CUSTOMER

EXPERIENCE
TOOLKIT

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Design Impact Group - Base, Rwanda 2015
Groups have played a very significant role in the success
of microfinance. It has also become a major tool of female
empowerment across many developing countries.

2
Introduction
A large proportion of the customers of Senior stakeholders at both and large and
financial service providers (FSPs), do not use small FSPs appreciate the potential value of a
their accounts (e.g. 68% of mobile money customer centric business model, but many
accounts are dormant). At the same time, lack the tools to drive this transformation
two billion people are still excluded from the within their organizations. The goal of this
formal financial sector. At CGAP we believe toolkit is to fill that gap. While there are a
that a main cause of these disparities is a lack number of resources for Customer Experience
of customer focus on the part of FSPs: FSPs and customer-centered thinking available
can create value for customers by designing online (many of which are cited here) this is
and delivering a positive Customer Experience, the only toolkit that specifically targets the
based on a granular understanding of financial services community with an added
customer needs. This in turn will create value focus on the unbanked and underbanked. We
for FSPs, as customers will choose and use hope that it will serve as a practical and useful
these accounts. guide no matter where you are in the journey
towards a customer-centric business model
and where you sit in your organization.

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RESOURCES

Tools Case Studies

Lead Customer Experience Initiatives Learn from Other Organizations

Robust tools to help you integrate and manage Evidence of the value of Customer Experience
Customer Experience initiatives within your from other FSP organizations who have
organization – including key frameworks, invested in the approach and methods.
project planning tools, and design methods.
Useful for managers to share what Customer
Perfect for managers looking to create a Experience looks like with teammates and
structure around their work and communicate it’s organizational leadership alike.
value to leadership.

Experiments References
Put Customer Experience into Action Build Your Customer Experience
Knowledge Base
Practical exercises to help you get closer
to your customers and make Customer Curated set of research and reference
Experience part of your core competencies. materials to build your internal knowledge
Each experiment can be done in as little as an base and increase the impact of Customer
hour or two. Experience within your organization.

Ideal for managers and their project teams Valuable for those looking to dive deeper in a
who’d like to immerse themselves in the value of particular area of Customer Experience or for
Customer Experience or accelerate their work. more advanced practitioners.

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CONTENTS
1. Making the Case 10
• What is “Customer Experience” (CX) and how can it transform employees into problem solvers?
• What are the benefits of providing a good customer experience?
• Who benefits from Customer Experience?
• How have other organizations benefitted from a CX?
• How can a Customer Experience focus help you build trust and empower low-income customers?
• What Business Challenges can CX help you solve?
• How have other organizations used CX to address these challenges?
• How is a CX focus different?

2. Starting with the Customer 30

• What is the approach for acting on customer experience opportunities?
• Why does a CX approach build a culture of empathy?
• How do you approach Customer Experience research?
• How can design help me deliver a great CX?
• Which customers should you target?
• How should you approach research with low-income customers?
• How can you understand the needs of your target customers?
• How can you identify the best opportunities to address customer needs?

3. Planning & Taking Action 60

• How can you define and prioritize promising business opportunities?
• How to operationalize CX?
• How to prototype for CX?
• How do you get your team used to rapidly testing their ideas?

4. Making it Work 86
• What sort of team do you need to be successful?
• How do you make sure your team is working effectively?
• How have you solved for business challenges?
• How do you generate support from other parts of the organization?

5. Sharing the Results 106

• How do you collect feedback and share results to motivate adoption of CX?
• How can you showcase the impact of CX in your organization?
• How do you reflect back on the process and refine it for your next project?
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HOW TO NAVIGATE THIS GUIDE
Start with the
Making the Case Customer
Expose leaders and managers Build familiarity and basic skills
Goals to Customer Experience and of managers and practitioners in
its value when designing and conducting customer-centered
delivering financial services for research that will help them
low-income populations tackle a business challenge.

What is “Customer Experience” What is the approach for

Narrative (CX) and how can it transform acting on customer experience
employees into problem solvers? opportunities?
What are the benefits of providing This is a process of creating a
a good customer experience? culture of empathy with your
Who benefits from Customer customers pending
Experience? Now that you understand the
How have other organizations value of CX, where should you
benefitted from a CX? start?
How can a Customer Experience How can design help me deliver
focus help you build trust and a great CX?
empower low-income customers? Which customers should you
A.R.E Booklet: What business target?
challenges can CX help you How should you approach
solve? research with low-income
How have other organizations customers?
used CX to address these How can you understand the
challenges? needs of your target customers?
How is a CX focus different?used How can you identify the
CX to address these challenges? best opportunities to address
customer needs?

Persona profile
Tools Customer journey map

10 questions that work Find 3 agents in the

Experiments Start a conversation about CX community
Take the Pulse Have coffee with Customers
Change your Scenery Follow a front-line staff
Create an Alignment Map Create a customer sketch

Go-to market lessons - Uganda

Case studies Informal FS with “Tigo-Save”
BTPN Persona
Janalakshmi Customer Journey
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 Planning &
Making it Work Sharing the Results
Taking Action
Equip managers with tools to Support managers as they build Guide managers as they reflect
lead and execute a Customer cross-functional teams and on the impact of their work
Experience project in their build their internal capacity to and advocate for investing in
organization. iterate on ideas to bring CX to Customer Experience across
life in their business. their organization.

How can you define and What sort of team do you How do you collect feedback
prioritize promising business need to be successful? and share results to motivate
opportunities? How do you make sure your adoption of CX?
How to operationalize CX? team is working effectively? How can you showcase
How to prototype for CX? How have you solved for the impact of CX in your
business challenges? organization?
How do you get your team
used to rapidly testing their How do you generate support
ideas? from other parts of the
organization?

Opportunity BrIef Team Roles + Descriptions Customer Statisfaction

The Business Canvas Model Case Study Template Survey
Project Planner
Budgeting Tool

Show the impact of your Align your team values Make a video, show your
prototype Storyboard your Idea impact
Check your assumptions Energy barometer for weekly Launch a customer council
Scope your project check-ins Create insights cards

Janalakshmi Prototyping
Process
BTPN prototyping:
Bertumbuh project
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Design Impact Group - Nairobi, Kenya 2015

We are looking at life stages to widen

the definition of [customer] experience,
because the customer is looking and
shopping only when their need arises...
We’re getting closer to a wider definition,
but today [that definition starts when the
customer has already chosen a provider].
Aveesha Singh, Absa

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9
 1

MAKING
THE CASE

10
In this chapter, you’ll learn the basics In this chapter, we’ll cover the
and benefits of Customer Experience following questions:
(CX) for your business, the low-income • What is “Customer Experience”
populations it aims to gain loyalty (CX) and how can it transform
from, and how it differs from other employees into problem solvers?
approaches. This orienting chapter • What are the benefits of providing
will guide you through defining your a good customer experience?
business challenges and formulating • Who benefits from Customer
productive questions from a Experience?
customer-focused perspective. • How have other organizations
benefitted from a CX?
You’ll learn about how employees • How can a Customer Experience
from Absa Bank and MiMoni found focus help you build trust and
value in Customer Experience at their empower low-income customers?
organizations and be given tools • What Business Challenges can CX
to make the business case in your help you solve?
own. Finally, you’ll be introduced to • How have other organizations used
Experiments, hands-on activities to CX to address these challenges?
help catalyze a culture and approach • How is a CX focus different?
where customers are at the center of
your work.
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1. MAKING THE CASE | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

What is Customer
Experience (CX) and how
can it transform employees
into problem solvers?
The “Customer Experience” (CX) A focus on CX gives employees a sense of
encompasses every interaction the control and resourcefulness in their role.
customer has with your organization It allows employees to address customer
throughout the customer lifecycle, whether problems from more holistic perspective
they are in person at a branch, interacting and realize how any product fits into their
with an agent, connecting over the phone, customers’ lives.
or interfacing online.
The organization will see the value in
At the center of the Customer Experience is a customer-minded employees and support
clear and compelling value proposition, that is, their efforts to design and deliver customer-
a product or service that satisfies a customer’s centered services. These efforts may range
need or want. Value propositions are usually widely—from advocating for a customer
associated with a short or long-term goal, for research in a product development cycle to
example, a loan helps a customer buy a house. championing discreet CX project, such as
A positive Customer Experience generally has launching a Customer Experience council at a
both functional and emotional benefits based local branch.
on whether or not the customer’s expectations
are met or exceeded as they interact with
the product or service provider. Delivering
a positive Customer Experience generally
requires coordination across disparate
functions within an FSP organization, whether
in marketing, product development, customer
care, or retail branches.

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What are the benefits of
providing a good Customer
Experience?
Although there is a general belief that digital A focus on Customer Experience ensures
financial service solutions will be the biggest that your products and services speak to
contributor towards universal financial access, the challenges faced by customers, are well
limited use and lack of uptake are two of the designed and delivered, and customers are
most devastating drivers of failed business empowered to access and use them. When
models. this is the case, uptake and use is more likely.

?
Over-served
The focus on Customer Experience emerged out of
private sector investments in identifying unmet needs to
deliver competitive advantages in over-served markets
such as consumer electronics or financial services

Under-served
CX is equally effective when addressing underserved
markets for which there is a lack of data regarding existing
behavior or for which needs and preferences are poorly
understood and where profitability relies increasingly on
self-service channels, like branchless banking ?

A common mistake that gets made is that organizations assume that what they’re
going to do is just ‘dress up’ the experience that they’ve already decided to make...
and then make the minor tweaks to fit with the Customer Experience. But what
we know is that you have to design it first from the [customer’s perspective and
needs] IDEO, Design Firm

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Who benefits from
Customer Experience?
Customers: Think of a young couple who dreams of buying a family
home, but struggles to save because of daily demands. If a savings product
is designed to make small, short term deposits easy –– they’re more likely
to meet their family goals. Customers win when products, services, and
delivery experiences are designed with them in mind. Whether it is a product
that better fits needs or incentives that align with natural behaviors, a focus
on the customer can help FSPs deliver more value to the end user. A focus on
Customer Experience can drastically improve the possibilities for customers’
lives.

Businesses: Think of the couple who went from occasional user to

loyal saver as they saved for their future home. An active account with
less withdrawals means the business is retaining a valuable customer-
provider relationship. Businesses benefit when customers thrive. These
benefits range from more active accounts, strengthened brand reputation, or
deepened customer loyalty—all metrics that fuel an improved bottom line. A
focus on Customer Experience throughout a product and service portfolio often
translates into better market fit, more engagement, and increased retention.

Society: Think of people in poverty who now experience expanded

economic opportunities. More families with the ability to invest in
education, participate in the economy, and save for long term translates
into value at the societal level. When the poor have more predictable income
and expenditures, economies experience stability and growth.

In the next 15 years, digital banking will give the poor more control over their as-
sets and help them transform their lives. 2015 Gates Annual Letter

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1. MAKING THE CASE | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How have other

organizations benefitted
from a CX approach?
One way that companies can catalyze the At meetings, Zappos employees talk about
development of a customer centric culture the “long-tail” when discussing customer
is by defining their core values. Led by CEO profitability – focusing on how they can
Tony Hsieh, Zappos engaged in a process to support individual customers with unique
understand what customers loved about the needs – rather than simply dividing their
company and codify these insights into a set customers into broader segments. Zappos
of value statements to guide the organization leadership believes that as long as they
moving forward. This collaborative process are delivering on their customer promise,
took a year with employees generating thirty- positive financial results will follow. Zappos
seven value statements that were consolidated also believes in the financial benefits of word
into ten core values that have been adopted of mouth advocacy that may be difficult to
throughout the organization. For example, quantify in customer value models but is a key
these values focus less on collecting data and driver of growth for the company.
more on listening directly to the customer.
Zappos actively encourages their employees Zappos estimates that 75% of their
to develop their listening skills to understand customer base is repeat business from
what the customer wants. They encourage call existing customers and 25% are new
center employees to identify trends around customers (40% of which have come to
what the customers “say” so they can improve them through word of mouth from existing
their service delivery. customers).

Conventional measures of success are actually indirect indicators, like portfolio

growth. They give a false sense of security that the business is doing right by the
customer. MFI in East Africa

Learning from Customer Centricity in Other Industries

Page 9 - Build Sustainable Foundations: Culture and Leadership

15
How can a Customer
Experience focus help you
build trust and empower
low-income customers?

In unbanked and underbanked communities the intimidating and creates a psychological

ubiquity of cash, limited awareness of financial barrier for customers to engage with banks.
service offerings and poor prior experiences
with FSPs may make potential customers In general, FSPs may have limited customer
reluctant to engage with formal financial insights about the financial lives of low-income
services. This is despite the fact that potential customers central to creating the differentiated
benefits may exceed those of using cash. In this Customer Experience. For example, poor
context, the process of securing, maintain and people save, but saving is highly nuanced and
growing trust in these markets to adopt and takes a variety of forms. In Mexico, people
use formal financial services can be particularly physically divide their cash by categories like
challenging. Securing trust to promote digital school fees and food. In Brazil, responsible
financial services may be further complicated spending is a type of saving. Getting a good
by customers’ uncertainty about the quality of deal or stretching your week’s wages is much
mobile operator services (e.g. uptime), whether the same as tucking away a few coins or bills.
the technology works, and lack of confidence In Ghana, people pay fees for the convenience
in their ability to use technology and resolve of having a susu collector come to their homes
problems if mistakes occur. or offices to collect savings on a daily basis
(Insights into Action). These informal financial
In Brazil, for example, when customers walk behaviors reveal much about the opportunity
into a bank, they are screened passing through to design Customer Experiences that engage
these large revolving doors under the scrutiny and serve low-income markets.
of security guards. This process is extremely

Learning from Customer Centricity in Other Industries

Page 14 - Challenge: Design CX to build trust and empower Low-Income Customers

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1. MAKING THE CASE | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

What Business Challenges

can CX help you solve?
Think of the customers you serve, your Where are the big gaps in your portfolio
portfolio of products, and your most common where customers are not engaging
channels. What challenges are you facing in or dropping out? How might you think
acquiring, retaining, and/or expanding your about these opportunities from a Customer
customer relationships? Experience perspective?

