Have you thought through what they do before and after they use your product? Before and after they call your support line? What else are they doing in the meantime? How the time of day impacts their level of patience or how much they’re willing to pay? Odds are you probably don’t have a very clear understanding of that! You talk to them, sure, and you may have some analytics and reports that give you more data points. But the real insights come from putting all of that together in a coherent picture. And a few tools used in customer journey design can help with that.

Empathy Map

An empathy map is a quick way for a team to share what is known about a customer and to fill in the blanks with assumptions.

The map serves as a cfoundation for discussions about critical assumptions and helps the team align on what they collectively see as important for the customer and relevant for the project.

At it’s most basic an empathy map consists of impressions (what a person sees and hears) and actions over a given period of time. The time period can be a day, a week, or something else depending on what makes most sense to explore. You can find a more detailed guide here.

Journey Map

Based on the customer empathy map the customer’s journey can be mapped out. See this post for more details on how the journey mapping is done. Mapping the journey has countless advantages, but the main draw is that it lets you examine the experience of using your product and interacting with your company and brand. Not only does it help you form a coherent view of what your customer experiences in the context of your business, but of what they do in a day as well. And through all of this the team develops a shared understanding from a customer’s point of view.

The basic elements they work from are the total set of touchpoints a customer has with your company. A touch point is any interaction a customer has with your brand, your company, or your product. This includes anything from social media postings, to testimonials, to their point of sale, to your thank-you cards!

What is a customer journey map?

It is a map of every interaction a customer has with a company and product throughout the different stages of a particular customer experience. That experience could be purchasing a new product and the stages mapped could be purchase stages (awareness, consideration, purchase) and use stages (receive, setup, use) or whichever stages are most useful to look at.

The outputs of creating and reviewing a customer journey map are a set opportunities to improve the experience by improving the product or improving the experience in any if the other touch points.

Journey mapping gives you a view of the customers full experience of working with your company and product. The beauty of a journey map is that it does this from the point of view of your customer, which helps give an understanding of how important different parts of the experience are relative to each other. Often making improvements to key experiences can influence what happens much later in the journey. And you will want to consider those implications when you are prioritizing what to work on next.

How does it work?

When identifying opportunities to improve the journey you have mapped out you can use guiding questions to help focus on the specific type of opportunities you’re are looking for. You may want to find any type of opportunities and work with the whole company to select and implement.The question to ask then is, “How can we make this better?” Other times, you will want to get as specific as identifying opportunities for a particular team to focus on. An example would be using the journey to examine the need for support articles to be created or improved. You can do that by taking a second pass at the map with a smaller group who are experts in the area you’re looking for opportunities for. The question could be something like, “What content is needed to make each part of this journey better?”

After completing a customer journey map, you can create a template for the most important stages and add any dimensions that may be most important for you when prioritizing your work. It can be things like importance to customer (sometimes emotional and business value for the customer can be two different dimensions), cost of implementing, number of customers out of the total customer base this will affect, etc.

Using this framework and inputting both, the work you’re already doing and new opportunities that came out of journey mapping, lets you create a new list of priorities.

What you end up with is not just a clearly prioritized list taking into account what’s important to your customer. It also becomes a mental framework that will help guide you and your colleagues’ work…even when you’re not standing in front of the journey map itself.

Sometimes it feel like the teams we work with speak different languages. You have Sales talking (very fast and quite loudly) about what they need built to close the deals that are in their pipeline. You have Product teams drooling over the advanced features they want to build. And you have Support who wants Product to fix the last three features they built and Sales to stop selling new customers on features that aren’t even built yet.

It’s very difficult to agree on priorities and it’t most often not because anyone is wrong. Even if everyone is right and using the correct framework to determine priorities from their point of view it still doesn’t easily translate into shared priorities. The problem is that every team is looking at the world through the lens of what they do as a team.

What’s needed to break out of this situation is a view that all teams can take part in.

The journey to a shared viewpoint can seem frustrating and long, but it’s not as hard as it may seem. A powerful way to develop a shared framework for what is important, is to start from a shared view of what the customer is experiencing. The customer is where it all comes together. The teams may have different ways to measure the impact of the work they do, but it all has to do with what the customer experiences. So, if we can get to a place where we have a shared outline to refer to, there is much less reason to point fingers at each other.

Journey mapping helps us get there by letting the team work together to understand things like:

• Who the customer is and what they’re trying to achieve.
• What they’re thinking and feeling throughout the experience.
• What else is important to them?
• What else is going on around them that will impact their experience?

The benefits are immeasurable. Frankly, a lot of the improvements in collaboration and alignment between teams comes from just participating in the journey mapping workshop. The conversations it prompts is often what teams cite as the main take-away from the work.

