Redesigning Software Supporting Model “The WHATCHESTS”
Using IBM LOOP Model
The WHATCHESTS
It was a very hot day in Summer. The customer Support Lead requested to have an urgent meeting with the Enterprise design thinking team in order to share a critical business problem. he mentioned that the number of dissatisfied customers has doubled compared to the previous year. So we decided to create an Enterprise Design Thinking project in order to identify problem space better and generating as many ideas as possible to design a To-Be Customer Support Model Scenario Map.
Problem Space
The main problem which the team had to solve was that the number of dissatisfied customers has doubled compared to the previous year. The interesting part of this issue was that the main reason of the problem. That reason was related to service quality level and not related to the product according to the company’s report.
Current Status
The first version of the To-be customer support model scenario map was designed and validated but it is waiting for the senior manager's approval to execute in the foreseeable future which is next month.
Driving the Loop
System Group Customer Support Team
The team went through the loop two times.
Problem Space Methods and Activities:
To completely understand the problem space, the team used the IBM Loop toolkit including Hopes & Fears, Assumptions & Questions, Empathy map, Qualitative Interview, and Need Statement.
Due to the fact that the team was gathering for the first time to co-create the solution, I preferred to have team empathy with Hopes and Fears. So participants had shared understanding about their opinions. Also, since the team had a variety of assumptions, as a coach I decided to use Assumptions and Questions and Qualitative Interview both to validate their assumptions and questions with end-users and also realized their as-is experience. Finally, in order to clarify and understand the meaning and relations between what the user said, did, felt, and thought, I coached the team to clarify the concept of problem space with the empathy map.
Solution Space Methods and Activities:
To design an awesome solution, we used Big Idea Vignettes, Prioritization Grid and To-be Scenario Map.
By using Big Idea Vignettes and Prioritization Grid, the team generated as many ideas as possible. Then they prioritized ideas in order to decide what are the bests to include in the To-Be Customer Support model. After that, based on selected ideas, the team designed the To-Be Customer Support Scenario Map which was considered as our first version of the prototype.
In order to rapidly diverge on a breadth of possible solutions, improved current supporting services to meet their users’ needs, and due to the lack of execution time, I decided to coach the team to use these activities.
As a coach, I always working aware of corrective behaviors and whenever I realized that the team needed some help, I addressed it.
I also was aware of possible positive activities during design thinking events and try to encourage them in every possible moment. In order to achieve great results, I asked open-ended questions from participants which focus on taking actions.
Research & Sponsor Users
After running qualitative interviews, some observation activities, and capture domain expert knowledge and insights team was identified that customers have a huge pain point in waiting for responding experience. They didn't know when the customer support expert responds to them and what was their request a status after ticketing or the call that they had with our enterprise.
To completely understand the problem space, the team used the IBM Loop toolkit including Hopes & Fears, Assumptions and Questions, Empathy Map, Qualitative Interview, and Need Statement.
Customer Support Lead, Customer Support Expert, EPM Expert
Research & Sponsor Users
One of the most valuable and noticeable insights that the team captured during the qualitative interviews was that sponsor users are very sensitive about their Idea’s Intellectual Property and they wanted to ensure that the enterprise won’t abuse their idea. After negotiating with company’s legal department, the team achieved a legal process which was supporting the employees idea’s Intellectual Property.
The team used qualitative interviews in their design research process.
Mid-level enterprise members including Enterprise Performance Management expert and Senior Visual Designer.
Hills
After one iteration, the team designed validated Hills for the WHATCHESTS.
First, the team designed Hills based on qualitative interviews and sponsor users' insights. Then team aligned Hills with running Playbacks with related stakeholders to align with the user’s intent.
Two selected Hills are mention next box.
Yes, it was. After one iteration team improved Hills with the help of sponsor users and related stakeholders in Playbacks.
Playbacks
Market Playback
As a coach before starting playbacks, I explained the playback, types of them, and related benefits to the team to deeply understand and learn when they need to use them. After running the playbacks, my team aligned with stakeholders more and understood about the enterprise mission related to the project. Then my team understood that the Cement industry’s customer was frustrated because they didn’t know what was their ticket’s status and when our CS expert will respond to their problem. The outcome was focus on improving the waiting experience for the cement industry’s customers.
As a coach i have some activities during the playbacks such as:
Facilitated and guided the communication between the EDT team and Stakeholders.
Told story about how the team acted to discover and also offer solution for the realized challenge.
Guided the playbacks in order to have a healthy reflect events to ensure that everybody where in the same page during the project.
I taught them to use playback in some own projects to practice and now this is routine in our company that as a coach my team and I decide to allocate one hour for Q&A panel every week for mentoring.
With the presence of sponsor users and key stakeholders, the team shares their problem-space findings with participants during Market Playback. CEO, Enterprise Performance Manager, CS Lead Manager, and 5 customers of cement industry were attended in Playback.
Impact
The team designed and delivered a To-Be Customer Support Model Scenario Map which helps CS experts in order to know how they can respond to customer’s problems which can improve their satisfaction level and also solve their problems as soon as possible within the maximum time frame of maximum 3 days.
The major improvement for business is the number of dissatisfied customers will decrease in the foreseeable future. The major outcome for the customer was an improvement in the waiting for respond experience.
There was no badge awarded during this EDT project.
Other Key Actions
There were two workshops facilitation related to this project.
There was a roadmap development for two critical purposes. First, the team designed a roadmap for running a pilot version of the Idea Hub Process as a Prototype in just two enterprise departments. Second, their developed major roadmap to execute after validating the pilot version.