ACQUISITION RETENTION EXPANSION

Reaching new Deepening customer Expanding customer
customers relationships relationships

• Entering new markets • Solving customer challenges • Increasing upsell and cross-
• Understanding which • Increasing uptake and sell
customers to target adoption of product • Increasing engagement
• Launching new product offerings • Increasing customer value
offerings • Increasing awareness and loyalty
• Acquiring customers, • Reducing dormancy • Reducing cost to serve
extending customer base to • Empowering customers • Increasing the lifetime value
new segments of a customer
• Incentivizing customer
referral

[People often put the cart before the horse.] Only as we start to articulate why a
product needs to be built, what [customer] problem it is solving for [do we know
how to begin.] That “why” piece is generally where we get a lot of meat for what
we’re putting into the “how”. Ginger, Square/MVisa

17
18
Design Impact Group - Bangalore, India 2015
Participatory design and prototyping lab over the course of a week in
Bangalore with internal teams at a large urban MFI to generate concepts
and project plans to improve their customer experience.

“No organization is static, it’s running.

The best way to ensure ownership is to
align with current initiatives.” R-Jana
19
 Approaching your business needs from a customer centric
lens will have significant impact on your bottom line by
addressing key challenges related to A.R.E. Equally, this ap-
proach will allow you to better understand and serve cus-
tomer needs, in the long and short term, to increase value for
both customers and your business.

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1. MAKING THE CASE | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How have other

organizations used CX to
address these challenges?
Aveesha Singh
MEET She used segmentation to transform branch strategy for Absa Bank in South
Africa.

Role & Organization: Senior Segment Strategist for Absa Bank.

Challenge: Make customer segmentation relevant to Absa’s core business.

Approach: Instead of “sitting in the ivory tower” of headquarters, Aveesha

spent a month working from retail branches to understand how segmentation
could benefit branch managers and frontline staff. Generic business targets
were a constant frustration. The new life stage segmentation model helped
branches create tailored business plans and customer engagement approaches,
ultimately leading to stronger performance. Aveesha ran immersive trainings
with front-line agents to help them transform conversations with various
customers into valuable selling moments. This approach not only engaged
customers, but empowered frontline staff to understand and connect more
deeply with those they serve.

No organization voluntarily decides to resegment or do something different in

their Customer Experience, there has to be an existing problem or revenue oppor-
tunity–– the segmentation isn’t the [selling point], the [business] problem is the
[selling point]. Aveesha Singh, Absa

21
Customer insights were not very well organized until two months ago. We finally
found a head of User Experience. He reports into Marketing. This person has the
unenviable challenge of deciding what the best experience is for customer from
end to end. He mapped out every touch point we have with customers to figure
out how to streamline and ensure we have control over the whole process. [...] He
started by trying to segment our existing customers into different buckets and he
is systemizing all of that. Gabriel Manjarrez, CEO of miMoni

Gabriel Manjarrez
MEET He serves as a role model to employees to develop an understanding of their
customers at miMoni in Mexico

Role & Organization: CEO of miMoni

Challenge: Bring customers online to apply for loans, rather than through pawn
shops. miMoni currently provides electronic loans at an average amount of
$100 USD, based on an online application and a proprietary risk algorithm to
determine eligibility.

Approach: Gabriel and his co-founder went door to door to meet customers
and understand their needs, use of mobile phones, and use of financial services.
Gabriel observed a trend among his own employees and started to offer this
new loan product. He encourages all miMoni employees to focus on the needs
of customers and identify any areas in their loan process that causes customers
friction, so that miMoni can address it quickly and ensure the best Customer
Experience possible. Gabriel sets an example for his employees by personally
calling 5-10 customers each month to ask about their experience. Gabriel
recently hired a Head of User Experience to support the company’s mission to
bring on more customers and ensure a positive experience.

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How is a CX focus different?
A focus on Customer Experience is one component of being a Customer Centric organization,
which requires larger shifts in organizational dynamics. These perspective and operational shifts
affect strategy, culture, and structure.

CX requires a shift in Strategy from a portfolio of products that drive growth to

a portfolio of customers that drive growth based on meeting customer needs.

CX requires a shift from a Culture that rewards employees for developing

products and increasing sales to a culture that rewards employees for solving
customer problems and deepening customer relationships.

CX requires a shift from an Organizational Structure in which employees

operate in product silos, interacting with other functions only when they need
to get product to market to a structure in which business units are linked across
functions by teams or task forces. These mixed groups allow an organization to
rally diverse functions around customer needs and segments.

Incorporating a Customer Experience perspective in your work doesn’t have to be intimidating. It’s
possible to find opportunities for impact at a smaller scale as your organization becomes more
familiar with the process and begins to shift it’s orientation to be more customer centric. Refer
to the A.R.E. booklet for the spectrum of incremental vs. transformational change to solve your
business challenges through CX and the actions they require.

Learning from Customer Centricity in Other Industries

Page 6 - Customer Centricity Defined

23
 Experiments

Introduction

A Customer Experience perspective requires for you to put a Customer Experience into
leaders to test new approaches, in the hope of action.
bringing the customer perspective into every
aspect of the organization. Throughout this We’ve designed three primary types of
toolkit, we’ve developed easy and quick ways experiments:

1 2 3
Experiments that Experiments that help Experiments that help
help you get closer you socialize the idea of you establish customer-
to your customers Customer Experience in centric habits within
your organization your team

Each experiment comes with basic guidance on to try out with a minimal amount of time and
execution as well as an illustrative case study. resources.
These experiments are designed to be easy

It’s like a germ attacking the body...the bank can’t be innovated from the outside,
it has to come from within. Aveesha Singh, Absa

24
Try these experiments to get familiar with
Customer Experience:

1. 10 Questions that work

Use these questions to assess the level of maturity of your organization’s current
approach and identify the most valuable ways to integrate a customer experience
perspective.

For these experiments, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

2. Start a conversation about CX 3. Take the Pulse

Too often, conversations at Learning about your customers
headquarters are removed from the can start with something as simple
reality of the customer experience. as an email. Often times front-line
But every employee of your company staff already know where customers
is also a customer or user of many struggle or thrive best. Developing
others. This exercise will help you easy ways to “take the pulse” on what
connect your colleagues’ customer staff already knows is a great start to
experience to your organization. focus your efforts early on.

4. Change your Scenery 5. Create an Alignment Map

Changing your environment is a quick Customer Experience projects work
and easy way to begin shifting your best when they align with internal
mindset. Shake up your office routine. priorities and in-progress initiatives
Choose a branch to work from within your organization. Take an
remotely and set up coffee to meet afternoon to make a mind-map with
frontline staff. There are more ways several close colleagues. Explore
in which you can make this time more what a customer experience project
productive and illustrative. or perspective might add to these
existing activities.

25
 Experiment 1

10 Questions that Work

A company that puts customers first, begins the level of maturity of the organization in its
to shape their model and culture to reflect customer experience focus and specific areas
this core driver. As a team, take a moment for improvement.
to answer the following questions to identify

1. Has your organization designed key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure performance
against customer satisfaction objectives?

2. Is customer research carried out to understand the wants, needs and purchase drivers of
customers?

3. Does your organization examine sales processes to understand why they might fail and
customers do not purchase?

4. Does your organization analyze the number of customers being gained and lost each year?

5. Does your organization apply a customer journey framework to design, document and
share the ideal end-to-end experience that customers should have?

[0] [1] [2]

I DON’T NO, WE HAVE NO SORT OF, WE HAVE
KNOW. COMMITMENT TO COMMITTED TO, BUT
DO IT. THERE ARE NO REAL
PLANS IN PLACE.

26
TIME ROLES

40-60 minutes 1 facilitator to capture responses

6. Does your organization use a set of broad research techniques to understand customer
experience, satisfaction and loyalty?

7. Does your organization do research to understand how customers are using your products
and why customers they may be using them differently than the way you had planned?

8. Do all senior managers have regular direct contact with customers to get a realistic view of
the customers’ experience when engaging with your organization?

9. Does your organization have a clear and consistent calculation of customer lifetime value
when making customer investment decisions?

10. Does your organization understand the costs (direct and indirect) incurred by customers
when engaging with you?

[3] [4] [5]

YES, WE HAVE A YES, WE HAVE YES, WE HAVE
PLAN, BUT NO IMPLEMENTED THIS IMPLEMENTED THIS
IMPLEMENTATION AND IT IS HAVING AND IT IS HAVING
YET. SOME IMPACT. MAJOR IMPACT.

27
Design Impact Group - Nairobi, Kenya 2015

“The margin you earn through a

particular product is meaningless if
people don’t adopt the product.”
Ginger, Square/MVisa
28
DRAFT

29
 2

START
WITH THE
CUSTOMER

30
Now that you’ve begun to formulate share experiments that will get your
your organization’s business case teams into the field to speak with
for Customer Experience, it’s time to customers, staff, and agents.
focus on the customers themselves.
This chapter will show you the ways In this chapter, we’ll cover the
user research and analysis can be following questions:
used to identify opportunities for • What is the approach for acting on
business impact. customer experience opportunities?
• Why does a CX approach build a
You’ll learn how Centenary Bank used culture of empathy?
segmentation to create successful, • How do you approach Customer
customer-focused marketing efforts Experience research?
(reference CGAP’s Segmentation • How can design help me deliver a
Playbook for more). You’ll discover great CX?
how “Personas” helped BTPN • Which customers should you target?
integrate the voice of their customers • How should you approach research
into their product experience and with low-income customers?
how building a “Customer Journey • How can you understand the needs
Map” acted as a foundation for of your target customers?
Janalakshmi Financial Services’ CX • How can you identify the best
strategy. Along with these two tools opportunities to address customer
(Persona and Journey Map), we will needs?

31
What is the approach
for acting on Customer
Experience opportunities?
The process we describe is a general approach and should be customized to fit your team
for developing Customer Experience projects. and project needs and capacities. Use the
This process is influenced by human-centered following framework as a starting point for
design principles, innovation techniques, and your work, understanding that we’ve provided
agile product management approaches. additional detail to help guide more robust
projects. Allow your team to iterate and course
It’s important to remember that this is not correct between phases as needed.
a linear process. It’s one that is iterative

LEARNING CREATING

PREPARING SCALING
Multiple rounds
of iteration

MEASURING TESTING

PREPARING 2. CREATING 4. MEASURING

Define research objectives Conduct rapid prototyping Gather feedback
Refine and adjust prototypes Adjust designs
1. LEARNING
Gather data internally 3. TESTING 5. SCALING
Choose research methods Distill design principles Implement pilot
Execute customer research Generate ideas Refine and scale up
Analyze findings
Generate insights
32
PREPARING
Customer Experience work is, by its nature, such as fly-on-the-wall observations.
highly iterative and improvisational. The objective After conducting robust customer research,
in this phase is not to develop a comprehensive it’s important to analyze the findings and
and rigid masterplan for the design process, synthesize insights about your customers. You
but rather cultivate alignment and structure may do this by clustering your observations
for creativity to thrive. Teams work best when into themes and identifying patterns,
they have a fair amount of independence in the opportunities and gaps that are ripe for design.
approach they take to achieve the goals of the This may also be a point where tools such as
project, but maintain accountability and unity as Personas or a Customer Journey Map may be
a group. useful for analysis.

The planning phase should start by defining the During this phase, we reccomend a process of
research objectives, the key opportunity that you insight generation. This will help you transform
are investigating as well as the expectations that your observations into clear statements that
the process will be measured against. frame the research learnings and underlying
behaviors in an actionable way.

1. LEARNING
Once the team is aligned around the research 2. CREATING
questions, it’s critical to devote enough time to Next, you’ll want to complement your
gather data within the organization and clarify research insights with design principles to
what the team knows and what it doesn’t know. guide your team as they generate ideas for CX
Finally, with a clear understanding of the gaps Improvements. After you generate ideas, your
in knowledge, your team will choose methods team can prioritize and convert concepts into
for research to fill the gaps in knowledge, taking plans for testable prototypes.
both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
The output of this phase of the process
The objective of the learning phase is to should be a short list of well-defined, viable
develop a nuanced understanding of customer opportunities for CX improvements that can be
needs, their financial lives and the larger mocked-up and tested with customers. It may
context in which they live. Executing customer be useful to engage an external facilitator or
research helps your organization understand consultant, especially if your team is less familiar
the gaps in your current Customer Experience with brainstorming and prototyping processes.
so that you can identify opportunities
to improve them in the long-run. During
customer research, HCD methods are used 3. TESTING
to gather data through approaches such as: These concepts go through a phase of
in-depth household interviews, co-design rapid prototyping, or real-world tests, with
workshops, and field research techniques, customers. This involves creating low-cost
ways to test small aspects of a new offering

33
 5. SCALING
or experience and seeing whether customers Successful prototypes that have performed
respond positively to these changes. This helps well over several cycles of iteration and
your team quickly validate (or invalidate) early refinement are able to be implemented as
designs and improve the final solution. pilots. These small scale launches are more
formalized tests with customers that, after a
Co-design workshops with employees and process of refinement, are able to be launched
customers can be used to develop and as a formal offering with target customers.
test early ideas using storyboards or paper Over time, with success, a new offering may be
prototypes. You might choose to involve further adjusted and scaled up in new markets,
external experts, such as designers or locations or delivery channels.
fabricators, to test more complex concepts. In
order to refine and adjust prototypes properly,
small customer samples are usually sufficient
to get valuable feedback.

4. MEASURING
The impact of prototypes can be measured by
formal and informal means. While informal
feedback will help you hone your designs,
customer feedback surveys will help you There are a variety of resources that provide
assess whether the CX improvements added methods for conducting this work. While
value and whether the cost-benefit analysis we share some of them in this guide, we
is positive. The process of gathering feedback recommend the following references:
is possible with small samples of customers
but must, usually, be done by independent For planning, learning, creating and
persons with no stake in the outcome. testing, check out:

After gathering feedback, your team can • CGAP’s Insights to Action (pages 108 - 117)
regroup and adjust the designs, entering into • IDEO.org’s Design Kit (see methods)
a new cycle of creation and testing until you • frog’s Collective Action Toolkit
have refined and validated a solution that is • CGAP’s Better Insights for Better Products
ready to implement. Prototypes are generally
not successful in their first iteration –it is To learn more about CX in action at another
normal to undergo several rounds of creation financial service institution, reference
and feedback before identifying a scalable Janalakshmi’s prototyping toolkit.
concept for implementation.

