Entire Contents © 2013 Hansa|GCR; Confidential and Proprietary.
Experience Mapping:
How Do Your Customers Relate to Your Processes?
(Can you get there from here?)
February 2013
Kathryn Stevens, Director, Client Services
• An experienced qualitative and quantitative researcher with more than two
decades of brand and customer experience background.
• Significant domestic and international research experience identifying and
understanding customer segments and customizing unique approaches to
customer types.

Meeting Agenda
• Why experience mapping?
• It’s their world …
• Two lenses: Process understanding and process
preference.
• It’s complex: Rational and emotional customer
experience.
• Where do I begin? Unlocking what the customer
knows about your processes.
• Case example of how this method has revealed
strengths and vulnerabilities, enablers and
barriers.
• What Do I Get?: Case study outcomes.
• Discussion and time for Q&A at the end of the
session.
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Our History
• We help our clients build deeper, more profitable
customer relationships by better understanding
their customers and creating a compelling,
differentiated customer experience.
• Founded in 1979, we are part of a global group
with 1,100+ professionals offering a variety of
services including Creative Communication, Data
Analytics, Brand Consulting and Interactive.
• We bring research and thought leadership in four
key areas:
• Customer Relationship Equity
• Brand Equity
• Product and Service Innovation
• Market and Customer Segmentation

Our Philosophy
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The brand is the essence of the customer relationship. The brand is a head and
heart promise executed through the customer experience.
The brand is the experience.
The experience is the brand.

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Why Experience Mapping

Why Experience Mapping?
Gateway to the customer mindset. Your processes for
interacting with customers make sense to you—or they
should. (If not, that’s a different topic entirely.) But how do
you know these processes make sense to the customer?
• What works—where and when?
You have a process that works fairly well, most of the
time for most of your customers. How do you find the
trouble spots and improve?
• How do you take a read on how your processes
represent your business?
You have a process in place. You know customers use it,
but you’re not sure how well it’s received. How do you
take a broad based read on how you’re presenting
yourself to the customer base?
• How do you implement a new process?
You need to know what customers expect or would like
to expect when they contact you. How do they interact
now—and how do they like the status quo? How would
they react to a new approach?
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It’s Their World

It’s Their World: Through the Looking Glass
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Your world ... The customer’s world ...

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Two Lenses

Two Lenses
Important overarching questions. Do customers understand your processes? How do
customers prefer to interact with you?
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Do your customers understand your
processes well enough to navigate?
Consider a process the customer has to
follow every time they execute a certain
transaction with you.
Ask yourself:
Can they access you successfully by
phone or email to place an order,
make an appointment?
Has the process ever failed them—
how, when and why?
How do you find out whether
customers know all the steps?
Potential problem: the customer lacks
awareness.
What do customers prefer to encounter
when they engage with you?
Just because a customer uses your
process successfully, does not
necessarily mean they like it.
Ask yourself:
Does the initial screen or prompt
insist on giving information they don’t
need or want?
Does it take too long to get to the
point?
Do you offer options your customers
want?
Potential problem: the customer
dislikes the process or parts of the
process.

How Does It Help?
Why does experience mapping make a difference? You may have heard from customers
that your processes aren’t user friendly or consistent or 100% reliable. Or maybe you
haven’t heard anything at all but you suspect problems because usage has dropped.
Possibly it’s been awhile since you’ve taken a pulse of how well your processes are
keeping up with industry standards or customer needs.
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Experience mapping will help you:
Diagnose specific pain points or
frustrations.
Better understand the customer’s
world.
Observe where customers give up
on the process and disappear.
Learn what the customer doesn’t
know about your processes.
Discover where, when and how
processes break down altogether.

