One of the greatest exercises I have ever participated in was a customer journey project. A multi-departmental team was assigned the task of creating a map of the customer journey. It not only opened our eyes to many things, but it genuinely changed the way many people approached their job.
The key to this is to focus on all aspects of the journey, not limit it to the traditional "touch points". If you are a retail location, this means not just when the customer is in the store, but what about before they get there and after they leave.
When we did the activity, we not only were able to find areas we could make the process easier and more pleasant for our customers, but we discovered ways to make our employees more empathetic, which improved our customer service. For example, we discussed how many of our customers were moms with young children. We thought about how hard it is to get kids ready, pack bags, wrangle them into car seats, etc. It showed us that customers may be frazzled before they even get to us, through no fault of our own. Once our employees saw that, they were more empathetic and would do little things to help the moms - help them carry bags when they got in or have a place they could keep them so they didn't have to carry them around, interact with the kids to try and put them in a better mood to give the mom a break, etc.
I mention this because it is a great exercise to do with internal customers. Think about the people you interact with and do this exercise. You may find things to help them that improve your relationship and earn you the reputation of being a rock star.
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