34
Why does a CX approach
build a culture of empathy?
Iterative processes, robust research, striking Empathy helps your organization:
ideas – these are all crucial aspects of a CX • Design more valuable offerings and service
design process. However, the real currency experiences for your customers
of this work is empathy. Specifically, how a • Cultivate employee engagement and
CX approach can build  a culture of empathy effectiveness
within your organization–starting with • Enhance collaboration across departments
customers. and amongst staff and leaders

It’s easy to hear such statements and It’s important to position the CX process not
think, “That’s nice, but how will empathy only as a way to yield more effective marketing
impact my business?” The impact of translating campaigns and product offerings, but to retain
a process of insight and innovation into an talent and promote departmental cross-
ongoing culture of empathy is felt in several pollination. These are more than just fringe
dimensions. benefits. Raising the importance of Customer
Experience in your organization can be the
first step to shaping culture and shifting
operational norms for the better. 

Employees are generally at the front line of a business, and customers are the
source of profits, so understanding their experience is vital. When an entrepreneur
takes the time to empathize with the concerns and insights of customers and
employees, they can gain valuable information to piece into their strategy for
bettering the business. Joey Pomerenke, UPGlobal

The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to
design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing – building empathy for the people
that you’re entrusted to help. David Kelley, Founder of IDEO

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2. START WITH THE CUSTOMER | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How do you approach

Customer Experience
research?
The first step to improve your customer To move towards a real understanding of
experience is to understand your customers’ customer behavior, you will likely need to use a
lives more fully. This includes uncovering mixture of qualitative and quantitative research
customer needs, motivations and aspirations– methods. However, you don’t need to start from
the things that most influence their decisions scratch. Creating an efficient research plan
around personal finance–as well as their current begins with tapping your internal organization’s
experiences with and perceptions of financial knowledge before diving into the unknown.
services, especially your own. Armed with this If you have clarity from the beginning on what
knowledge, you can design more effective you already know and don’t, you can focus your
services and CX and increase the value you efforts on specific gaps in knowledge and will
provide (and generate!). generate more relevant research findings.

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Best for: Demonstrating a market opportunity for a provider and gleaning broad understandings
about a population. A data scientist can help you find more nuanced ways to use quantitative
research to understand behavior and demographics.

The burden of proof is high, a Examples include: Tradeoffs:

precise estimation of market • Surveys • Large sample sizes
• Conjoint Analysis • Narrow scope of questioning,
opportunity is required, or
• Max Diff generally focused on product
you already have a strong • A/B/ Testing features, attributes, pricing
understanding of customer • Limited to needs, preferences that
needs/characteristics. The people are aware of
sample sizes tend to be much • Limited value for testing and refining
larger with quantitative new product concepts
• Relatively easy to set up
research, but the insights tend
• Expensive but quickly deployable
to be more narrowly applicable • Results are more representative due
to specific product features, to large sample sizes
attributes or pricing models. • Results can be conveyed quickly to a
vast group of stakeholders.
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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Best for: Gleaning customer insights and understanding users’ aspirations, frustrations,
rationales, and preferences.
You are completing more Examples include: Tradeoffs:
exploratory research on your • 1:1 Interviews • Small sample size
• Focus Groups • Broad scope of questioning
customers’ preferences and
Discussions • Encompasses both explicit and
needs, there is not sufficient • Ethnographies & implicit needs as well as behavior
secondary research to form customer observations and environment
hypotheses and/or nature • User / usability testing • Ideal for testing and iterating on
of behavior change is so new product concepts
great that in-depth personal • Can be expensive for robust
ethnographic studies, but can also
information is required. The
be done on the cheap through
sample sizes for qualitative user intercepts and other rapid
research tend to be much techniques
smaller, but this form of • Fewer vendors available, however
research provides much lightweight research can be
performed by internal staff with
deeper insight into unmet
explicit training in ethnographic
needs and expectations that techniques (however, special
are less obvious in a survey. consideration must be paid to
biases)

BLENDED RESEARCH

Best for: Gaining a more clear picture of a target market and the business opportunity within
customers’ lives.

You have sufficient time and Examples include: Tradeoffs:

resources to conduct two • Validating insights from • Combines benefits of both
phases of research, benefiting qualitative research approaches
through a broader • Tends to be more costly and time
from the relative advantages
survey to validate their consuming, though can be staged
of qualitative and quantitative. prevalence effectively
The combination is particularly • Conducting customer
useful when targeting a interviews and
market or customer segment observations to explain
variances in user
in which user needs are
expectations or behavior
not well-established or are identified through
changing rapidly, such as low surveys or A/B testing
income customers.

We are losing customers because we just don’t understand them. Absa

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2. START WITH THE CUSTOMER | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How can design help me

deliver a great CX?
HCD is a process built on learning directly from providers to understand, create, evolve, and
customers in their own environments and test possible solutions and repeat the cycle
then quickly developing and refining concepts for as many times as it takes. HCD integrates
with customers themselves to ensure that a broad set of practices around a common
their needs and expectations inform design understanding of user needs that can improve
decisions and lead to a higher likelihood of strategic decision-making as well as increase
success and adoption. The process challenges the effectiveness of individual products.

“Human-centered design: meeting people where they are and really taking their
needs and feedback into account. When you let people participate in the design
process, you find that they often have ingenious ideas about what would really
help them. And it’s not a one time thing; it’s an iterative process.” Melinda Gates

38
UNDERSTANDING USER NEEDS

Quantitative research: Qualitative research Ethnography

The collection and analysis of Direct engagement with target users A type of qualitative
large scale demographic and and influencers through interviews, research based on the social
psychographic data through observational and participatory sciences that relies on deep
methods such as surveys and in techniques to gather directional immersion in user’s lives and
interviews to gather representative data on emerging needs and culture in order to minimize
data on current perceptions and behavior. bias.
practices.

DESIGNING FOR THEIR NEEDS

User testing Prototyping Co-creation

The evaluation of a product or The process of building an early The process whereby users
service by directly testing it with sample or model of a product, directly participate in the
users, focusing on the product’s service or system in order to refine design of a product or
ability to meet users’ needs and fit and validate the concept or generate service intended for their
into their lives so adoption is easy new concepts. use.
and natural.

GETTING THEM ENGAGED

Messaging & Communication Awareness & Access Community Engagement

The process of crafting the value Includes any activities to increase The process of building
proposition of a product or service the knowledge and reach of a long-term relationships with
in a way that is compelling and product or service among target communities to increase
determining where and when that user segments, including marketing trust and the potential to
message is best communicated to and sales channels. influence behavior and
different user segments. norms.

39
2. START WITH THE CUSTOMER | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

Which customers should

you target?

Segmentation can help you divide a then do that” guide. If your organization
heterogeneous market into a number of has the resources and interest in creating
smaller, homogenous markets based on one a segmentation of your customers, we
or more meaningful characteristics. The scope recommend familiarizing yourself with the
of a segmentation strategy will depend on the process and determining whether you have
maturity of your organization, the diversity of the capacity and capabilities to take the project
your market, and your available timeline and on internally. Below, you’ll find a link to CGAP’s
budget. Segmentation Playbook, a great place to find
A Segmentation Model is a powerful tool examples and guideposts to learn more.
which, when used properly, can help you: External expertise may be helpful for you to
• Estimate the size of a market opportunity most robustly translate your market insights
• Tailor products and services to your highest into actionable market segments for which to
value customers design offerings and experiences.
• Shape communications to drive awareness
and adoption Segmentation is a widely recognized approach
to deepen your understanding of your target
Segmentation exercises are unique to the market and a useful foundation for designing
organization and situation that confronts customer-centric products, services, and
them. It’s impossible to create a rigid “if this, experiences.

All of this work has been done based on understanding pockets of segments...
We’re quite happy looking at smaller [high value] markets... because, today’s niche
markets are tomorrow’s mass markets. Small investments today create future
adoption.... you have to balance today’s investment with the longevity of tomor-
row’s return. Segmentation has been a key aspect to giving executives a level of
comfort [with experimentation/innovation]. Absa

Reference: Segmentation Playbook

Increasing Competition Requires Greater Customer Knowledge” Unpublished study by CGAP, 2015
40
 Case Study

Go-to market lessons from

Centenary Bank, Uganda
Challenge Overview
The Centenary Bank in Uganda is a full-service After completing a market segmentation, the
financial institution offering a diverse range broad based messaging campaign, “take your
of retail banking products for working-class, bank everywhere,” was replaced by more
middle-class, and high net worth individuals. specific advertisements, tailored to each
They also offer a wide range of business of the identified segments. These targeted
products suitable for micro, small and medium ads enabled Centenary Bank to cut through
enterprises, and corporate-sector clients. the noise of many other mobile offerings.
With their combined go-to-market efforts,
Centenary Bank launched a new mobile bank Centenary saw 38,000 users making 130,000
offering, with a more general campaign that transactions within the first four months of
didn’t live up to their expectations. In response, launch.
the bank embarked in a segmentation exercise
to improve their communication strategy and In the same way that an organization’s
shape communications by segment. offerings can change to fit target segments, the
messaging can be adjusted as well. Even if you
Questions don’t change the product, the messaging can
How can we improve our communication still be tailored to fit different audiences.
strategy to more effectively target different
segments and increase uptake of our new
mobile banking offering?

41
Without segmentation, messaging will likely be more generic and as a consequence may
resonate less with customers...

After segmentation, understanding target customer segments allowed the MFI to tailor
messages to address different pain points discovered through customer research

Youths Salaried Workers Business Community

Who were able to spend less Who were now able to Who were able to travel much
time in long bank queues and withdraw money more less frequently to the bank to
would have easier ways to regularly, as opposed to handle daily transactions.
receive funds from relatives. taking out all the money they
needed once a month.

42
How should you approach
research with low-income
customers?

Qualitative research always requires Respect time and consider incentives. It

time and attention. In high-poverty may be difficult to recruit participants for 2-3
environments, it is especially important hour sessions if this means they may have to
to approach this process with sensitivity. forgo their work and daily income. Mitigate
A few tips for guiding your work with real this challenge by recruiting up to a week in
customers: advance and offering small incentives for
attending.
Meet people where they are. This research
is best done in context – in peoples’ homes Do no harm. In settings where you are having
or places of daily living. You can help people sensitive conversations, be aware of your
feel more comfortable with your presence participants’ privacy and any security risks
with appropriate, casual dress and an open around your presence or conversation.
demeanor.
When in doubt, handle people with
Be mindful of norms. Whether religious, humility and a spirit of genuine curiosity
gender, cultural, or socioeconomic– these and care–as they are your collaborators
unspoken differences can affect the tone of in building more impactful Customer
your conversations and participants’ feelings Experiences.
of comfort, openness, and dignity. Avoid
judgement and mitigate unhealthy power For more guidance on working with un-
dynamics. and underbanked people, see UNICEF’s
Principles for Innovation and Technology
Bridge communication barriers. Make sure in Development: http://www.unicef.org/
there is someone on your research team who innovation/innovation_73239.html
can speak the local language and establish a
fluent interaction with your participants. If you
use any materials or stimuli for conversation,
stick with visual icons and simple terms.

43
 Case Study

Leveraging informal financial

services with “Tigo-Save”

Challenge The need for safety in financial services is

Tigo Cash launched its mobile money often context specific, such is the case in
service in Ghana in 2010. However, by 2012, Ghana where susu collectors and microfinance
only a fraction of its over 1 million register institution loan officers walk through poor
subscribers were actively using the offering. communities with hundreds of dollars in cash.
Tigo Cash was struggling to gain momentum This physical presence is important. Mobile
in the country, therefore in 2013, CGAP, money providers such as Tigo Cash, talk about
Tigo Cash, and IDEO.org set out to better the safety of their services but struggle to gain
understand how to improve the customer trust in the market.
value proposition of TIGO Cash and the larger
issue of customer engagement with mobile
money among low-income Ghanaians. Overview
Over four months the team investigated the
Questions important factors in making and receiving
How can we engage registered TIGO Cash payments in Ghana through over 40 in-depth
customers who aren’t actively using the interviews. Information about customers’ desires
platform? and fears were synthesized into insights and
How can we position mobile money and guided the ideation phase. The team developed
other digital financial services in new cultural three experience principles to help Tigo Cash
contexts and take into account the needs position in a new market and leverage informal
andaspirations of low-income Ghanaians? behaviors and systems (eg. Susu collectors):

44
The principles were: over informal means. This conferred more
• Create a visible Tigo Cash community gravity on the product and used a known
(wherever I am, it’s there!) convention, real representatives and word of
• Offer expanded potential (creating value mouth, to gain trust.
beyond convenience, having Tigo Cash offer
growth opportunities) Initially, Tigo expected that customers would
• Provide continuous support and make be loyal to the susu collectors who currently
customers feel valued. visit them daily in their home or workplace.
Surprisingly, the exercise showed that the
majority of people interviewed actually
Prototyping “TIGO SAVE”: preferred a new mobile money agent over
Once new ideas were generated, the team their current susu collector. Perhaps because
developed 3 simple prototypes, one of them they have either heard about susu collectors
was the Tigo-Save service. running away with people’s money or they
have experienced it themselves. The Tigo
Tigo-Save was modeled on the role that Save service is currenty present in in 27
susus played in Ghanian savings behaviors. communities in Ghana.
Therefore, the prototype was aimed at making
an informal savings system feel more official.
Tigo Cash put physical agents out in the
community to explain the benefits of Tigo Save

Designing Customer-Centric Branchless Banking Offerings

CGAP Brief Report
http://www.cgap.org/publications/designing-customer-centric-branchless-banking-offerings
45
2. START WITH THE CUSTOMER | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How can you understand

the needs of your target
customers?
Segmentation Models focus on select These fictional, yet realistic, portraits act like
attributes and characteristics of a target group a characters in a book and are surprisingly
of customers. But in many cases – particularly useful tools for the design and delivery of
with financial services – customers needs services.
don’t fall neatly into these categories.
While segmentation can help you identify The key to personas is collecting and culling
the most valuable customers to target, you a collection of specific characteristics of
often need to take another step to fully a number of different people that you
capture the needs and expectations of might have encountered through customer
your customers. One way to do this is interviews into holistic portraits of subgroup
through the creation of user personas. users. By defining a persona you will capture
a comprehensive understanding of the
Personas are summary descriptions based primary user, his/her context, and the people
on real people. They represent users from who might influence her awareness and use
subgroups a business or organization wants of the product/service. Personas help you
to engage. Personas are created by combining focus on people rather than abstract notions
various attributes of like individuals, such as of the groups they represent. They bring
situation, context, needs, motivations, and segmentation to life.
benefits, into a single holistic description.