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Rational and Emotional Sides of
Customer Experience

What Do You Need to Know?
The Deepest Customer Relationships Are Head and Heart Relationships
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• Cognitive
• Calculative
• Intellectual
• Functional
• Cost
• ROI
• Performance
• Technical
• Behavioral
design
• Emotional
• Ego
• Self image
• Social / peer
approval
• Trust
• Identification
• Fear
• Aesthetics
(e.g., look and feel)
For example:
• Bargain
• Deal
• Value
• Quality
• Quantity
For example:
• Reduced
hassle
• At ease
• Coolness
Sensory Experience:
Taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight, temperature

Customers Evaluate with Both Reason and Emotion
Two things to know about every customer interaction.
Following on the two lenses of understanding and
preference is a deeper understanding of how customers
perceive and process their interactions with you.
• Rational. Understanding the Head aspect of the way
customers react to a process involves intellectual issues.
– Is the process efficient—does it save time, or at least not
waste time?
– Does the process save me money?
– Does the process lead to a quality outcome?
• Emotional. Uncovering the emotional factors reveals
what the customer’s Heart dictates about navigating
your process.
– Does working through the process make me feel good
about myself and the process?
– Do I dread having to do this?
– Do I trust I’ve achieved what I need at the end of the
process?
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What do I know or
need to know?
How does it make
me feel?

The Customer Experience Is Rational and Emotional
You provide an 800 number. Your system answers the call. And then, “All our customer
service representatives are busy, but your call is very important to us. Please stay on the
line.” Every 30 seconds, customers hear how important they are.
Your customer places a take out lunch order online and receives a pick up time. When he
arrives to retrieve the order, it’s not ready. Five minutes later, he receives his order and
learns, “this one is on the house because you had to wait.”
Your customer goes to the express checkout lane with two items. The person ahead has
six items, a coupon for each item and a debit card that refuses to work.
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= ?

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Where Do I Begin?

Where Do I Begin?
The infrastructure.
Focus groups with customers who have shared a
customer experience.
Focus group advantages.
Enables access to customers who have had a
variety of experiences—those who have
completed a process and those who have
disengaged along the way.
A qualitative approach allows customers to
think deeply and independently.
The focus group setting fosters sharing and
collaboration, highlights differing points of
view through full group and smaller group
exercises.
Group discussions offer drill down
opportunities for select topics.
Stakeholders observe customers navigate the
process.

Where Do I Begin?
The process in five steps:
1. Warm up discussion about expectations of
customer service.
2. Working individually, customers recall
everything that happened.
3. Small group team exercise sharing and
organizing the individual experiences.
Each team produces a step by step experience
map.
4. Individuals review the experience maps.
Indicate how each customer touchpoint on the
experience maps made them feel.
5. Full group discussion of the successes
and pain points of the process with
recommendations for process
improvement.

Where Do I Begin?
Review the experience: start with the
granular and layer on detail and nuance.
An example …
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Write down everything
you remember on a
series of Post It notes.
Indicate how each
step made you feel.
Group the notes
into shared
experiences.
Working with a
team, place the
notes on a wall in
any order.
Place the grouped
notes in order.
Give each category
of notes a name.

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Case Study

Case Study: Service Interruption
Industry: Technology Services
Business challenge: Service interruptions happen—caused
by unforeseen natural occurrences and occasionally by the
service provider itself when a planned interruption is
essential to service maintenance. What can the service
provider do to make the interruption as palatable as
possible for customers?
Assumption from the outset: almost no one is going to be
delighted at the way a service interruption is handled—
they’re too tied to the base of needing that service. The
question, then, is how does the service provider help
customers make the best of a perceived bad situation
without making enemies in the bargain?
Approach: Focus groups with individuals who have
experienced an interruption in service. Combination of
individual, full group and small group exercises to develop
experience maps that show the steps in the experience, how
customers perceive each step both emotionally and
rationally, and the potential for improvement.
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The universe:
Residential and
commercial customers.
The shared situation:
Experienced a service
interruption in the past
six months.

1. Expectations of customer service. A general question or two about perceptions
of customer service help focus exercises that follow.
2. Individual exercise recalls everything that happened. Each customer has a pad of
Post It notes. Working one step per note, they write what happened. The rule:
limit the steps to direct interactions with the provider.
• First I …
• Then the provider…
• Then I …
• Then the provider…
Case Study Steps 1 and 2
Setting the Stage, Individual Recall
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Write down
everything you
remember on a
series of Post It
notes.

Case Study Step 2
Recalling the Experience
Stimulated by the challenge of recalling
the service interruption, customer
reactions vary.
• Most recognize service interruptions
will happen.
• Some see a few major events: the
service stopped, I was (or was not)
inconvenienced, the service resumed,
life as usual.
• Some see a chain of disappointments
or accelerated anxiety waiting for
information. The need to know what
next? is very strong.
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Write down everything you remember on
a series of Post It notes.

