01 / 07
Journey Research
Primary research into how customers move through the client's services, utilising interviews, direct observation, interaction analysis and operational evidence rather than internal assumption.
Service · Customer Experience
Customers experience the path through the organisation, not the organisational chart
X-Shift researches how customers move through the client's services, diagnoses where effort and failure are concentrated, and designs the future-state customer journey together with the operation that is required to deliver it. Every design is transferred with the process, policy, data and technology requirements on which it depends.
- Frequently delivered with
- VirtualVisitConduct the visit without the travel.
Service blueprintFront and back stage as one system
Customer
Staff
Back office
Systems & policy
Line of visibilityHandoverResearch the reality
From research to buildable design
- Research
- Map
- Diagnose
- Design
- Hand over
Customer Journey & Service DesignConsult X-Shift
What we do
The path taken by the customer, and the operation required to support it
X-Shift researches how customers move through the client's services, utilising interviews, direct observation, operational data and interaction analysis rather than internal assumption. Current-state customer journeys are mapped, the points where value and effort are concentrated are diagnosed, and the future state is designed against explicit experience principles. Service blueprinting extends the design behind the front stage: the systems, roles, policies and back-office steps required to enable the intended experience to be delivered at volume. Touchpoint design specifies individual interactions in sufficient detail for delivery teams to implement from without reinterpretation. Where a full redesign is not warranted, targeted improvement is designed at the stages with the most significant effect on outcomes.
- 01Customer research
- 02Current-state mapping
- 03Journey diagnosis
- 04Future-state design
- 05Service blueprinting
- 06Touchpoint design
Capabilities
From research to buildable design
Applicable to a single priority customer journey or to the full portfolio.
02 / 07
Journey Mapping
Current-state maps of the most significant customer journeys, demonstrating customer actions, channels, systems, effort and the internal steps behind each stage.
03 / 07
Journey Diagnostics
Analysis of where effort, delay, repetition and failure are concentrated, quantified against operational data and linked to the cost and consequence of each.
04 / 07
Future-State Journey Design
The intended customer journey designed against explicit experience principles, with the decisions, policy changes and capabilities on which it depends made explicit.
05 / 07
Service Blueprinting
Integrated front-stage and back-stage design: customer actions, staff actions, supporting systems, policies and the handovers that link them across functions.
06 / 07
Touchpoint Design
Detailed design of individual interactions across digital and assisted channels, specified so that delivery teams can implement to a consistent standard.
07 / 07
Experience Improvement Design
Targeted improvement design where full redesign is not warranted, directed at the stages with the most significant effect on customer outcomes and cost.
Deliverables
Deliverables provided to delivery teams
Design artefacts specified so that they can be implemented directly, without a secondary interpretation phase.
01
Journey research findings
What customers do, encounter and expect at each stage, evidenced from interviews, observation and interaction data rather than internal assumption.
02
Current-state journey maps
Customer actions, channels, systems, effort and the internal steps behind each stage, for every journey in scope.
03
Journey diagnostic report
Where effort, delay, repetition and failure are concentrated, quantified against operational data and traced to the organisational cause.
04
Future-state journey design
The intended journey against agreed experience principles, with the policy changes and capabilities on which it depends stated explicitly.
05
Service blueprint
Front-stage and back-stage design in one artefact: staff actions, supporting systems, policies and every cross-functional handover.
06
Touchpoint specifications and requirements pack
Interaction-level design for each priority touchpoint, with the process, policy, data and technology requirements that delivery teams must satisfy.
Approach
Research the reality, diagnose the cause, design both stages
Design that commences from documented process reproduces the documented process. This work commences from evidence of what customers encounter.
ONE ACCOUNTABLE PARTNERThe same team from assessment through to live service.
01 / 05
01
Research
How customers currently move through the service is studied by utilising direct research, interaction evidence and operational data drawn from the live operation.
OutputJourney research findings
02 / 05
02
Map the current state
Current-state maps are developed, demonstrating what customers do, what they encounter, and the internal steps, systems and policies behind each stage.
OutputCurrent-state journey maps
03 / 05
03
Diagnose
The concentrations of effort, delay, repetition and failure are quantified, and the organisational causes behind them are identified rather than the symptoms.