Even if you are just serving one aspect of their financial life, try to understand
them wholly, because it will give you a lot of ideas of how to build value into the
product you are providing to them. Ginger Baker, Square

46
 Tool 1

Creating a persona profile

Personas are a summary description of representative primary users and key stakeholders who
influence his / her behavior, including an overview of their situation, context, needs, motivations
and benefits. They are developed from a range of different sources, drawing together the
common characteristics of similar people into one ‘archetype’ through which the group can be
understood.

PERSONA
Quote

BACKGROUND - What important life experiences or events have

contributed to the Persona’s current situation?

[FINANCIAL] BEHAVIOR - What behaviors are involved in his /

her financial practices? Which habits and rituals are performed
on a regular basis, vs. one-off behaviors that result from external
Quote
pressures?

DRIVERS - What are the needs, enablers, and blockers that

DREAMS - What are this person’s greatest dreams and influence this Persona? Who are the influential stakeholders in
aspirations? What factors does he/ she consider that might their lives?
contribute to or hinder pursuit of these dreams?

For more on Segmentation, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

47
 Case Study

BTPN Persona
Challenge Overview
BTPN is a mid-size Indonesian commercial Over 3 weeks of initial research in the field,
bank serving 1.4 million mass-market the team captured more than 5,000 photos,
customers. The bank launched a mobile wallet had conversations with over 70 people, and
product called BTPN Wow! in 2012, with a transcribed over 2600 data points from
product geared to low-income Indonesians and conversations with customers, agents and
designed for usage on basic phones. However, experts. Throughout the research process,
the bank felt it needed additional support to critical human-centered insights were derived
tailor its offering to truly meet the needs of its from the joint synthesis sessions during and
customers. post-fieldwork.

Project Bertumbuh (meaning “to grow”) was The team synthesized its learnings and
born in an effort to help Bank BTPN improve developed 5 personas to inject the “voice of
its BTPN WOW! product and assist it in the customer” into the product experience
understanding its target customers. via inspirational, stylized representations of
individuals based not only on demographics,
Questions but on attitudes, interactions and behaviors.
Knowing that the introduction of mobile
banking isn’t an automatic success story in
financial inclusion, how can BTPN understand
better their BOP customers in Indonesia to
improve adoption of their new mobile service?

48
Each persona profile included:
• Background context • Framework to illustrate their mental model,
• Dreams and aspirations representing enablers blockers and needs in
• Financial behavior their life

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2. START WITH THE CUSTOMER | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How can you identify

the best opportunities to
address customer needs?
It is not enough to improve the direct experience of the user personas that you create for your
that your customer has with your product. target customers. Like personas, journey maps
In many cases their financial needs extend are best created as a group activity that captures
beyond their direct engagement with a bank knowledge from various customer-facing
or moneylender. Financial decision-making constituencies within your organization, whether
happens in all sort of situations throughout a sales agents or call center staff. By creating a
day, week or month. In order to most effectively journey map, you will gain clarity on what your
reach your customer, it is usually not enough customers do, how they think and what they
to identify their unmet needs. You must also feel when they interact with your product or
understand where / when is the best opportunity service. Journey maps can be used to describe a
to engage them and influence their choices. This customer’s general experience with a particular
is particularly true of the unbanked who often process (e.g. buying a home), capture their
operate outside the reach of formal financial experience with your existing product or service,
channels. or illustrate a desired experience for a new
offering. What all customer journey maps have in
A Customer Journey Map is a tool to common is an understanding of phases, defined
capture and communicate an individual touchpoints, and insights into a user’s feelings.
customer’s journey through a specific
product or service experience, such as Before you get started, it’s helpful to be clear on
signing up for a loan and making one’s payments what you want to use your customer journey
throughout the lifetime of the product. Customer map to understand and the level of detail you
Journey Maps are typically generated for each want to go into.

We are looking at life stages to widen the definition of [customer] experience,

because the customer is looking and shopping only when their need arises....We’re
getting closer to a wider definition, but today [that definition starts when the
customer has already chosen a provider]. Aveesha Singh, Absa

50
 Tool 2

Customer Journey Map

A journey map allows you to put your personas The basics include:
or archetypal users into motion in their real • Understand your context
lives interacting with your products and • Define your process stages within the
services. A journey map is most helpful in
capturing the following: journey from the customer’s perspective
• A service experience over time and in the (eg. Awareness of need, Research, Selection,
context of everyday life (Journey Stages) Purchase/Onboarding, Use, Upgrade/
• Interactions between people, products, and Downgrade)
experiences (Touchpoints) • Detail your touchpoints with the customer
• Balance between a person’s behavior, – How do they interact with your brand?
mental models, and emotional reactions When/how do they connect with your
(Doing, Thinking, Feeling) product, personnel, or platforms?
• Highs, lows, and key areas of opportunity • Fill in qualitative customer data such
within a product or service (Moments of as their thoughts and feelings during the
Truth) process
• Understand your moments of truth
Creating a journey map requires several key or highs and lows of the experience that
steps. If you are interested in learning more, illuminate key insights and opportunities.
dig into our customer journey map tool.

For more on Customer Journey Map, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

51
 Case Study

Janalakshmi
Customer Journey
Challenge Questions
In September 2015, Janalakshmi was awarded What do Janalakshmi customers value most?
the small finance bank license in India, along
with nine other institutions, allowing them to How can Janalakshmi design offerings and
expand their range of services beyond group experiences that deliver on these values?
loans. With 11 payment banks launching soon,
and several banks, mobile payment operators How can Janalakshmi identify and remediate
and MFIs already in the picture, India could gaps in a customer’s experience and
soon be a competitive market for financial pave the way for an active and loyal
services for the poor. Janalakshmi saw an customer relationship?
opportunity to invest in a good customer
experience for their customers to distinguish
their offering amidst this competition. Head Overview
of products and marketing, Ashwini Jain The Customer Experience project began by
estimates that a quarter of Janalakshmi’s creating a cross-functional working group with
current group loan customers will graduate staff from Janalakshmi branches, marketing,
from group loans to using a broader range of product design, and compliance to work
financial services such as savings, insurance on improvements collaboratively. Through
and SME loans. Jain reflects, “And if you have field research and immersion exercises with
treated them well, then these are just the customers, the team identified current gaps
customers who will stay with you rather than in delivering a positive customer experience
go elsewhere.” along their journey with Janalakshmi. The focus
was on filling gaps in customers’ experience
and moving from, in founder Ramesh
Ramanathan’ s words, “a somewhat average
experience [for customers] to an experience of
delight.”

52
For example, despite a strongly articulated On other occasions, customers said they
social mission to serve poor customers, waited over 6 hours for a manager to address
large socio-cultural inequities were them. FSPs serving poor customers must have
sometimes reflected in Janalakshmi’s a list of non-negotiable factors that reinforce
Customer Experience. Customers feared the basic minimum Customer Experience and
asking questions. Some admitted to being create a distinct brand identity in customers’
disrespected but didn’t feel empowered to mind.
express dissatisfaction. A customer, waiting
in the branch with her infant, felt self- Articulating the values and pain points along
conscious to ask the all-male staff for a place Janalakshmi’s customer journey was an eye
to breastfeed. These gaps stem from factors opening experience for their team. It revealed,
such as gender inequality and class-distance in a very human way, the discord Janalakshmi
and they impose a psychological cost. They sometimes faced in delivering on customer
can turn customers away from the service needs and expectations and allowed them to
altogether. plan for improvement and innovation alike.

Field research also revealed that sometimes

basic amenities were missing at branches.
Drinking water was not available and
bathrooms were often designated staff only.

5 Ways to Improve Customer Experience for the Poor

CGAP Blog Post (http://www.cgap.org/blog/5-ways-improve-customer-experience-poor)
53
JANALAKSHMI CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Latent Need Feel the Need Search Select

When customers have an When customers feel When customers search When customers have
existing or an upcoming the need for product or for solutions that considered one or more
situation in their lives service that is included address their financial service providers that
that could be addressed within the Janalakshmi need, wether proactively offer an adequate solution
more suitably through portfolio, but are either seeking information to their financial need and
a Janalakshmi product, take no action to address or passively being have chosen Janalakshmi
but are either unaware this need or are only influenced by t heir as their financial service
of this product or unable at the early stages of peers. provider
to correlate it to their life searching for service
situation. providers who can fulfill
this need.

CUSTOMER VALUES
Information Information, Relationships Information, Relationships Information, Relationships

GAPS

INFORMATION: INFORMATION RELATIONSHIP: Field staff COST: Having user-

Communication Strategy Communication Strategy structure and incentives centered tools
needs to be designed needs to be designed could be better designed (technology enabled) that
better better to assist existing and enable users to model
prospective customers in their financial needs
INFORMATION: Field INFORMATION: Field
their search process and select appropriate
Staff structure & Staff structure &
products that minimize
incentives need to be incentives need to be
total cost to them. Design
designed better to ensure designed better to ensure
principles could include
conversion from conversion from
low cognitive load and
INFORMATION: limited literacy
Information and
“I usually ask my friends RELATIONSHIP: Field staff
or family for information communication systems
structure & incentives
when financial need arises” could be better designed
could be better designed
to provide validation
to assist existing and
needs felt by customers
prospective customers in
their selection process
“I’m very close to my neigh-
bours. We help each other
out in times of difficulty... “Everyone was recommend-
She intro- duced me to ing Janalakshmi to me, and
Janalakshmi and told me I asked my sisters who also
I could get a loan there said it was a good option.”
cheaper than in private.”

54
 For more on the Janalakshmi Customer Journey, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

Onboard Use Migrate Up Migrate Down

When customers have When the financial service, When customers migrate When customers
considered one or along with reciprocal to more comprehensive reduce or terminate
more service providers financial process,, is set of financial services their engagement with
that offer an adequate delivered to customers, with Janalakshmi (eg. Janalakshmi -wether not
solution to their for loans, this involves Adding Badhti Bachat to renewing an SBL or opting
financial need and have disbursement and their existing SBL product out of a Badhti Bachat
chosen Janalakshmi as periodic collections; for or moving from L1 to L2 account - for reasons
their financial service savings accounts (Badhti, respectively). such as finding a better
provider Bachat), this involves substitute ir requiring
periodic collection and cash urgently
withdrawals

Speed, Convenience, Flexbility Risk, Relationship, Speed

Productivity, Emotion/ Information
Comfort

SPEED & PRODUCTIVITY: FLEXIBILITY: Using INFORMATION: Field staff SPEED: Designing
Possibly looking at the Flexibility as a key USP structure & incentives processes and systems
design of newer systems could be a very strategic could be better designed that could provide
or the configuration of option that Janalakshmi to assist existing and quicker dispursements of
existing systems that could adopt prospective customers money in case of savings
could lead to improved in their portfolio accounts.
FLEXIBILITY: Janalakshmi
TATs and also a reduced management process.
could create processes
need for multiple
and technology systems
visits (or long visits) by
that enable it to provide “The manager had told me
customers.
greater flexibility to I can take the next loan and
SPEED & PRODUCTIVITY: its customers without make my business better”
Programs could be increasing risk exposure
improved by offering or cost of operations
incentives for Jana
FLEXIBILITY: Field staff
Center employees to
structure & incentives
improve TATs within the
could be better
onboarding stage.
designed to enable
enhanced flexibility for
its customers in terms
of timings, amounts, &
processes.

“It is hard for me to pay

Rs.100 everyday. I get my
income monthly. Why can’t
they adjust?”

55
Design Impact Group - Nairobi, Kenya 2015

“Since the project, I have thought about

a lot of consumer insights methods very
differently. To me, Human Centered Design
really got beyond the superficialities
of consumer research to actually get to
the bottom of the real motivations and
feelings of customers. Extremely powerful
and something I wish I can introduce in a
systemic way at Tigo.” - Selorm Adadevoh, Former
Head of Mobile Financial Services, Tigo Ghana
56
 Experiments

Start with the Customer

Try these experiments to practice the basic skills for

your qualitative research
6. Find 3 agents in the community
Seemingly simple moments like trouble-free access to an agent or effective
guidance through the customer call center are easy to take for granted. But small
breakdowns in experience can create critical challenges for customers when they
try to engage with your product.

For these experiments, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

7. Have coffee with Customers 8. Follow a front-line staff

Start impromptu conversations with Shadowing is a basic observation
a group of customers while they visit technique that allows you to learn
the branch. This is a great way to learn in an unobtrusive way about an
about their experience without getting experience from the perspective of a
into the logistics of a formal focus single user. Following a front-line staff
group. will help you uncover patterns and
insights about the interface between
staff and customers.
9. Create a customer sketch
A customer sketch is a simple exercise
to start characterizing your customer
and learn about where you lack
information. It can also help you guide
the creation of a research plan and
early stage personas.

57
 Experiment 6

Find 3 agents in the

community*
In rural and urban areas the agent experience There are easy ways for you to get in to your
is usually quite different, and seemingly simple customers shoes and understand everyday
moments like easy access to an agent or challenges with your products.
effective guidance through the customer call
center are easy to take for granted.