Case Study Step 3 Overview
Small Group Interactions
• Small group team exercise to share and organize the
individual experiences.
Break into teams.
– Start with customers spreading their notes on an empty wall.
– Step back and read each other’s notes.
– Find the commonalities; group them.
• Each team produces a step by step experience map to
share with the full group.
– Agree as a group on the order in which the steps take place.
– Order the smaller steps within each major category.
– Agree on a name for each category.
Result: Each team has a draft of an experience map.
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TIP: Use handheld digital
recorders to capture the
conversation in each group,
tapping into candid insights.
3b. Group the
notes into
shared
experiences.
3a. Working
with a team,
place the notes
on a wall in any
order.
3c. Place the
grouped notes in
order.
3d. Give each
category of
notes a name.

Case Study Step 3a
Collaboration
As customers place their notes on the wall, they
observe differences across the level of detail, but
also commonalities in the experience.
While not everyone who has had the experience
will have made the same interactions with the
service provider in the same order, most share
some common elements of the experience.
Groups share experiences interacting with the
provider, offering valuable insight about customer
mindset.
“Why did you call three times?”
“How did you know you should call?”
“When did you get angry?”
“How did you know to find updates on the
interruption on the provider’s web site?”
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3a. Working with a team, place
the notes on a wall in any order.
Photo of randomly placed
notes
TIP: Have a camera available to
capture a record of each step in
the process.

Case Study Step 3b
Organizing
A volunteer from the group becomes the leader
to facilitate ordering the steps.
Customers discuss different approaches to
handling each of the steps and explore why each
step was necessary—or not.
“I stopped calling after I realized they say
service will be restored within the hour no
matter how long the interruption has been.”
Customers mention steps they might not have
been aware of (valuable information for the
provider).
“So, it’s really important to call the provider to
let them know about the interruption is?”
The number of interactions with the company
and the different ways to interact become
important.
“After the first call, I just stay on top of things
by checking the provider’s web site.”
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Photo of grouped notes.
3b, 3c. Group the notes
into shared experiences.

Case Study Step 3c, 3d
Categorizing
The number of steps varies, but some steps are universal,
and the order in which they occur is remarkably consistent.
As customers work through this phase, they identify the
decision points—when to call customer service again, when
to look for help from family and friends.
“By the time we’d waited four hours for the service to
resume, we realized we’d have to change our routine for
the evening.”
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3c. Place the grouped
notes
in order.
3d. Give each
category of notes a
name.
“We had to cancel the plans soon
enough to let everyone know the
new agenda.”
Category names can identify
customer pain points.
Waiting Around for Help
Kids Upset by Change in Routine
TIP: Use different colored notes
to show category names.

Case Study: Steps 4 and 5 Overview
Getting the Big Picture
• Reassemble into the full group.
Customers review the experience maps and indicate
how they feel about each customer touchpoint on the
experience maps.
Customers individually review maps from all groups.
– Customers use stickers to indicate their emotional reaction
to each step where they interfaced with the company.
• Full group discussion of the successes and pain points
with recommendations for process improvement.
– Wrap up the discussion with overall recommendations for
the top three changes that would improve the process in
the future.
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Indicate how each
step made you feel.
Outcomes.

Case Study: Step 4
Identifying Emotions
Emotional reactions have been part of the
conversation all along, but this is the place
for customers to focus on emotional
reactions to each step of the service
interruption.
Customers work individually through this
phase without discussing what they’re
doing.
In many cases, the same interaction
generates both negative and positive
reactions.
“I had to wait ten minutes to get to a
human. I was pretty upset.”
“I waited ten minutes, which was
reasonable to me since the interruption
seemed widespread.”
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Indicate how each step made you
feel—happy or unhappy.

Case Study Step 5
Outcomes
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See what the customer sees.
Gain understanding from a new perspective.
Identify specific pain points and delighters.
Recognize opportunities at each customer touchpoint.
Understand the interplay of rational and emotional factors.
Anticipate what customers will tolerate and what will
make them unhappy.
Recognize the turning points
Learn where phases change from acceptance to a need for
action to unpleasantness—and how to ease the pain when
it comes.

