Journey first, not channel first: another way to plan service

Many service organisations are built around channels. There is a phone team, a chat team, an email team and perhaps someone for social media. Each team has its own goals, its own reports and its own tools.

Customers do not know about this split. They want to switch tariffs, report a move or understand why the bill went up. They use whatever is at hand and change channel when something sticks.

#What channel-based planning misses

A channel report shows what happens in one channel. It does not show what came before and after. A chat that ends after three minutes looks successful in the report. That the customer calls an hour later sits in a different report.

Three consequences are typical:

• Channel switches stay invisible. Nobody sees how often a request moves from the website to the phone.
• Every team optimises itself. Shorter chats in one team create longer calls in another.
• Customers tell everything twice. The context stays in the channel where it began.

#What a journey is

A customer journey is the sequence of contacts and events around one goal of the customer, across channels and over time. It has a beginning, an end and usually a few points where things stick.

An example, a tariff switch:

From a channel view, these are four events in four reports. From a journey view, it is one request with a break in the app.

Next best action

#Changing the planning unit

Journey first does not mean abolishing channels. It means turning the question around: not "How do we make chat better?" but "How does the tariff switch reach its goal without a detour?"

For every important journey, five things can be written down: the customer's goal, the typical start, the desired end, the known breaks and an owner. Channels then become means, used depending on the step.

#What changes in practice

Ownership. A journey needs an owner across the channel teams. She does not decide about every channel, but about the outcome of the path.

Data. Events from website, app and contact centre have to come together. Journey data unifies customer data and resolves identities; journey analytics shows flows, funnels and root causes.

Steering. If you know where the break is, you can step in while the customer is still on the way. Orchestration triggers the next best action, such as a callback when an application is abandoned.

Routing. If the customer does end up in the contact centre, the context should come along. One queue for every channel with a shared history makes that possible; more in One queue for every channel.

Metrics. Measure per journey: how many people reach the goal, with how many contacts? Why that is more honest than channel figures is explained in Measuring customer experience without vanity metrics.

#What stays the same

Channels still need craft. Good writing in chat, calm conversation on the phone and clean email templates do not go away. Channel teams remain the experts for their medium.

What changes is the direction of the question. A channel team no longer asks only how it can improve itself, but also which journeys run through its channel and where it saves or creates work for other channels.

#Three objections, answered honestly

"We don't have the data." For a start, less is needed than you think. A request field on the contact and a few events from website or app already show the biggest breaks. Completeness comes later.

"We are organised by channel." That can stay as it is. A journey owner works across teams without restructuring them. What matters is that someone is responsible for the outcome of the path.

"This is a major project." Only if you plan it that way. One journey, one break and one measure can be implemented and measured in weeks. The rest follows from what you learn along the way.

#Privacy from the start

Journeys connect data from several sources. That needs a legal basis and clear limits. In Germany, reading information from a user's device, for example through cookies, is governed by section 25 TDDDG; as a rule it requires consent.

Identity resolution should also go only as far as the purpose requires. A journey can often be analysed without following every person across every channel. The basics are summarised in the Trust Center under GDPR.

#Where to start

1. Pick one journey: one with many contacts and visible frustration, such as a tariff switch or a move.
2. Map it with real data: which steps, which channels, where do people drop out?
3. Find the biggest break: one, not five.
4. Implement one measure: a proactive notice, a callback, a better page.
5. Measure per journey: do more people reach the goal with fewer contacts?

The full path from analytics to governance is described in the guide Journey orchestration: a playbook. The product family behind it is Univerx Journeys.