STEPS

1 2 3
Start by visiting a town or village Follow-up Activity: choose a Take notes while you go through
with low adoption rates of your specific challenge that as a the experience and once you’re
products / services. Walk around customer you would face (e,g, not back at the office, reflect with your
and try to find 3 agents that being able to set up your mobile team on the following themes:
can assist you. (Ideal if you are wallet), then ask the agent if he / • How much time does it take to
not familiar with the location she can help you with it, and then find an agent or get effective
beforehand). Document the call customer center and ask support through the customer
process in writing and images. them to help you in solving the center?
Note your actions, interactions, problem. • What moments were frustrating
emotions, and thought processes. for you throughout the process?
• Who did you reach out for
support beyond the customer
center?

MATERIALS
TIME ROLES
1 - 2 hours Individual or small Your mobile phone
group exercise Notebook

*
If your organization doesn’t work with an agent network, you can always run the second part of the exercise.
“Call a customer call center and ask for help”.
58
EXPERIMENTS IN ACTION

Tigo Cash launched its mobile money service Once the initial research took off, the Tigo-Cash
in Ghana in 2010. By 2012, the service had just manager was challenged through a simple
over 1 million registered subscribers, yet only exercise: Find 3 agents to ask for help. This
a fraction of these were actively transacting. By would help the manager experience the service
2013, Tigo was struggling to gain momentum, first hand and learn how their service worked
so Tigo Cash and IDEO.org set out to better in real life, in a real community. After running
understand how to improve the customer the experiment, it took the manager more than
value proposition and customer engagement 10 calls with a Tigo customer representative,
with mobile money among low-income and a couple of hours wandering across
Ghanaians. town to find an agent. It wasn’t until then that
TigoCash staff realized the practical challenges
their customers were facing.

USE IT WHEN USE IT TO

• Just before you start the research phase. • Get a better understanding of the daily
It will help you think from your customers’ challenges and needs your clients face with
perspective from the beginning of the your product.
process. • Spark new ideas to improve your current
• As a support activity for the customer services.
journey map, to understand how people act,
feel, and think in similar situations.

59
 3

PLANNING &
TAKING ACTION

60
Understanding your customers is an In this chapter, we’ll cover the
eye opening task and putting your following questions:
insights into action can feel daunting. • How can you define and prioritize
This chapter guides you through the promising business opportunities?
process of framing and prioritizing • How to operationalize CX?
customer-focused business • How to prototype for CX?
opportunities through an Opportunity • How do you get your team used to
Brief and shares strategies for rapidly testing their ideas?
integrating CX into your existing work.

You’ll discover how Janalakshmi used

ideation and prototyping to empower
their teams and test their ideas in real
communities. Additionally, you’ll build
your team’s practical toolbox with the
Business Canvas, Budgeting tool, and
practical tips for gaining support from
all areas of your organization. What
are you waiting for? Let’s get started.
61
3. TAKING ACTION | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How can you define and

prioritize promising business
opportunities?

The Segmentation Model, Persona and Journey strengthen these benefits thereby increasing
Map will help you identify the compelling uptake?
needs and aspirations of your target customers
and where your offerings may fall short. An Prioritizing touchpoints and channels Analyze
Opportunity Brief will help you capture and the touchpoints and channels by which your
prioritize the key benefits and attributes that your offering is experienced. Identify the strongest
product or service must offer to ensure eventual and weakest touch points and the challenges or
adoption. The next, and most crucial step, is opportunities of each channel. What should you
translating these insights into a viable business keep or change?
opportunity for your company to invest in. Use
these questions to guide your thinking and the Prioritizing attributes to drive value When
Opportunity Brief to dive in deeper: you look at the five key attributes that must
be included or optimized to ensure adoption
Prioritizing barriers Analyze the barriers that will (maximize benefits and minimize barriers), and
prevent the users from using the product / service, you identify the key attributes of your product
and identify the ones which are “deal breakers” for that drive adoption – eg, speed, customer
the persona you created. If you have an existing relationships, flexibility, etc. Assign a value
product: What are the attributes of your product between 1-10 for each attribute.
that contribute most to these barriers? - What is the ideal/optimal value?
- What is the minimal acceptable value?
Prioritizing incentives and benefits Analyze
the potential benefits that your product/service Once you’ve done this, confirm these optimal
should offer, and identify the ones which are ideal/minimal values with key stakeholders, since
“must haves” for the persona you created. If they can vary considerably for different contexts
you have an existing product: What are the and/or segments.
attributes of the product/service that would

62
 Tool 3

Opportunity Brief Template

The Opportunity Brief creates alignment regarding the most promising opportunities to improve
the Customer Experience AND create business value. This tool helps drive alignment within
your team and buy-in from stakeholders regarding where to invest in improving your Customer
Experience.

RISK TOLERANCE
[FINANCIAL] BEHAVIORAL INSIGHTS - Summarize insights high
about behaviors you observed in your customer’s financial
practices. Which habits and rituals are performed on a regular
basis, vs. one-off behaviors that result from external pressures?

low
FINANCIAL HORIZON FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE

low high
MOTIVATIONAL INSIGHTS - Summarize the needs, enablers,
and blockers that influence your customers. Who are the
influential stakeholders in their lives?

*Human insights are a

product of real face-to-face
user research. See Tool
02: Persona to learn how
to create a summary
description of representative
primary users and key
stakeholders. TRUST IN FORMAL
INSTITUTIONS

For more on Opportunity Brief Template, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

Resources: Prioritization Tools

Selected methods from: The DIY Toolkit (Nesta), Insights Into Action (CGAP), TPP (BMGF)
63
 Tool 4

The Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a tool for describing, analyzing, and designing business models.
It describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value, and is a
good starting point for thinking through and discussing the business model of your organization,
your competitors, or any other enterprise.

KEY PARTNERSHIPS KEY ACTIVITIES VALUE PROPOSITION CUSTOMER CUSTOMER

RELATIONSHIPS SEGMENTS

KEY RESOURCES CHANNELS

COST STRUCTURE REVENUE STREAMS

For more on Opportunity Brief Template, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

64
How to operationalize CX?
You can use the process outlined above to In general, design-oriented processes should
address short and long term opportunities for give you concrete results to learn from in a
testing Customer Experience improvements. relatively short period of time compared with
Whether one-week or 6 months, the scale of other forms of analysis. While they may seem
investment will depend on the type of solution more fluid, their rigor comes from a set of
and the scope of research and testing you wish principles and processes that encourage rapid
to pursue. cycles of investigation, creation, and testing.

PROJECT SCOPING GUIDE

Level of Effort Light Effort Medium Effort High Effort

& Timeframe 1 to 3 weeks 4 - 8 weeks 2 to 3 months

Project Janalakshmi Janalakshmi MyAgro

Example Marketing campaigns at Service / product Product development
the branch improvement project project

Team 1 Senior Management 1 Project Lead

2 to 3 core team 2-3 Field Researchers
1 Translator (when needed)

1. LEARNING [Sample Light Touch TIME: TIME:

Research Plan - 1-hour in- 2 Weeks 2 weeks of planning
terviews with 10 random- 3 weeks of learning
ACTIVITIES/TOOLS:
ly-selected visitors...] SECONDARY RESEARCH:
Household interviews:
Time / Budget / Supplies
# of interviews: 15 to 16 Framing the innovation
/ People
Duration: 3 hrs/interview space:
Income spending map & Space influencers
Jana touchpoints (tools) Organizational dynamics
Shadow field staff PRIMARY RESEARCH:
1-2 observations
Household interviews:
3-4 hours
Duration: 3 hours/interview
1 person
Intercept interviews:
Fly on the wall
Duration: 20-30 minutes
1-2 observations
# of interviewees: 50-70
3-4 hours
1-2 people
Customer workshops:
2 workshops
5-7 customers/session
3 hours/workshop 65
3. TAKING ACTION |CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

PROJECT SCOPING GUIDE

Level of Effort Light Effort Medium Effort High Effort

& Timeframe 1 to 3 weeks 4 - 8 weeks 2 to 3 months

Project Janalakshmi Janalakshmi MyAgro

Example Marketing campaigns at Service / product Product development
the branch improvement project project

Team 1 Senior Management 1 Project Lead

2 to 3 core team 2-3 Field Researchers
1 Translator (when needed)

2. CREATING TIME: TIME:

1 Week 1 Week
ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES
Group ideation: Ideation workshop:
2 session 1 session
4-5 customers/session 8-12 staff members
2 facilitators 1 facilitator
Section I: 60min. group Stakeholder interviews:
exercise
Ideation templates (tools)
Solution cards (tool)
Section II: 30min.
Idea pitch template (tool)
Rating template (tool)

3. TESTING TIME: TIME:

4/6 Weeks 2 Weeks
PROTOTYPING PROTOTYPING
ACTIVITIES: ACTIVITIES:
Note: These steps represent
Paper prototypes:
the process for each of the
prototypes. Farmers passport for
enrollment (example)
Prototype planning:
Monitoring worksheets
Planning template (tool)
to prioritize expenses
Prototype Design: (example)
Prototype Production: Mobile wireframes:
Prototype For registration and
Implementation: enrollment (example)
Prototype update (tool) IVR skits:
Prototype 5 minute skit to illustrate a
Measurement: new service experience
Tools to gather feedback

66
PROJECT SCOPING GUIDE

PROJECT SCOPING GUIDE

Level of Effort Light Effort Medium Effort High Effort

& Timeframe 1 to 3 weeks 4 - 8 weeks 2 to 3 months

Project Janalakshmi Janalakshmi MyAgro

Example Marketing campaigns at Service / product Product development
the branch improvement project project

Team 1 Senior Management 1 Project Lead

2 to 3 core team 2-3 Field Researchers
1 Translator (when needed)

4. MEASURING MEASUREMENT TIME:

ACTIVITIES: 2 Weeks
Customer satisfaction Note: Activities are the same
survey: Dalberg Customer of the testing phase.
Experience design (tool)
Note: Activity out of the scope
of the 4/8 week timeframe

5. SCALING Note: Activity out of the scope TIME:

of the 4/8 week timeframe Over 6-8 months
Note: Phase to be
determined

Once you have developed your project plan, make sure you coordinate involvement from other
groups at the branch and department level to get cross-functional support and align with current
initiatives.

67
Design Impact Group - Bangalore, India 2015
A mid-level manager shares a concept to a group of internal
stakeholders after an internal design lab to develop Customer
Experience interventions.

Add photo

68
How to prototype for CX?

User experience prototypes are a customer- In order to gain the most benefit from
facing representation of a product idea, used prototyping, a product must be flexible.
for the purpose of validating, sparking new Undertaking prototyping and testing implies a
ideas and refining product concepts with commitment by the product team to embrace
customers and otherplayers in a product customer feedback and make necessary
ecosystem. These prototypes make use of changes to the product.
available materials to quickly mock up aspects
of a product. Multiple rounds of prototyping are the way
to really hone in on the details of a product
Why prototype? concept, which can be split in three (3) main
Prototyping allows a product team to explore phases: the Concept Prototype, the Interface
many product concepts quickly before Prototype and the Usability Prototype, with
investing in detailed design and development. artifacts that can go from concept sketchs to
It gives product ideas form so they can Interactive high fidelity prototype.
move out of the office and into the reality of
customers’ lives, needs, desires and abilities. To learn more about how BTPN bank in
Indonesia developed a new product for
Principles of Prototyping: low-income customers through multiple
• Fail fast with many ideas prototyping iterations, the CGAP Prototyping
• Refine and revise promising ideas Report will walk you through the process and
• Make efficient use of available resources, 10 different types of prototypes that can be
skills and tools easily implemented in your work.
• Actively involve the customer in product
creation

Reference: CGAP Prototyping Report

69
3. TAKING ACTION | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How do you get your team

used to rapidly testing
their ideas?
A key element of CX projects is rapid at an early stage. It can be difficult to break
prototyping. By quickly building in just enough through existing mindsets and convince team
resolution to make an idea real, you can get it members to try, and risk failure, in order to
in front of customers and solicit their feedback. quickly learn from customers. But prototypes
can take a wide variety of forms, some of
Most FSPs are not used to quickly testing their which do not require a lot of commitment from
ideas through rapid prototyping, particularly your organization:

PROTOTYPES

Iteration Type Description Setting Example

& Purpose

Idea Mockups A quick, tangible manifestation of Meetings or Workshops A storyboard to

(rough repre- your idea. These are low-fidelity demonstrate a new
sentations to and simple representations of a service experience
illustrate) concept that could take the form
of simple sketches, storyboards, or
role playing scenarios.

They are best-suited as artifacts

that push forward discussions
about an idea.

Reference: BTPN Prototyping Report

70
PROTOTYPES

Iteration Type Description Setting Example

& Purpose

Prototypes The stage when you test a formed Out in the field (street, A working wireframe
(interactive version of your concept or solution community spaces, of a mobile service
concepts to with specific features and rep- branch offices, home) platform for a potential
experiment or resentative users in a natural customer to click
test) context. through

Prototypes are valuable tools to

test specific questions about fea-
tures, audience, or experience in
the wild and are generally facilitat-
ed experiences with users.

Pilots or This is the act of putting your idea In the target or rep- A 60-day trial of a new
Mini-Pilots into the world in a more sub- resentative service service with a group
(small scale stantive way. At this stage, your environment of 100 customers
programs to solution is able to be tested in a (branch, store, mobile followed by a short
refine) relatively unfacilitated manner platform, etc) phone interview.
in order to gather insights on its
natural performance with users.
Metrics and other evidence help a
team hone and evolve a pilot into
an implementable offering.

Mini-pilots and pilots provide a

crucial trial-periods before refining
and launching an offering.

Implementa- When a tested offering is rolled out In the actual service A new loan offering
tion to market in a more permanent environment with real with a digital
(models or way. At this point, your product/ partners onboarding experience
offerings to service should be able to stand facilitated by field
sustainably alongside your existing portfolio agents and through
launch) of offerings. Additionally, details mobile channels.
about the internal (business model,
operations) and external (service
experience, marketing) should
be fleshed out and may only be
tweaked slightly. It’s success is
measured by indicators refined
from its pilot stage as well as busi-
ness performance

Implementation stage offerings are

real-world solutions launched with
actual customers.