In addition to that, the journey map will serve as a frame of reference, explicitly or implicitly, for the teams going forward. Even in cases where the journey map doesn’t create a clear set of priorities for teams it provides the framework to discuss priorities against. It can help bring somewhat abstract discussions back to something more specific and tangible, linked to the customer. At the very least, even if your teams won’t fully agree on priorities, at least they agree on a framework for discussing what’s important.

What journey mapping is is this…

It’s a way of visualizing the end-to-end customer experience. That can mean from before someone even heard of your company, to when they have used it for a while and want to recommend it to others.

The inputs for a journey maps are, at a minimum, a persona or customer whose journey is mapped. In addition to this, any customer research, segmentation or market research can help make the journey maps even better! Support data is one highly valuable piece of data that can be used as input.

As for map organization, it can be done in a variety of ways. Ideally, it is done in a workshop where people with different areas of expertise work together to create the map. This brings different perspectives together, which results in better maps, for sure. But it also helps align the teams and develop a shared understanding about what the customer experiences and what part of that experience are most critical to get right from the customer’s point of view. And that is priceless!

Another way to work through mapping that can be used if it difficult to get people to dedicate the time needed for a workshop to create a map, is to interview people in other teams individually and then put together the map gradually as the interviews progress. Sometimes, after a first round of interviews, people will see the value in completing the map in one go as a group. If not, then bringing the group together to review the final map may be the way to go. Assess: What would work best with your current circumstances?

There are several tools available to create journey maps – pick the simplest one:

• Printed template put on the wall.
• Some Post-It notes to mark the main sections.
• Online tools like Uxpressia.

Lastly, what can you do with your journey map exactly?

As mentioned, one of the main values of creating a journey map is that it lays out an end-to-end view of something that previously only existed in people’s’ heads. It also helps people get an understanding of where in the journey their work fits in– whether in Marketing, Engineering, Support or another team, there are differences and overlaps in what parts of the journey we’re directly involved in.

The tangible output from the workshop is a set of opportunities for making improvements to the journey. It is not uncommon to identify 50-100 opportunities in a single journey. What an amazing feat for any business!

Taking those initiatives and using the newly developed shared understanding of the end-to-end journey, your company can now make decisions and make progress on initiatives that will have real impact for your customers.

For other tips on how to create a customer journey map take a look at this scrappy version or get the detailed rundown here.

Source: Google Mobile Voice Survey 2014

A decade ago, people would have called you crazy if you were addressing your phone by name. Now, not only is voice interface more prevalent than ever, it’s pretty much taken on a life of its own.

Apple’s chatty Siri interface paved the path to a new era. With the rise of technologies like Amazon Echo and Google Home, we’re looking through a window into the future. Voice interface is being squished into almost everything these days. But at what cost?

I’ve been playing with voice commands on my phone for a while now. Why not; everyone wants a personal assistant. In a few words, I can ask about the weather or set a reminder for an appointment. What’s not to like, right?

Lately, however, the experience is losing me. I’ve had to fight with my phone several times to enable the commands, and I’ve found myself using the features less and less. The “streamlined interface” of talking to a machine is causing friction, and I’ve realized that it didn’t take very much for me to stop relying on voice commands.

Fixing Unbroken Problems

Technology seems to be stretching toward one direction: minimization. Shrinking laptop weight, miniaturizing phones, and flattening televisions. The simpler the interface, the better it must be!

Unfortunately, too much of a good thing can stir up problems. Ditching the physical interface brings up some interesting challenges to address.

• Usability: For simple things to work, they have to work right. There’s almost no room for slack in a system with minimal means of interaction. I’m tired of hearing, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” but having no other way to engage the system. I shouldn’t have to adjust the syntax of my commands; it should have been build to anticipate and compensate.

• Power: A voice interface gives no clues to a user about the features available. In some cases a makeshift screen or emulated menu are available, but they’re often very lacking. The further we dip our toes into the pool of voice-based interaction, the less friendly the whole experience is becoming.

• Awkwardness: Let’s be honest. Talking to your phone without anyone on the other end is weird. It’s even more uncomfortable when you’re surrounded by people who have no idea what you’re doing.

• Privacy: The awkwardness takes a step further. You’re losing your fundamental privacy with these tools. Even in your home, guests are privy to overhearing everything you say.

These concerns don’t exist due to the interaction itself. We created (repeated?) these problems by trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. Typing, writing, and touch interfaces aren’t flaws, and there’s no reason to treat them like they are.

Parallels to the Past

In many ways, I’m reminded of Linux and the old school MS-DOS systems. Voice interaction is in many ways an updated edition of preexisting technology. Enter a command and get a result.

