step allow, which tools have the potential to contribute. However, do not think that the importance of methodologies and practices is invalidated, on the contrary. Such artifacts need to have a place and be used in the most efficient way, so that they really help you. After all, as Abraham Maslow taught us, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

In short, don't turn your intention to improve the customer experience into a rite of repetition of models that you can find at a Google's distance. At the same time, don't ignore the science and thoughtfully and extensively tested models. Understand each one before you start, and throughout your journey toward fostering better levels of CX in your product or company.

Considerations made. Among many possible ways and not (and by no means!) exhausted here. Let's go to a proposal about where to start a CX project. Born from successes, and mainly learning from mistakes, brought in the backpack. Drinking from lessons of service and product design - Double Diamond, Design Sprint and more.

I see dissatisfaction, recurring complaints, and customers leaving. I definitely need to do something! Right? Absolutely! However, it is necessary to well identify the problems, hypothesize potential solutions, and prioritize them. And the first step is to know, or revisit, the specific journey of your customer in question.

#1 Know your customer journey

Do you know and have you documented the path your customer takes in their relationship with your product or service (journey)? If so, great! We have a starting point and you can take this moment to revisit it. If not, fine! Let's start mapping it out.

• Find the experts. Find in your company who is the customer or user expert for each service you have. In complex organizations or services, you can delimit not by service, but by touch points. As an example, a power supply company is mapping problems in its monthly bill reading and generation journey. One of the experts will be the meter person. That is, the person who is "in the face of the goal" and interacts with users to read the meter clocks. Find them, relate them, and bring them in so they can be heard.?
• Listen, listen, and listen! Think of key questions that support you in identifying, relating, and understanding the frictions and problems your user faces. At this point avoid devoting energy to solutions. Focus on extracting as much as possible about the problems from your experts.
• Map out the customer journey. If you have already mapped it, review it. If not, now is the time. Seeking to understand and identify:
• ?The user's Step by Step (touch point).
• What channel is used at each step (physical, digital - WhatsApp, digital - voice, etc.).
• What is the reason associated with each contact (why he/she arrived at this action).
• Result expected by the user (why he/she arrived at this action).
• Difficulty that the user faced (pain points).?

#2 Seek solutions and prioritize them

Collaboration is the key to the castle. Lean on your team.

With journeys in hand - revised or created - you will probably have a good base on the profile of your user(s). Therefore, with a focus on improving the experience in a short, practical way you will have all enough to go on. Now it's time to get to potential solutions (hypotheses) and prioritize them. Best practices can support you at this point, if your organization has product people, they will know how to point you and support you in how to follow up.

I don't have any product people here. What now? No problem! You, or whoever is in the role of your project manager, can try the following steps.

• Set up brainstorming sessions to go through the whole journey, the identified problems, and come up with potential solutions. Collaboration is the key to the castle. Lean on your team.
• With potential solutions in hand, try to describe them as the user would describe them. We don't necessarily need to have one or many stories for each problem. It is important that you have the necessary amount that exhausts all the hypotheses for solving a problem. Simply and directly:

I, [USER] expect [ACTION/ RESULT] for [PERCEIVED VALUE/ SOLUTION

• Publish the stories you create on a physical or digital board. And try to group them by similarity. As a first step to prioritization:

• In possession of the grouped stories, establish connections with your CX indicators - if you have any previously implemented - and start prioritizing with your team. Among many possible models, you can start by considering the vectors of effort and value to the user. It is very important that in this step there are people who can support you in a technical evaluation of effort. And from this intersection arrive at a prioritization:

Final message

Count on me! If you need help and want to exchange ideas about your specific case, have a model that can support [...]. Just drop me a message right here on LinkedIn. I'll be happy to chat over a virtual coffee and learn more from you!

See you around!