71
 Design Impact Group - Janalakshmi Customer Center in Bangalore, India 2015
Women view videos amidst refreshed communication materials as they wait at a
Janalakshmi center. This Jana branch in Bangalore’s Neelasandra neighborhood has
been transformed into a lab for testing all new customer-centric initiatives. If they are
successful in Neelasandra, they are considered for scale up in other locations.

72
“The focus [of the prototypes] was on
moving from a somewhat average
experience for customers, to an experience
of delight.” Ramesh Ramanathan, Janalakshmi
73
 Case Study

Janalakshmi
Prototyping Process
Challenge Overview
With the Indian market providing financial During the testing phase, prototypes were
services for the poor becoming increasingly rolled out in the span of 6 weeks by designated
competitive, Janalakshmi saw an opportunity project leads. The teams tested the most
to distinguish their brand on the basis promising solutions with customers to get
of Customer Experience. In 2015 CGAP rapid feedback so that, possibly after a couple
collaborated with Janalakshmi, the largest of iterations, the CX improvement could
urban MFI in India, and Dalberg to better be formally incorporated into Janalakshmi
understand the Janalakshmi customer journey business processes. The prototyping phase was
to make CX interventions. Dalberg used this structured as follows:
qualitative research to design a blueprint for
Customer Experience improvements in the Prototype planning: Define hypothesis, create
short terms, starting with small prototypes. process maps, timelines, budget & resource
Learn more about the research phase on page requirements, and approach to gathering
60. feedback.
Prototype Design: Create collateral, artifacts,
Questions processes and training materials.
What CX prototypes will prove the most
impactful and valuable for Janalakshmi to Prototype Production: Depending on the
implement and scale? extent of the prototype, procure or produce
needed collateral or artifacts. (Keep these
How can Janalakshmi create cross-functional components to a minimum so that prototypes
teams to design and run CX prototyping are light weight and flexible)
projects?
Prototype Implementation: Implement
prototypes over several weeks until desired

Can a Good Customer Experience for the Poor Benefit Business?

CGAP Blog Post (http://www.cgap.org/blog/5-ways-improve-customer-experience-poor)
74
sample size and actionable insights are bathrooms, large waiting areas, breastfeeding
achieved. zones and kids play zones were provided
at two branches that were typically in the
Janalakshmi tested the following poorest-of-poor areas and lacked these
prototypes: facilities. Janalakshmi trained hosts in two
• improved facilities for customers at a bank branches to welcome each customer, provide
branch them with a token for waiting and direct them
• a faster disbursement process that reduced to a seating area. The positive impact this
customers’ waiting time prototype had with customers, showed them
• a rewards program that recognized they need to invest in scaling these non-
customers with faster loan payback time and negotiables to all their branches nationally.
good attendance during loan meetings.
• They set aside a modest budget that the Janalakshmi also tested a radical idea for
team could use for prototypes. A senior reducing customer waiting time for group loan
staff member was assigned to be the disbursement. Customers complained that
customer-experience champion and they lost a day of work and wages to get loan
ensure prototyping managers had the right amounts into their account which requires
permissions and buy-ins to complete their the entire loan group present at the branch
projects. at the same time. This led the team to test a
new approach where all the paperwork is done
Some ideas were easy to implement. Jana at a community center near where the loan
decided that they must have a list of non- group lives (generally a loan group lives in the
negotiable factors that reinforce the basic same community). Customers still need to turn
minimum customer experience in every up at the branch to get their money on their
branch/agent location and create a distinct ATM cards, but waiting time in the branch is
brand identity in customers’ mind. So they reduced. With fewer customers waiting at the
prototyped “Jana Basics,” where water, clean branch,
75
it can now process more loans in a day. Good balance responsibilities with their regular job.
for customers, good for business. Compliance Now, Janalakshmi is creating customer-centric
and risk teams were hesitant as this prototype KPIs for its staff that encourage customer-
challenges industry norms around enforcing centric innovation. They realize it’s important
group liability. They feared it would affect incentivize staff (through both time and
repayments. The increase in business was money) to contribute beyond their usual
not evident in 6 weeks of prototyping, but responsibilities. They have set up a customer-
customers seemed to like the program. As a centricity council called Suno Unki Kahani
result, this prototype has moved to a piloting (listen to their stories), with members from
phase for more evidence, but Janalakshmi every business function that meets periodically
management remain committed to back it if to highlight customer-centric initiatives and
the business case is proved. bring the customer into the boardroom. A
Jana branch in Bangalore city’s Neelasandra
At the end of the 6 week period, the Jana neighborhood has been transformed into
Basics business case was clear. The second a lab for testing all new customer-centric
prototype on changing loan disbursements initiatives. If it works there, it becomes the
needs further piloting for evidence of impact. first endorsement for scaling up customer
A third prototype on customer rewards experience improvements. With a mixture
program is back to the design table because it of cultural norms, structural incentives, and
needs a stronger business case. Janalakshmi clear processes for innovation, Janalakshmi is
is also in the process of building a practice fueling a new focus on Customer Experience in
of continuous innovation and testing around their organization.
customer experience. Jana staff took great
initiative during prototyping but struggled to
76
Design Impact Group - Bangalore, India 2015
A newly formed Customer Experience project team at an urban MFI
creates a two-month project plan of how they will explore and test their
new CX concepts.

Add photo

77
 Case Study

BTPN prototyping:
Bertumbuh project
Challenge Overview
BTPN, a mid-size Indonesian commercial bank After 3 weeks of initial research in the field, the
serves 1.4 million mass-market customers. team synthesized more than 2600 data points
Project Bertumbuh (meaning “to grow”) was from conversations with customers and went
born in an effort to improve the lives of the back to the field to test 5 main concepts that
150,000,000 - 200,000,000 Indonesians who emerged from the ideation workshop (where
are currently unbanked. However, the bank they initially develop 118 new ideas with BTPN
felt it needed additional support to tailor staff members). Throughout the testing phase,
its offering to truly meet the needs of its prototypes with different levels of resolution
customers. allowed the team to garner insights around
the most valuable concepts, features and
Questions messaging components that the product
How can BTPN understand better their BOP should offer to ensure adoption.
customers in Indonesia to improve uptake of
their new mobile service?

78
Paper mockups for concept testing
showed people naturally thinking about their
money in terms of tangible needs and dreams,
helping the team engage interviewees into a
more proactive exercise to generate ideas and
improve the most valuable concepts.

Paper prototypes to test the product

concept as simple as a marketing materials
(poster), helped the team explain the product
functioning to customers and frame the
conversation around the most critical or
interesting benefits the products should offer
them.

Mobile prototypes as proof of concept

At the end of the prototyping phase, once the
team was able to focus in the most appealing
concept and product based on customer
feedback, they developed mobile prototypes in
paper and feature phones to test USSD menus
and SMS interfaces as features designed to
build trust between customers and agents that
eventually will lead to a credit history or credit
offerings.

79
 Tool 5

Project Planner
These simple prototype framing and timeline planning tools can be used to begin the loop
of design, feedback, and tweaking during the prototyping process. It is important to plan
adequately, and much in advance, and consider the objectives of your prototype, the key CX
improvement hypothesis being tested, the sample size required, locations, and material, budget,
and timeline requirements along the way.

Tool 5

PROJECT CONCEPT OWNERS

OPPORTUNITIES - What PROJECT STAGE PLANNER ITERATION - How can your concept
opportunity area does your project be improved upon and iterated
1. 2. 3. 4.
exploring? over time?
Activities

Resources (internal / external)

ROLES - What people are needed SUCCESS - What would success look
to make this a reality, and for like for this project?
what are they responsible?

For more on Opportunity Brief Template, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

80
 Tool 6

Budgeting Tool
The budgeting tools will help you to model the basic costs required to execute on Customer
Experience activities over the course of a week, month or longer. These tools will help you define
difference cost categories, both internal and external, as certain kinds of funding can be easier
or harder to procure in most organizations.

Tool 6
Budgeting Tool (1/4: core team resourcing)

ROLE ON CX TEAM TYPICAL FUNCTION RESPONSIBILITIES % ALLOCATION ESTIMATE COST

• Set business goals & vision • N/A $

Senior Manager or • Drive organizational buy-in
Executive Sponsor
Executive Sponsor • Mobilize resources

• Bring strong customer mindset • 50% forsmall & medium projects $

Marketing
• Define strategy and approach to • 100% for large projects or critical
Customer Research achieve busienss goals stages of smaller initiaitves
Project Lead
Product Development • Provide familiarity with customer
Digital Banking centered approaches

• Bring strong customer mindset • 25% for small % medium projects $

• Define strategy and approach to • 50% for large projects or critical
Product Management
Operations achieve busienss goals stages of smaller initiatives
Operations • Provide familiarity with customer
centered approaches

• Align CX efforts with strategic and • 10% for small & medium projects $
Strategy financial goals • 25% for large projects or critical
Finance Business Analyst • Develop financial models and smaller initiatives
Finance analysts to support business
case for CX

Sales & Marketing • Tap broader knowledge base and • Minimal time allocation to track $
Evangelists / Customer Support customer data progress and provide input, typically
Champions • Evangelize for CX across functions & 2-4 hours / week.
Engineering / IT
departments • Usually this extended team comprise
Branding & Communications • Anticipate dependencies in support another 3-5 people
functions like marketing, branch
managemenetor IT
Subtotal Totalcosts
Total costs

For more on Opportunity Brief Template, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

81
Design Impact Group - Kenya, 2015

82
 Experiments
Planning & Taking Action

Try these experiments to push yourself to set

boundaries and plan within constraints
10. Show the impact of your prototype
A low-resolution prototype is a cost-effective way to test the concept, the value for the
customer, and their perceptions on specific product features. It is a great way to ground
your ideas around something tangible and elicit feedback from your audience.
Oftentimes organizations wait to have a fairly developed product before they test with
customers and gather reactions and interest.

For these experiments, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

11. Check your assumptions 12. Scope your project

When undertaking customer Budgets and priorities often shift.
experience projects, it’s always good When taking on CX projects, it is
to keep your assumptionvs in check. important to be mindful of lean and
Use this simple test to spark reflection thoughtful project management.
and dialogue. This tool will help you embrace your
resourceful side.

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 Experiment 10

Show the impact of your

prototype
A low-resolution prototype is a cost-effective elicit feedback from your audience.
way to test the concept, the value for the Oftentimes organizations wait to have a fairly
customer, and their perceptions on specific developed product before they test with
product features. It is a great way to ground customers and gather reactions and interest.
your ideas around something tangible and

STEPS There are different ways you can build a low-res prototype to test your initial
assumptions and won’t take more than 3-hours to do build it:

1 2 3
Identify the concepts you’d like Paper prototypes look many ways: Put your concept into action
to understand more deeply. faux marketing posters, paper with real users. Ask users to
You may want to illustrate your interface “screens”, or a cardboard “test” product, message, or key
idea more fully to determine the desk with faux staff. Choose a low- features. Have them articulate
components you’d like to test fi approach that fits your concept. their thought process aloud or
using a storyboard or concept Create questions to evaluate explain their understanding of
map. (eg. A rewards program may interactions with sample users. the features back to you after the
have many components, the kiosk experience. Record and debrief
sign-up, reward structures, and each interaction.
mobile).

TIME ROLES MATERIALS

Building a prototype: Group of 3 - 4 Online resources for mobile
2-3 hours paper prototype • When testing: prototyping (Mockups,
2-3 days for a hi-res prototype • 1 Facilitator (Role playing) POP2.0)
• 1 Note taker
Testing: spread activities • 1 Photographer
across two days

84
EXPERIMENTS IN ACTION

Tigo Cash launched its mobile money service Prototype “Traveling Kiosk”:
in Ghana in 2010. By 2012, the service had just [Concept] A dedicated, repeating Tigo Cash
over customer-service presence in communities.
1 million registered subscribers, yet only a The kiosk will be a live in- person physical
fraction of these were actively transacting. installation, e.g., a table with a banner or a
Tigo Cash was struggling to gain momentum, van, and will set up near a Tigo Cash agent.
so in 2013, CGAP, Tigo Cash, and IDEO.org set The kiosk will provide education, try-on
out to better understand how to improve the experiences, support, and referrals to the local
customer value proposition and to improve Tigo Cash agent for transactions and usage.
customer engagement with mobile money
among low-income Ghanaians. The three prototypes were all tested in a live
fashion. This means that the video tools, the
The prototyping phase for this project kiosk and the star promoters were all done
lasted two weeks. At the workshop the team without setting up interviews with people, they
defined the planning and logistics for the 3 live were done maybe in the middle of a street,
prototypes, and thus began by splitting up the or having a Tigo representative go talk to an
teams into these on the two weeks, to figure actual potential customer. The traveling kiosk,
out the logistics required before going into for example, was set up in the middle of a
field. busy intersection and the team measured how
many people walked up to the kiosk, what
kinds of questions they asked, etc.

USE IT WHEN USE IT TO

• You already have a concept and you want to • Learn where the value lies for the customer
learn how people react to it. • Test how easy is for people to use your
• You want to add a specific feature for your product, or challenges they face
product • Learn how the customer would use it
• You are crafting a communications / • Unerstand which features are missing and
outreach campaign which ones you can exclude.

It’s one thing to say, ‘ok, I understand my customer’…and another thing to

actually go make something and try it out. IDEO.org

85
 4

MAKING
IT WORK

86
Understanding your customers is an In this chapter, we’ll cover the
eye opening task and putting your following questions:
insights into action can feel daunting. • What sort of team do you need to
This chapter guides you through the be successful?
process of framing and prioritizing • How do you make sure your team is
customer-focused business working effectively?
opportunities through an Opportunity • How have you solved for business
Brief and shares strategies for challenges?
integrating CX into your existing work. • How do you generate support from
other parts of the organization?
You’ll discover how Janalakshmi used
ideation and prototyping to empower
their teams and test their ideas in real
communities. Additionally, you’ll build
your team’s practical toolbox with the
Business Canvas, Budgeting tool, and
practical tips for gaining support from
all areas of your organization. What
are you waiting for? Let’s get started.
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4. MAKING IT WORK | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

What sort of team do you

need to be successful?
When executing a project that focuses on the to start with at least two people from
customer, your best work will be done as a different customer-facing functions in your
cross-functional team. You will need a built- organization as members of your core
in set of collaborators whom with you can team.
brainstorm ideas, give feedback, and gut-check 2. Working with Outside Contractors:
your assumptions throughout your project. We What can be done internally vs. what
reccomend making sure each team includes requires an external firm? Chances are if
the following perspectives: consumer mindset, you’re unsure, it might be good to have
operational savvy, financial expertise, and at least some sort of external assistance.
organizational evangelists. Factors to consider: Even for basic research techniques, subtle
1. Team Size: This will depend on the changes in how questions are asked can
scope of your project, but it is best result in dramatically different results.