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What Do I Get?
Case Study Outcomes

Key decision points in
the process: A critical
juncture for
information from
Provider to determine
next steps.
The Total Experience
Main Pillars in the Service Interruption Experience
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Service Out
Holding Pattern
< 2 hr.
During
Coping But Concerned
2 3 hours
Service back
Take
Immediate
Next Steps
At this time, people
realize it’s going to be
longer than a “make
do” period and begin
a plan for their own
immediate
next steps.
People call friends or
look for alternative
resources
Customer investigates
what is involved in the
interruption.
Talk to friends and
neighbors and/or
contact Provider to get
a sense of what is
involved in the
interruption.
Some call Provider to
make sure Provider is
aware, look online for
interruption coverage,
but many others just
wait patiently.
Assess the
Situation
After two or three
hours, many
customers begin
gathering
information to make
decisions about
what they need to
do next.
They check supplies
and consider the
alternatives. This is a
key time to contact
Provider for
information.
Reassess
the
Situation
Waiting &
Coping
At first, customers
hunker down and
endure interruption.
Many tap into
alternate sources and
prepare to ride out a
couple of hours. Not
unsurprising, two
hours is often the
wait time given
by Provider.
Up and
Running
Service is back on and
people resume
normal routines and
shut down alternative
resources.
While service is still
out, a big shift occurs
for many customer
which forces them to
reassess their
immediate plan– and
consider adopting an
emergency plan.
This varies by
customer, such as
family needs or
planning for the next
day or several days.
Reassess
the
Situation
Decision making
Dependent upon a situation change
Life
Resumes

Provider and Customer Interractions
Service Out During an Interruption Service On
Current Process
Fallout
Make
Longer
Term
Plan
Provide
Info About
Collecting
Damages
Make New
Info
Available
Collect
Outage
Info
Provide
Initial
Info
Process
Auto
update
Provide
Auto
updates
Reassess
Situation
Up and
Running
Assess
Damage
Waiting
& Coping
Reassess
Situation
Take
Immediate
Next Steps
Assess
Situation
34Key decision making point Indicates a key difference in customer process
Contact
Provider
Contact
Provider
For
Damages
Receive
Info
Contact
Provider
for
Updates
Receive
Initial
Info
Request
Auto
updates
Receive Provider
Auto updates
CustomerExperienceInteractionsProviderActions

35
Rational and Emotional Overtones
Service Out During an Interruption Service On
Current Process
Fallout
Make
Longer
Term
Plan
Provide
Info About
Collecting
Damages
Make New
Info
Available
Collect
Outage
Info
Provide
Initial
Info
Process
Auto
update
Provide
Auto
updates
Reassess
Situation
Get
Home
Running
Assess
Damage
Waiting
& Coping
Reassess
Situation
Take
Immediate
Next Steps
Assess
Situation
35
0 14
13 25 0 16 9 1 7 18
Key decision making point Indicates a key difference in customer process
Contact
Provider
Contact
Provider
For
Damages
Receive
Info
Contact
Provider
for
Updates
Receive
Initial
Info
Request
Auto
updates
Receive Provider
Auto updates
CustomerExperienceInteractionsProviderActions

What Do I Get?
After customers have…
Recalled their experience
Shared the experience with a peer group
Organized the experience into phases and named the phases
Considered how each phase made them feel …
… the exercises generate not one but a series of experience maps that highlight …
Main pillars of the experience, compiled from the maps created in the focus groups.
Benefit: You have an overview of the total experience in the eyes of the customer.
Interactions between service provider and customers both proactive and reactive.
Benefit: You know when and where you can make a difference.
Interactions between service provider and customers enhanced with emotional
reactions at each touch point.
Benefit: You learn about the interplay of emotional and rational reactions.
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Entire Contents © 2013 Hansa|GCR; Confidential and Proprietary.
Kathryn Stevens
Director, Client Services
Hansa|GCR
+1 503.241.9136
KStevens@hansagcr.com
Thank You!
Copies of today’s presentation are available.
To receive a copy please email me or Mary
Valenta at Hansa Marketing Services:
mary.valenta@hansa marketing.com