OutputJourney diagnostic report
04 / 05
04
Design the future state
The intended customer journey, the service blueprint behind it and the touchpoints that deliver it are designed against agreed experience principles.
OutputFuture-state journey design and service blueprint
05 / 05
05
Specify and hand over
The process, policy, data and technology requirements on which the design depends are defined, and the teams accountable for delivering them are supported.
OutputTouchpoint specifications and requirements pack
When this is required
Each department meets its targets, yet the customer continues to experience difficulty
The experience deteriorates between functions, where no party is measured.
Functional performance and customer outcome are not equivalent measures. When each team optimises its own step, the handovers between them absorb the delay, repetition and error. Customers experience that accumulation as a single service failure, regardless of how well each part performed.
Today and after
How design decisions are made, before and after
The change lies in the evidence base and in the participants involved when the journey is determined.
Current approachFuture approach
Client responsibilities
What the engagement requires from the client
Journey work depends on direct access to customers and to the personnel performing the work. Neither can be substituted by documentation.
- 01
Authorisation and a channel to consult customers, including those whose requests failed
- 02
Access to front-line and back-office staff for observation, without their managers in attendance
- 03
Operational data for the journeys in scope: volumes, cycle times, failure and repeat rates
- 04
A named owner for each journey in scope with authority to approve the future-state design
Outcomes
The end-to-end path is designed once, by those with full visibility of it
What this changesDesign decisions are based on customer research instead of internal assumption, and handovers between functions become deliberate rather than inherited. The front-stage experience and the back-stage operation are designed as one, so the intended experience is deliverable.
- 01
Design decisions supported by customer research rather than internal assumption
- 02
Handovers between functions designed deliberately instead of inherited
- 03
Front-stage experience and back-stage operation designed as one system
- 04
Improvement effort directed at the stages with the greatest effect
- 05
Designs that delivery teams can build from without reinterpretation
Common questions
Questions commonly raised before commissioning this work
What is the typical duration of a journey redesign?
Duration scales with the number of journeys and the difficulty of arranging customer access. A single priority journey is a contained piece of work; a portfolio is not. X-Shift would prefer to commence with one journey completed properly than to map twelve at a level from which nothing can be implemented.
What is required from the client for this work to succeed?
Access to customers, access to the staff who perform the work, and operational data for the journeys in scope. Where customer access is declined, the research reverts to interaction data and observation, and the design is weaker as a result. That trade-off is stated at the outset.
How is this contracted and priced?
Priced per journey against a defined scope, with research effort itemised as a separate line so that the client can identify what is being procured. Implementation support is contracted separately, because the teams implementing the design are typically the client's own.
The organisation already has journey maps. Is this work duplicative?
That depends on the basis from which they were built. Maps developed in an internal session describe the process as the organisation believes it operates. If the existing maps were built from customer research and operational evidence, the relevant work commences at diagnosis and design instead, and the mapping phase is omitted.
Next
Recommended next steps
01
Take one journey end to end
Research, map, diagnose and redesign a single priority journey, including the service blueprint and the requirements behind it.
Applicable where the method must be demonstrated before a portfolio is committed.
Consult X-Shift02
Commence with the service processes behind it
Where the journey is understood and the failure lies in case handling, service levels and escalation, process design is the more efficient route.
Applicable where the map already exists and the operation is the point of failure.
Customer Service Process DesignJourney work without a named owner able to approve the design typically produces artefacts rather than change.
Related offerings
Related
Service
Customer Service Process Design
Complaint, case, SLA and escalation design behind the customer journey
Service
CX Strategy and Transformation
Target experience, operating model and the transformation roadmap
Service
Process Transformation
Redesign the operational processes behind the customer-facing service
Solution
Knowledge and Self-Service
Governed knowledge that serves customers, agents and AI alike
Solution
Virtual Branch
Deliver branch-grade service through remote and digital channels
Product
Virtual Visit
Scheduled video service with identity, documents and recorded outcomes
Is this the work required?
A short conversation is typically sufficient to establish whether this is the appropriate engagement, a narrower one, or an alternative.