Organizational Functions

FUNCTIONAL TYPICAL ROLES CONTRIBUTION TO CUSTOMER

GROUP EXPERIENCE

Design • Designer • Responsible for aesthetics, visual and brand

• User Experience Designer identity of products and retail environments
• Interaction Designer • Prototyping and testing of new product
• Service Designer concepts, particularly for web or mobile
channels

Customer • Customer Researcher • Responsible for gathering and understanding

Research of customers--behaviors, perceptions, current
product usage, desires in new products and
services, exerperience using product(s), etc.

Reference: Segmentation Playbook & “Insights into Action

decision tree

88
FUNCTIONAL TYPICAL ROLES CONTRIBUTION TO CUSTOMER
GROUP EXPERIENCE

Product • Product Manager • Understanding of user’s behaviors, needs, and

• Product Development wants to create the right product
Development
Engineer • Define product portfolio, product
• Product Architect requirements and product feature rollout
• Quality Assurance (QA) • Usability of the product and the user journeys
• Product Owner / Program • Understanding of uptake of various features
Manager

Information • Information Technology • Manage internal technology platforms and

Manager systems including customer data
Technology
• System and Infrastructure • Would be most likely to manage an internal
Manager knowledge management platform, or all of the
technology that is used to collect and record
customer feedback

Marketing • Marketing Strategy • Define and understand target customers

• Market Research in the process of creating consumer value
• Brand and communications propositions (marketing message), product
• Digital Marketing pricing, market sizing, and trend scoping.
• Search Engine Optimization • Smaller companies generally assume
(SEO) marketing would be the natural home for
customer-centric initiatives.

Analytics • Customer data analysts • Collection of customers’ behavioral or

transactional data
• Raw data does not provide significant value
but intelligent analysis can bring valuable
insights

Strategy • Competitive Intelligence • Conduct market and competitor intelligence of

• Channel Strategy key market and competitor trends that span
• Corporate Strategy social, technology, consumers
• Market Analysts

Sales • Sales • Define and communicate value proposition to

• Account Management customers
• Customer Relationship • Understand customer preferences, concerns,
Manager and needs

Customer Support • Customer support / service • Handle customer feedback or complaints after
managers sales
• Customer support • Some companies systematically monitor the
representatives customer care feedback to improve current
• Branch managers product offerings

89
Design Impact Group - Kirehe, Rwanda 2015
Farmers’ savings group in Rwanda

“One of the most promising ideas in

finance is using social ties and strengths
to keep people on responsible savings
programs. People [culturally] use social
networks to keep them on track. Being ‘on
track’ wasn’t just a financial thing... it was
on track in terms of behavior, in terms of
religion, in terms of health.”
Ginger Baker, Square

90
How do you make sure
your team is working
effectively?
CX Projects require a few key enablers for sustained success. These principles are:

PHASE OPERATING PRINCIPLE

PLANNING CX Needs Leadership Support: CX Projects require strong and consistent

top management support for the organization to remain true to its mission and to
ensure that CX remains a priority when faced with difficult trade-offs.

Cross-Functional Involvement: CX Projects will cut across different

functions - product, sales, operations - and will need the formation of cross-
functional teams for success.

Budgets: CX Projects need separate budget heads especially in cases where the
benefit does not accrue to any single business function.

1. LEARNING Go To Customers: User research as much as possible should happen within

the natural context of customers.

Study The Entire Lifecycle: The customer interaction with your

organization represents a very small fraction of their financial lives. It is important
to study the whole lifecycle of customers’ financial needs.

Rich interaction: Research should be designed so as to create rich

interactions with customers that reveal much deeper insight than simply asking
questions.

2. CREATING Engagement across Functions: CX Ideas should be developed in a

manner that engages as much cross-functional expertise as possible.

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4. MAKING IT WORK | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

PHASE OPERATING PRINCIPLE

Prevent Premature Critique: Many CX Ideas will run counter to

prevailing wisdom and is important that they be given thoughtful attention rather
than premature criticism.

Clear Metrics: While ranking CX Ideas, it’s important they every idea get
rated on a well-defined set of parameters that take into account quantitative and
qualitative factors.

Stories Communicate Better: Writing down ideas as short stories (100-

150 words & pictures) encourages a thoughtful debate rather than short blurbs
that can be misinterpreted.

3. TESTING Prototypes are NOT Pilots: And need to be treated differently. Pilots
tend to be small scale implementations of an entire process or service whereas
prototypes tend to focus on testing specific components of services or processes.

Plan a Little, Prototype the Rest: Once the basic details of the
prototypes are in place, the most important thing is to let the user experience the
prototype, provide feedback and tweak the prototype.

Fast and Cheap: Quick and messy in prototyping can be more valuable than
waiting for “perfection.” Low-fidelity prototypes can yield very useful information
and insights about what can improve CX.

Take Calculated Risks: Prototyping needs evaluation and approval metrics

that are less stringent than those applied to standard projects or even pilots.
Measured risk taking should be encouraged.

Budgets: The culture of prototyping will benefit from having a separate budget
for regular prototyping.

4. MEASURING Plan For Measurement but avoid Complexity: Build a

measurement plan during the design and inception of any CX project or prototype
is important. Nonetheless, CX projects should be kept as simple as possible.
Simple surveys with no more than 5-6 questions each can be administered
either in-person or over the phone to gauge the impact that CX projects have on
customers.

Avoid Conflict of Interest: Measurement surveys and tools should be

administered by people who have no stakes in the eventual outcomes from the
survey.

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PHASE OPERATING PRINCIPLE

Early and Often: Collect feedback as soon as the users are exposed to the
prototypes, since most people tend to forget what they actually saw, thought, and
felt.

Budget for Measurement: Collecting feedback is one the most important

activities in the prototyping stage, since without feedback there is no way to know
whether or not we can scale the prototype. Therefore, it is very important to
allocate budget for both resources (people and money) as well as time to conduct
this activity in a meaningful way.

“Right Sized” Samples: It is vital to define upfront how many customers

one wants to collect feedback from. Too little, and a team not have enough
and good quality data to proceed, and too many customers may mean a lot of
investment of resources and time. In the Janalakshmi project the team collected
feedback from 50 customers in both control and exposed groups over a 3 week
prototyping period.

5. SCALING Build A Platform: Scaling up successful CX projects will need the creation of
a dedicated process or platform to expand best practices across geographies and
product lines.

CX Team Of Experts: Having a dedicated team of CX managers who can

travel across the country initiating CX scale up projects in different locations can
institutionalize the adoption of CX.

Dedicated Budgets: You will need to create a budget pool for carrying out
CX projects with business rules that govern contributions and utilization of the
money by different geographies and functions.

Project Team Best Practices:

• Keep a project space if possible • Establish a clear communication strategy
• Set aside regular, dedicated team time • Externalize team progress to others within
to work as a group and help maintain the organization
momentum throughout your project • Document everything

Reference: Design for Libraries

http://designthinkingforlibraries.com
93
 Tool 7

Team Roles + Descriptions

Customer Experience involves a number of different skills and capabilities, which are not
present in a single individual. Some of these skills may already be found in your organization,
particularly in customer focused roles such as marketing or customer care. You can use these
role descriptions to help guide you as you build out your team.

Tool 7
Team Roles + Descriptions

WORKING DISPOSITIONS help clearly convey innovations and can GROUP GOALS What are your goals for this PERSONAL GOALS What are your individual
DESCRIPTIONS motivate the emotions and actions of a project and team? What would success look like? goals for this project? Is there a skill you’d like
Anthropologist: A curious inquirer broader audience. to gain or enhance? A professional milestone?
who wants to find out how people
tick and interact with each other, Analyst: A seeker of patterns in the
their environments, and their tools. data. You can find the story of human
You notice what others may not and behavior in quantitative touch points
approach qualitative understanding to identify opportunities for impact.
with rigor. You view people with an This perspective can help find ways to
empathetic, open mind and seek measure creatively and model business
inspiration from everyday human value quickly. They often are your
innovation. translators to operational or financial
roles in your organization.
Experimenter: A consummate builder PROJECT PERSPECTIVES
Share the perspective and disposition you bring to your project team. This will help your team identify
who tests to learn. You aren’t afraid to Connector: A gregarious socializer with
how to share work and leverage strengths.
work through a problem in a rough state a knack for cross-pollination. They can
and would rather make decisions from bring in multiple perspectives from How representative of this of you?
evidence than theory. Experimenters their own experience or network. This ANTHROPOLOGIST this is not me this is me
don’t need to have a hard design or skill is crucial in the field to building 1 2 3 4 5

technical discipline, but can often be rapport, forming mutually beneficial

seen drawing through ideas, making partnerships, and building connections EXPERIMENTER this is not me this is me
models, or talking through hypothetical and support in your organization 1 2 3 4 5

situations to seek clarity.  to spread your work in Customer

Experience. STORYTELLER this is not me this is me
Storyteller: A synthesizing mind with 1 2 3 4 5
a knack for finding the storyline in the
data points. You cut through jargon and ANALYST this is not me this is me
find ways to translate work to a broader 1 2 3 4 5
audience – identifying the challenge,
plot, and characters. Your messages this is me
CONNECTOR this is not me
1 2 3 4 5

What implications does this have for the role and responsibilities you’ll have in this team?

For more on Job descriptions and team roles, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

94
 DRAFT

“We’ve created a new job, a customer

service person at the Jana center. We will
hold that person accountable… it can’t be
touchy feely, it needs to be stuff we can
measure.” Ramesh, Janalakshmi
95
 Tool 8

Case Study Template

Customer Experience projects generally provide a rich ground for learning by contextualizing
the value of your offerings within the day to day lives of your customers. As you integrate these
activities into your organization, it is a good idea to have a standard format for capturing these
outcomes both in the form of case studies, with lessons learned, as well as specific ROI / KPI
metrics.

Tool 8

PLANNING 1. LEARNING 2. CREATING 5. SCALING

LEARNING CREATING

PREPARING SCALING
Multiple rounds
of iteration

MEASURING TESTING

4. MEASURING 3. TESTING

For more on sharing learnings, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

96
How have you solved for
business challenges?

ADOPTING A CX CULTURE (PRINCIPLES FOR MAKING A CULTURE SHIFT)

CX leadership: Communication Incentives: Guarding against

Embarking on a journey & Visibility: The design of appropriate pitfalls:
to become a Customer- Building a CX Culture incentives such as It’s important to
Centric organization requires high visibility creating a company- stay the course in
is a serious endeavor internal communication wide contest or offering becoming a Customer
and requires sustained that focuses on the need financial perks can get Centric organization.
support and engagement for becoming customer- a large percentage of Organizations should
by the senior centric, key customer the company involved guard against common
management. Creating insights, and showcasing in suggesting and pitfalls such as turning
the position of a Chief CX initiatives & success participating in CX back due to unexpected
Customer Experience stories. initiatives. (but isolated) failure.
Officer can provide this
sustained leadership.

97
How do you generate
support from other parts of
the organization?
Decisions are not made unilaterally at most are asked about Customer Experience and its
FSPs, particularly regarding interactions that organizational implications. Take a moment to
directly face the customer. These decisions think about which facets of your organization
generally require input from a wide variety might need support to embrace a customer-
of functions, including sales and compliance. centered approach.
Here are some of the common questions we

STAKEHOLDER TYPICAL QUESTION SAMPLE RESPONSE

Legal/Regulatory • How will these CX efforts take • CX efforts do not typically run up against legal
into consideration the local issues, at least in the prototyping phase, unless
Department
regulatory environment? they involve signing up new customers, or, in
some countries, complex offerings. However,
knowing regulatory constraints upfront and
seeking appropriate review will allow for a team
to build the best CX they can within the right
legal boundaries. Also, it is important to know
that much of the prototyping and testing can be
accomplished with dummy data, to avoid any
sensitivities.
• What costs and risks do • Any product or service concepts that emerge
we face when creating new from a CX design process will need to evaluated
offerings and services? based on both potential upside to the business,
as well as risks, before they are implemented.
Part of the value of a CX process is it allows us
to prototype and test concepts to determine
their potential value before making these
determinations on risk/reward considerations;
as opposed to killing promising ideas from the
outset if there is even a potential for risk.

98
STAKEHOLDER TYPICAL QUESTION SAMPLE RESPONSE

Operations • What are the resource • CX project are typically developed on an

implications for these new CX iterative basis, pulling from resources
projects? within your organization with a strong
connection to the customer. While they can
be resource intensive over time, they often
start with a small team and adjust as they
go, incorporating feedback from customers
to ensure that value can be captured before
significant resources are deployed.
• What staff resources are • Staff can become quite passionate about CX
required and how will we projects, putting considerable time into them
fulfill our existing obligations? in addition to their existing obligations. This
can be a great asset in building motivation
and entrepreneurial skills, but expectations
should be managed carefully. CX projects
usually require at least one person with a
portion of their time dedicated to the effort.
• What are the implications for • Front-line staff can be extremely valuable
the front-line staff time? They participants in the CX process. Often there
earn by commission and we are other rewards, not just monetary, that
need to make sure we paid can compensate for their involvement and
for their time. How do they provide sufficent motivation so that staff do
benefit from this? not feel taken advantage of. Those rewards
can come in the form of recognition, or the
opportunity to present their ideas to senior
leadership

Compliance • Do these efforts abide by • CX design is customer-driven. CX does not

our internal guidelines or use internal guidelines as a starting point,
Department but rather begins with customer needs.
partners’ specifications?
However, as ideas and concepts mature and
show value it is critical to align them with
internal guidelines and flag any compliance
issues while they are still in the prototyping
phase.
• Is this putting at risk • CX efforts often begin with mockups and
any vendor’s licensing other prototypes that do not involve any
agreements that we already real data or threaten partnering or licensing
have across our product agreements. The design process is generally
portfolio? flexible enough to steer clear of these issues,
particularly in the early, exploratory phase.
• Are you putting customers • CX does not put customers, or customer
at risk? data, at risk during the design and
prototyping process. In these stages, we
can often compensate for any risk by using
dummy data and anonymizing any results.
The sample size is also generally quite small.