Simply put a voice interface is just a new experience on top of the command line. The challenge remains: creating a meaningful interaction. An experience that, like the command line, consists of memorized commands and trial and error. At the moment, there’s no 100% honest way to intuitively approach these systems because it’s riddled with misunderstood words and dead-ends.

These commands are taken in a very simplistic way then output a programmed result. There’s very little room for the AI to interpret meaning, leaving you behind with a list of predesignated input. That said, things are progressing, and interesting things are to come.

What Lies Ahead

You’re going to begin seeing more and more voice-based technology as time passes. These systems are going to be injecting themselves beyond your phone and homes. And it does absolutely hold a lot of potential.

If someone requests a voice interface for something you’re involved with, consider the following questions beforehand:

1. Is the product used in a context where talking to the voice is acceptable?
2. Will the user be able to formulate the full request without help from the system?
3. Is the result of the action something that can be confirmed through voice audio?
4. Is there a real benefit to adding a voice interface in the first place?

The future of user experience is vast, and design relies on one simple principle: making it simple, and making it work well. Voice interaction is a great option in some cases, but it doesn’t need to be injected into every corner of life.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s in store for the future of voice interaction, but for now, let’s experiment without trying too hard to fix what isn’t broken.

I live in San Francisco and whenever possible I use the streetcars on Market Street for my commute. It’s rarely crowded and always cool. In rush hour it’s as fast as MUNI (subway), and for the same price you get to sit on a cool old leather seat next to a window you can open if you want! Instead of elbowing your way into a subway car you can read the news and look at San Francisco randomness outside. What’s not to like!

Me, on my way to the office

The question asked was “what tools do you use to manage your time?” An immediate answer would be whatever productivity app/Chrome extension/Gmail plugin/notebook system I’m using this week. But giving it a little more thought I find that the tools that have the biggest impact on my work are not software tools or notebook systems – though I am a sucker for a good to-do list and have plenty of software hacks to speed up things. It’s methods and approaches I’ve pieced together from people I’ve worked with. A hodgepodge of techniques, tips and truisms that have all been useful in some way.

Self-care

Most of the things on this list get at self-care one way or another since many of them deal managing workload and prioritizing things. But a very useful tool that I’ve used on and off is journaling of some sort. For a few months I tracked how I felt at the end of every workday and made a few notes about what had happened during the day. It was surprisingly useful in terms of helping me understand what really brings me down and energizes me at work.

Understanding business

Follow the $. What makes money? It may sound vulgar, cold, calculated, but it is actually effective. Effective in terms of understanding the motivations of the people around me. Not that they necessarily do what they do thinking of $. I don’t work in a boiler room. But whatever they’re motivated to do at some point comes back to $. Whether that is as revenue for their department or bigger budgets for next year it’s about money at some point. Understanding that makes it a lot easier to parse all the stuff that goes on at a company. I don’t think a business school degree is needed to understand the core of a business. Just figure out where the money comes from and where it’s going.

Understanding other people

A good questions to ask is always “What is your biggest challenge right now?”. Or  “How was last week at work? What is the most annoying thing you will have to do today?”. Anything that gets people talking about the thing they’re really thinking about right now.
Find the shared goals. There’s always something you agree on trying to achieve. It may be pretty abstract and seem far from the issue at hand. But work from that shared goal towards the issue you need to solve is a lot easier than going back and forth trying to simply convince each other of opposing positions with seemingly nothing in common.

Tools for communicating

Most updates can be done in three bullets, one sentence each. The higher the stakes, the simpler the communication should be. When in doubt, direct and literal is usually the best way to go. It took me a really long time to get from writing long, thorough (I thought) emails to being able to summarize a project status in a few sentences. And it still takes a long time. Write the long email first but then take the time to carve out the few sentences that get to the core.

Tools for managing workload

Not my monkey. Is the thing that’s stressing me out really my responsibility? I’m not advocating dodging responsibility. But don’t end up in the situation where something that’s not your responsibility is stressing you out more than it’s stressing out whoever is actually responsible for it.
List things and ask the people you work with: “What should we remove from this list to make sure the other things actually get done?”

Very little about my career has been planned. But it has been great and has mostly been a constantly changing mix of teaching, customer support, and UX/product management.

A Customer Support Career

A career in customer support doesn’t necessarily stay in customer support from beginning to end. I’ve found myself weaving in and out of different areas of support again and again. I also don’t think Customer Support is really only a job or a career. I think in some ways it’s a mindset. A particular way of approaching collaborative problem solving which can be developed and applied in many different directions.

