In our last blog post, we provided an overview of customer experience (CX), highlighted why it is one of our strategic priorities, and explained how we will bring it to life across IT Services (ITS). Since then, we have made good progress however, it is important that we continue to take a slow and steady approach.
We are currently working towards developing a shared understanding of our customers across the service. In reality, we are all working for our customers – but do we really know who they are, and what they want? Gaining insight into this area will not only help us to empathise, and emotionally connect with staff and students, it will also provide more meaning to the work we do day in, and day out.
ITS CX has gained a lot of interest from across the University. Other areas understand the importance of becoming customer-focused, and are starting to develop personas as a first step. We are pleased to be able to share our knowledge of CX — offering guidance on persona development, interviews, and data analysis. We are also inviting those interested to our workshops, and focus group sessions, whilst also sharing our research and presentations. We are proud to be leading in this area.
Over the past few months, there has been a lot of ITS CX activity taking place behind the scenes. Below is an overview of what we have been up to.
CX focus groups — underway
In March, we ran our first CX focus group sessions, working with one small group from the IT Service Desk, and another from Applications Services. A small number of students and staff also took part. Helping us to run the sessions was Dr Brownell O’Conner. We invited Brownell back due to all the great feedback we received after his involvement with the CX workshops in December. We felt that his input during these initial CX focus group sessions would be extremely valuable… read more.
Personas and journey mapping – making progress
As was mentioned in the last ‘All Staff Briefing’, we have designed a set of seven draft IT personas, and recently finalised the Undergraduate Student persona. Developing personas is a lengthy process, and involves 1:1 interviews with staff and students across the University, followed by transcribing and reviewing all the content in NVivo – a specialist software programme for analysing qualitative data. We recognise the importance of completing the full set, but we do not want to rush the process. It is important that the customer data gathered is accurate, and validated before the personas are finalised.
Journey mapping is a key CX activity, and will be part of our drive towards achieving customer insight. There are different types of journey maps, and methods when creating them – from dynamic sessions creating large-scale maps to small, more focused, sessions helping to draw out data instantly — ready to save and share across teams. The end-result is the same – it will help us identify our customers’ journey, the ‘pain points’ along the way, when or if it is necessary to make improvements, and more. We will have more information on journey mapping and example maps available soon.
CX SharePoint site – now live
The CX SharePoint site is currently ‘under construction’, and will evolve over time. However, do not let that stop you from visiting the site, and downloading the material currently available! We have already uploaded an overview of the CX strategy and roadmap (2016-17), and information on personas, journey mapping, presentations, and more. There is still a lot of work to do, and we will inform you when new material is available on the site.
CX is not just about our customers – it’s about IT Services staff and working as one team
Yes, our customers are extremely important, but so are you. It is vital we all work together as one team – helping and supporting each other.
The IT Leadership team recognise the need to improve internal communications, and employee engagement across the service. As a result, and as part of CX, we will continue to find new ways to share information, and connect with ITS staff.
If you have any ideas on how we can improve ITS communications, and employee engagement let us know – we are all ears!
For more information about IT Services Customer Experience please email Kim Yeandle-Hignell, Customer Experience Manager.
ITS Customer Experience mission: To actively listen, connect and engage with customers to ensure they are receiving the systems and services they require, empowering them to achieve their goals and enabling them to stay connected from anywhere, anyplace and at anytime.