99
STAKEHOLDER TYPICAL QUESTION SAMPLE RESPONSE

Finance • What is the return on • CX projects are an effective way to test new
investment for these CX business models and value propositions
Department
efforts? to determine their appeal before investing
in production and scaleup. From that
perspective they generally have a strong ROI
as the up front costs are not high and the
potential opportunities to drive customer
value can be significant.
• When and how will you • It depends on your goals. CX projects
demonstrate value to our can target both short and longer term
bottom line? improvements to your Customer Experience.
Because the process is customer driven, it
tends to surface a range of options which
need to be filtered against business goals and
priorities. Some efforts have seen bottom
line improvements in areas like retention in a
matter of months.
• How do you think this will • The process is customer driven, so the ability
encourage greater retention/ to impact key issues, such as retention/
acquisition/efficiency for acquisition depends in large part on the
customers? Which is the organizations ability to implement the
current problem we should improvements that emerge from the
be addressing? customer-driven design process.

Information • What are the implications • CX improvements require a close alignment

Technology of CX technology? How are with IT systems, particularly to support more
you thinking critically about intelligent and personalized branchless
evolving CX within our current banking experiences. For that reason we like
technological systems? to involve tech teams from the very beginning
of the process and work closely together to
prototype and test concepts so that the IT
implications are well understood.
• How can you ensure that • The CX process starts with customer needs
the mock-ups/prototypes and not tech constraints. This means that
you develop reflect the real we will often explore concepts that do not
constraints of our IT system reflect all of the existing constraints within the
including costs like mobile business, such as IT. However, as ideas and
messaging? concepts mature and show value it is critical
to align them with real world constraints
(and costs) so that we can priortize concepts
that are the best fit from a cost/benefit
perspective.

Your biggest sell is to who owns the balance sheet in the organization. Absa Bank

100
 Experiments

Making it Work

Try these experiments with your team to create

healthy habits and bring the voice of the customer
into your daily work through prototyping sessions:
13. Align your team values
Seemingly simple, this value mapping exercise can help bring all team members on
the same page during projects. It acts as a common call to action, decision making
compass, and tool for negotiating priorities and conflicts alike.

For these experiments, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

14. Storyboard your Idea 15. Energy barometer for weekly

A storyboard is an easy way to more check-ins
robustly illustrate an offering idea Managing a project can be tough
within the life of your organization work, especially if it involves going
and its customers. It provides details against everyday norms. Use this
on users, flow, interactions, and simple technique to gauge the positive
dependencies –– acting almost as as and negative energy of your team
an early stage mock up or prototype. and channel yourselves towards
productive work on a regular basis.

101
 Experiments 10

Align values in the team

What makes you do what you do? that you’ve never actually articulated or written
The Value Mapping tool helps you answer this down. Defining these values however can be
by enabling you to describe the values which very useful when trying to explain your work to
are embodied in your personal work and in the other colleagues and partners. Once a team’s
wider organisation. These values are probably values are defined, they can be shared and act
more influential than anything else in shaping as a common reference point that simplifies
what you do. They might be something that you and speeds up decisions, whilst also ensuring
take for granted, that you think is obvious, or consistency in the work that a team does.

STEPS

1 2 3
Print the “Value Mapping” When you have noted down a Ask your other team members
template for each team member. wide range of values (ten or more to do the same. Once all their
Start by individually writing each), place them in the relevant worksheets have been defined,
down on a piece of paper or a fields on the worksheet. Swap together you can establish what
sticky note, what you feel is most them around until you have values are important to the
valuable for yourself as well as for them in the right place. To focus organisation as a whole
the organisation. Make sure each your activities, have a maximum
team member first makes their of five in the ‘always important’
personal value maps. column.

TIME ROLES MATERIALS

40 minutes Collective exercise DIY Value Mapping template

A facilitator (optional - for
introducing and guiding the
exercise)

102
EXPERIMENTS IN ACTION

A technical support leader for the Government The team drew up an annual work plan
of Madhya Pradesh’s health team identified covering human resource and organizational
that her team was stuck in a rut. They were development dimensions. Compartmentalizing
resistant to change, yet exhausted by the day these values into four neat boxes was
to day challenges of government protocols. easier said than done, but in reality they
all overlapped at both the individual and
She used the Value Mapping tool to identify organisational level. Although there were shifts
core values at the individual and organizational in position, personnel, and policy, there was a
level that could bring a much wanted change detectable common thread.
in the way the system operated. The idea was
to try out ‘change management’ so that the After the exercise, outputs were shared
resources were used productively to deliver with their government partners. This helped
services to citizens. pave the way for buy in for upcoming health
projects and needed systems changes.

USE IT WHEN USE IT TO

• A change in management that can affect the • Expedite decision-making at critical

team dynamic is underway and you want to moments, by aligning on commonly agreed
ensure team members are aware how those values that will work as guiding principles
changes align -or not- with their individual during the project.
values.

Reference: DIY Development Impact and You

The DIY Toolkit (Nesta), Value Mapping

103
Design Impact Group - Rwanda 2015

104
The prototyping process can create a lot of
value inside organizations because it aligns
the full organization around one idea. For
instance, if I say “knife,” you are going to
visualize a kind of knife. I’m going to visualize
another knife, and if there were other people in
the room, they would visualize many different
kinds of knives. But if I design a knife right
now, I align everybody around that knife.
Mauro Porcini, PepsiCo’s Chief Design Officer

105
 5

SHARING
THE RESULTS

106
Your team and customers may be In this chapter, we’ll cover the
energized by your new Customer following questions:
Experience initiative, but galvanizing • How do you collect feedback and
broader support for this type of share results to motivate adoption
work will be crucial. This requires a of CX?
few reflective processes–gathering • How can you showcase the impact
feedback, measuring impact, proving of CX in your organization?
value, and telling the story of your • How do you reflect back on the
process and learnings. process and refine it for your next
project?
In our final chapter, we’ll support you
in this next phase of your journey with
creative ways to capture and promote
your work will resources like our Case
Study Template and Capturing CX
Business Value Tool. Don’t forget to
share your project with us; it may be
the next case profiled by CGAP!

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5. SHARING THE RESULTS | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT | VERSION 1 | 2015

How do you collect

feedback and share results
to motivate adoption of CX?
Customer Experience initiatives work best As you share with your organization, consider
when they are holistically spread throughout painting a robust picture. Four key sharing
an organization, rather than isolated in dimensions include: process (what you did,
a department, team, or moment in time. how you did it), results (the quantitative and
Sharing and storytelling is crucial to building qualitative impact a project had), stories (vivid
momentum and buy-in from peers and stories that reveal insights about people or
superiors alike. This simple act of transparency place), and learnings (positive and negative
is an often forgotten, highly valuable practice takeaways that may inform future practice).
when leading organizational and cultural
change. It can often feel overwhelming to digest and
share information, especially if it is left to the
When thinking about sharing your Customer end of an initiative. A habit of documentation
Experience projects, don’t just reach for will pay off as you share with people outside of
numbers and quantifiable results. It is often your project group.
the illustrative anecdote or qualitative insights
that are most provocative.

I had to run something like a political campaign within the bank [to advocate]. I
communicated with those interested...showed iterations...and was opportunistic.
Absa leader on internal communication

108
Some recommended practices include: As you embark on internal storytelling,
• Post-interview Documentation– direct keep in mind a few key guidelines:
quotes from customers can be an incredibly • Sharing is an exercise in balance – between
valuable way to make your case (Design for process and outcomes, too much and too
Libraries p. 44, BTPN Insight Capture Sheets, little, formal and informal channels
final documentation powerpoint) • Focus on people, not just products
• Field Research Observation Capture Sheets • Consider what insights might be directly
- vivid takeaways from contextual research useful to your colleagues’ work
and prototyping (DIY Toolkit Tools #11 - 12) • Appeal to a diverse audience - satisfy the
• Prototype Gallery - a simple way to share skeptic and cheerleader alike
prototypes, processes, and learnings tool • Stories and qualitative sharing can be just as
(BTPN Dream Package p. 27) rigorous as quantitative findings
• Project Journal - a daily or weekly account of • Presentation is important– balance story,
progress to pull insights from numbers, and imagery
• Photos + Video - visual capture from
research, workshops, synthesis, and
prototyping

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 Tool 9

Customer Statisfaction
Survey
Customer satisfaction surveys are a highly useful evaluative tool that can adapted for use
throughout your process, though they are especially useful during prototyping and testing. The
survey is a quick way to generate data to validate or disprove any hypotheses you have. They
should ideally be executed at regular intervals so that you can continue to make adjustments
and iterate on your ideas, until you have refined and validated a solution that is ready to scale.

TARGET GROUP SAMPLE QUESTION 1 2 3 4 5

Neither
Both How comfortable do you feel at the [service Very Somewhat Very Somewhat
comfortable nor
location]? uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable
uncomfortable

Neither
Both How adequate do you think is the information Very Somewhat Very Somewhat
comfortable nor
that is provided to your questions at the [service uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable
uncomfortable
location]?

Exposed group Have you noticed any changes at the [location]? (Yes/No) Neither
Very Somewhat Very Somewhat
If Yes, how much do you like these new changes? comfortable nor
uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable
uncomfortable

Both Overall, how satisfied are you with your overall Neither
Very Somewhat Very Somewhat
experience at the [location]? comfortable nor
uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable
uncomfortable

Both What facilities do you like the most at the [location] (new Neither
Very Somewhat Very Somewhat
or old)? What do you dislike the most (new or old)? comfortable nor
uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable uncomfortable
uncomfortable

Customer Feedback Customer Feedback

For more on surveys, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

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How can you showcase
the impact of CX in your
organization?
Whatever your project outcome, you will need can continue to make steps towards improving
to link your findings back to your organization’s Customer Experience. The three main things
overall business objectives and ideally, provide you should consider:
a recommendation for how your organization

INCLUDE A MARKET MAP THE IMPACT OF LAY OUT NEXT STEPS

STRATEGY ANALYSIS YOUR PROJECT
TO SUPPORT YOUR THROUGHOUT THE
CASE ORGANIZATION
Include intangible
benefits as well

• Value Matrix from A.R.E Project BTPN Wow! deck Project Bertumbuh deck
Booklet • Concept Reach Map across • Immediate Next Steps
value chain
Project Bertumbuh deck • Cross-Departmental
• Product Rollout Sensitivity
Analysis Project Bertumbuh
• Intangible Benefits • Product Road Map
• Profitability Study • The Experience Ecosystem

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Design Impact Group - Nigeria, 2015

“[FSPs] aren’t going to pour into the data

themselves…. In our experience, they are
looking for the data and analysis, but they
don’t always have the capacity to make
sense of it.” CGAP
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 Experiments

Sharing the Results

You’ve worked really hard. Now, try these

experiments to explore tactical ways in which you
can measure and share the impact of your work.
16. Make a video, show your impact
Sharing such AHA moments as stories can make the impact of your work come
alive. Create a 1-2 minute video with your camera phone to show the impact of
your work to peers.

For these experiments, visit www.experiencetoolkit.org

17. Launch a customer council 18. Create insights cards

To better understand how a portfolio The insights cards will give you tool
of offerings holds up, test them with a to cleverly address moments at
customer council. Over time, use this the meetings where you feel the
champion group to better understand customers’ focus is getting lost. Build
customer preferences, brand them from your work gathering
impression, and market direction. understanding into your customer
personas, needs, and goals.

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 Experiment 16

Make a video,
show your impact

Sharing such AHA moments as stories can While data is important, sharing stories of
make the impact of your work come alive. people is another powerful way to leave an
Create a 1-2 minute video with your camera impression and resonating with your audience.
phone to show the impact of your work to You may have probably shared a moment
peers. Many times we get lost in numbers and of realization with a customer or your team
charts thinking it’s the best way to showcase where the impact of your work dawned on you.
the impact of our work.

STEPS

1 2 3
Brainstorm ideas of what were Make a 4-5 steps storyboard Keep it simple: focus on the
those moments of realization to plan the different shots story and not the execution.
for you and your team were. you’d like to capture in your Tips: Some ideas to spark
Think how would you like to video. your imagination and keep it
capture one of them. simple.
- An interview with a customer
or an employer who you
worked with.
- Photo sequence with pictures
from field, captions and
background music.
- Role playing with your team.

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TIME ROLES MATERIALS
1 - 3 hours Groups of 2 (1 Fixer (logistics) Video function from your
1 Cameramen) phone.
Individual or

USE IT WHEN USE IT TO

• Share the impact of your work internally • Get people excited

• You are trying to make the case for an • Share the process across the organization
organization and get buy-in for scale-up a product
development or tested prototypes.

“The real danger is that we get caught in the words of customer centricity. We
need to connect to [customer experience] in a personal way. The best way to make
[customer experience] come alive is through stories.” - Ramesh Janalakshmi

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Design Impact Group - Nairobi, Kenya, 2015

When you put a prototype, something that is

new and that nobody has ever seen before, in
front of people, they get excited, right? There is
the sparkle in the eye. I’ve seen it so many times
in so many meetings. People talk and talk about
things until somebody arrives with an object, a
prototype, and then everybody gets excited.

That’s how you unlock resources...It’s how you

speed up your innovation process and make the
outcome more relevant to customers.
Mauro Porcini, PepsiCo’s Chief Design Officer

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 This toolkit is a sample of the content that is being designed and developed by
Dalberg’s Design Impact Group for launch in late 2015 to support CGAP’s customer
centricity initiative with financial service providers focused on the poor.
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