Quick Glance Case Study: Onboarding New Clients

“Customer Journey Mapping really helped us to tell the story of our customer experience and easily identify which areas we needed to target for improvement”

After completing a ChangeWise Lean Practitioner training course, one candidate submitted the following work-place project to gain their qualification to LCS Level 1c.

The Business Challenge

Our company vision is centred around the customer journey and the correspondence they receive. However, our organisational process enabling clients to apply for our services was extremely complex with many externally directed activities and teams involved.

Whilst we were performing really well for Level of Service (target = 95% vs actual = 96%), we were underperforming for Voice of the Customer (VOTC) (target = 65% vs actual 42%).

In order to achieve our aspirational goals, we completed a Lean review to simplify and re-evaluate the process.

Photo by Heather Barnes on Unsplash

Key people involved from client site

Specialists including The Operations Team, Scheduling Team, Customer Care Team and members of the Senior Leadership Team were involved in the Lean review.

Lean Methodology Employed

DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analise, Improve, Control)

Various Lean methodologies were used including SIPOC, Gemba Walk, Current State Mapping, 7 Wastes, Value Analysis, Customer Journey Mapping, Fishbone Diagram and 5 Whys.

Lean Activities and Findings

To outline the high-level process and agree scope we started our Lean review with a SIPOC. Following this, we completed a Gemba Walk as it was the most effective way to really understand the process our customers experience. This involved collecting all the customer material, website data, SMS messaging and email messages used.

Once we had all the information regarding the current state process, we created a Current State Map to visualise the process. This formed the basis of our Value Analysis (RAG – Red Amber Green) to show Value Add, Non-Value Add and Mandatory Non-value add steps. We then applied the 7 wastes technique to help us understand more about the types of waste impacting our process.

Our final Lean activity involved Customer Journey Mapping. During this phase, we really tried to put ourselves in the place of the customer:

• What is the customer thinking at each stage of the process?
• Why do we have to have the process like that?
• What could make it better for the customer?

Key findings:

Various types of Failure Demand were identified (where we failed to do something right for the customer first time):

• 41% of aborted jobs were in one particular region.
• Each aborted visit costs the organisation £58 per hour.
• If a team could not complete a job they lose 0.5 days’ work whilst traveling to another location and or waiting for another suitable job to be found. This results in a full day of non-productivity.
• The average cost of each abort is approximately £232

There were also instances of the third Lean Waste Motion causing significant impact to customer experience:

• The customer could go through 15 teams in order to reach the point where they are accepted for on-boarding. This made the customer experience extremely complicated and frustrating.

In addition to this analysis, we also used customer feedback data collected from our surveys. This was really useful in helping to identify 2 key issues:

• The time taken to complete the process
• Lack of information regarding progress provided to the customer throughout the process

We used more detailed Customer Journey Mapping, Fishbone Diagrams and The 5 Whys technique to better understand the issues and their root causes at each stage. We also used the process for the region most effected by failure demand.

Focusing on literature provided to customers:

• The literature does not have set/clear branding
• The literature is conflicting
• There is so much literature it is confusing for customers
• The online application form did not work
• The customer was not provided with information on what to expect at each stage
• The customer did not understand what they needed at each stage (because they were not informed upfront)

All these issues had a direct impact on the VOC survey at the end of the process.

Future State & Benefits

The Future State was based on eliminating waste, non-value add activities and ensuring customer issues were eliminated.

A 10-step process with reduced handoffs and reduced wait times would be introduced:

Revised literature outlining:

• How long each step of the process will take
• The information/data customers will need at the start of each step in the process.
• Contact numbers required for support/information/questions
• All new application form with a new online version that ensured all the relevant details were collected. This would reduce rework and improve the customer experience.

New online form and process were also more visually appealing and simple to follow:

• All forms redesigned and branded effectively.
• Easy for customer to understand where they are in the process.

Reduced handoffs and delays in updates to the customer:

• This was caused by three different teams being involved (scheduling, customer care and the operational teams). The future state would see all customer communications direct from the scheduler.

We organised a training and awareness event for everyone involved in the value stream. We talked all employees through the new process, along with demonstrations to aide understanding:

• What the customer does when they apply
• What happens at the survey stage
• How the scheduler in the office schedules
• What the onboarding entails
• What happens after this (on-going support)
• What information the customer needs to have at each stage in the process.

We also wanted to ensure that front line employees had sight of organisational KPI’s and targets, and the impact they have during their day to day work on improving this. We used visualisation to explain why customers are ‘very satisfied’ and gave examples of where we fail to reach this target.

We have also implemented a monthly slide that is distributed both electronically and displayed on notice boards to help employees understand their part in ensuring all our customers are very satisfied.

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

In Summary

The customer journey mapping really helped us to tell the story of our customer experience and easily identify which areas we needed to target for improvement. Benefits are continually tracked each month and reported in our monthly Performance Sheet. In a few short months we are currently exceeding our KPI target with an increase in customer satisfaction from 52% to 66%.

Interested in looking at how Lean can help improve customer experience and increase satisfaction scores? Contact us at info@changewise.co.uk and let’s talk about how we can help.

ChangeWise believes employee engagement is the foundation for successful Change. Training and coaching your people to use simple continuous improvement techniques will enable your organisation to continuously adapt and stay ahead in a constantly changing and challenging environment.

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