The Beginning

I started out as a teacher in my early twenties because I needed to make money to pay for a motorcycle trip around Europe that I’d already taken. While paying off my debt and enjoying teaching I got interested in how technology could be used in a teaching environment. That brought me to studying Information Science which in Denmark is a mix of UX design, some coding, and some business. I freelanced while studying and I thought I would just keep doing that after I graduated. So graduating was pushed of again and again until I got the opportunity to come work for Google in Dublin, Ireland.

Getting Into Support

The job was in online sales and support where I started out working with small businesses in Scandinavia who advertised on Google. It’s a typical entry level job in a big company, and it’s often how people outside the US get started at big American tech companies. People from many backgrounds join through these teams and then move around in the support and account management teams or move to product or marketing teams. I started out in and stayed with AdWords but many of my colleagues moved to AdSense, Gmail, and other Google products.

I eventually started working on the support platform and gradually spent less time directly supporting customers. In that role I was able to use my UX background and get into product management and managing larger projects. Eventually I ended up managing a few people as well.

Starting On Our Own

After six years at Google I left to start my own company. The goal of the company was to figure out which kind of company I wanted. Working on a startup brought me back into support in a few different ways. We’ve done various projects with startups and non-profits and as part of that I get to provide the kind of help and support that I used to when I worked directly with customers at Google. I love working on our client projects and especially the post implementation or launch phase where I get to take the support role again. Answering questions, troubleshooting with clients and users, gives me that very direct feeling of accomplishment every time I can answer someone’s question. The pay-off is rarely that immediate in any of the other types of work I do.

We also build products of our own, so I also work closely with the users of those products to help them make the most of it, and to keep track of what we need to do better.
Some of the tools we’ve built are for support and product teams. So I even get to talk to a lot of other people in support about what’s going on in their teams and companies.

Other People’s Careers

Lately I’ve been running into support again in my occasional role as an instructor on the full-time UX designer program at General Assembly. The program is a full-time, 10 week program for adults changing careers or adding a new skillset to their current one. Working with the students at General Assembly who are in the middle of some pretty exciting and scary career (and life) transitions, we have a lot of conversations about what they can take from their previous jobs into a UX design career. Or, what they can bring from UX back into the job they already have. The conversation is particularly easy with people who come from a customer support background. Ok, I’m biased, but it is usually very straightforward to draw lines from working in support teams to the things we talk about in UX design. And to how the experiences being an advocate for users means that this is less of a career change than it is a career expansion.

Many Directions

The work we’re doing at the moment can take us in many different directions. But one thing I’m sure of is that none of those directions will take me very far away from support in whatever form it ends up being. And either way, what I’ve learned in support is fundamental to how I approach anything I work on at this point.

As most other posts, this one is typed and published in one go, prioritizing publishing over editing. If any commas or full stops are missing feel free to mentally add as many as you like yourself

These past few months I’ve been teaching the full time UX design program at General Assembly. A ten week intensive boot camp for people changing careers into UX design. People quitting jobs, moving cities/countries, paying $$ – going all in.

No one masters a new career in ten weeks, but you can get a pretty damn good start. And it’s a fact that any of these guys is better prepared for the work they are going to go do than I was 10 years ago after having spent 5 years learning much of the same stuff.
They went from blank slate to completing a UX project for a client company in ten weeks. So if you’re interested in hiring practical problem-solvers who have added UX design skills on top of their previous work/life experience let me know. They have no fear of diving head first into new challenges – they’re used to it at this point.

The true competitor for an early stage project is rarely that other company with a product technically sort of similar to what you’re building. The one we like to look at as the one to “win” over in the game of “startup”. They might become your competitor some day,  but not until a customer tells you that they are your competitor. Literally, until someone says “we won’t be using your tool, we’ll use [other company]” they don’t matter. And unless you’re in an obvious land grab scenario, there’s likely no reason to even worry about that scenario ahead of time.

In the early stages competitors are so far down the list of things that are trying to kill your startup that it has to be some pretty sweet anxiety relief you’re getting from watching them. Worrying about competitors early on is as useless as fretting over pricing or what kind of watch to get employees for their 10 year anniversary with the company.

There are many different ways to foster a team culture that encourages taking on challenges in a safe way. In most teams I have work then we have had a rule that it is OK for anyone to make a wrong decision on anything at least once. That lets a person who may technically be on the junior side for a given meeting go to the meeting representing the team with full authority to make decisions on behalf of the team. Everyone is aware that if the decision turns out to be less than ideal, we will just change it. The reality is that most times the decision is fine. There are very few situations where are we’ve ever had to go back and change a decision.

I use the concept of stretching both as an individual, when I work with teams, and when planning my own business. There are many developmental models out there but for me this turned out to be a powerful framework that is still simple enough that I keep using it pretty intuitively.