Providing a Joined up Experience

Provide a joined-up experience across all channels

In our earlier posts we addressed the need to understand the users and to focus on solving the whole problem for the users.

Taking those concepts into consideration lets now explore the need for service continuity across all channels.

What does it mean?

Naturally not all services can be provided across multiple channels, there are some services that for varying reasons need to be fulfilled through set channels with strict protocols in place. However, the general principal here is that, given the opportunity, your service should be designed in a way that makes sense to the user. Not one that is prescribed by the organisation or one which is more appropriate, without justification, for the internal teams.

Users should not be affected negatively if they do not have the means, capability or which to interact with a service in a prescribed manner.

Example: As a user I need to pay for a service. I call to make the payment but the line is showing a wait time that I cannot meet. I go online to complete the payment digitally. Before accessing the payment service, a web-chat box appears which I interact with. I have been connected to a customer services agent who I say that I need to make a payment. The agent can facilitate my payment easily and I receive notification that the payment has been made.

Here the service user is looking for a particular channel, they interact with a chat box and can make their payment successfully having been connected to a customer services agent. There are no barriers preventing the user from accessing the service and they receive the same level of feedback regardless of channel.

The concept must be applied to both digital and non-digital (off-system) processes. Metrics gathered from various sources should be used to inform, where appropriate, improvements to all related aspect. Furthermore, where plans to improve specific elements of the service are being considered then adequate consultation of the dependent process stages must be considered to ensure the joined-up approach.

What it does NOT mean?

Compromising Security – Information security is key consideration in today's landscape. Protecting information is of paramount importance on all levels. The concept outlined above does not advocate or encourage the reduction of security measures to realise the outcomes.

Hiding Channels – A common aim in the current climate is to increase the uptake of digital services. Generally, fulfilling a service online yields greater savings than any other form. However, a key consideration here needs. to be focused around the user, their expectations and how they want to interact with the service.

Example: You are a user who is trying to access a service on a company website, you want to pay for something. Your preference is to pay over the phone, so you search the site for a suitable number. You struggle to find any number so end up searching for a contact number via the search engine. You call the number only to receive an automated message, with no options to hold or transfer, about making payments online. You then call back and navigate to the switchboard where you ask to be put through to someone who can take the payment.

Making access to channels difficult and unintuitive to the user is not a way of increasing digital service uptake. Think about the example about the user making their payment via web-chat. They normally use the telephone but, in this instance, could not wait, they looked for the online payment choice but before finding it was connected to an agent who took the payment via a webchat. The user knew their options and received no variance in service by opting for a different channel.

Insight: In the above example, how likely is it that the user will leave with a positive impression of the service? How likely is it that the user will be dissatisfied if/when they get through to someone?

Our Approach

When considering this there are three core elements that we consider. A brief description of these can be seen below;

Holistic Approach – We look at things from a holistic stand-point. By this, we mean giving sufficient consideration of the people, process, and technology related steps within any service. Taking. this approach helps to ensure that your outputs are duly weighted in favour of a particular feature. Additionally, it helps to ensure that there is adequate vision against the dependent process stages, especially when these sit within a different element.

Example: You have been looking at how you may be able to improve the performance of an application. You have found a number of potential options. You have focused your research around the technical and system orientated steps of the process. You have found that reducing the image size upon load could yield a 20% improvement. By giving less consideration of the process and people aspects you have missed that the images area used to produce high-quality briefing documents and the changes mean images are now appearing low-quality, grainy and are unreadable in some instances.

Having the end-to-end view of the service is critical and being able to overlay this with the three components will highlights the on and off-system areas for consideration.

It will help you to understand where the hand-off points for the service are and what implications the proposed changes will have on those. Importantly, showing these hand-off/integration points allows you time to consider this in your Discovery and, depending on the risk-level, focus your Alpha prototyping on testing. your theories.

Having the service map or blueprint will also help find where you may be able to re-use any critical coded elements. For instance, a payment tool that is commonly used within the business will help speed up delivery and offer a familiar interface to users.

Having the service map or blueprint will yield a range of benefits as you progress through Discovery, Alpha, Beta and into Live. Retaining a live element to the map will help you find. any developmental considerations and act as an aid when considering where to focus efforts next.

As with everything, the focus here is on supporting the user to access and interact with the service in a way that is familiar to them. It looks to ensure users are not negatively affected by accessing a service through channels of their choosing, even if this may not be the preference of the organisation.

To find out more about how we may be able to help you in creating a joined-up experience and/or developing your service blueprints then Contact Us.