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insight to idea A guide to linking customer insight to service improvement

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insight to idea

Introduction 3

Generating insights 5Things to think about 5How it’s done 6

The workshop 9 Prepare 10 Tips for facilitating 12 Introduce 13Persona development 14 Back pocket prompts 16 Customer journey mapping 18Present 22Prioritise 22Summary and action planning 24Next steps 25Wrapping up 26

insight to idea

The activities in this guide have been designed to support collaborative and ongoing innovation within and across Gateways. These activities should be done periodically, not only as an opportunity for staff training, but mainly as a mechanism for stimulating grassroots innovation from frontline staff.

Customer response to the Gateway concept has been overwhelmingly positive. Matching this great service with an organisational commitment to build a deep understanding of our customers will allow us to continue to deliver an excellent service consistently even as the needs of customers change.

Introduction

insight to idea

insight to idea

Great services often do not result from a single brilliant idea pulled from thin air but from a commitment to developing a clear understanding of customer needs and responding to them effectively.

Getting to know your customers helps improve your ability to see through their eyes. Developing this abili-ty will not only allow you to highlight areas of low and high points in their experience but to understand what causes them. Greater customer awareness will demon-strate a commitment to customers and to service improvement.

Of course, customer research is only as useful as what you do with it. The workshop described in this booklet is a great way of turning insight of customers’ needs into service improvement opportunities. Getting those valuable nuggets of insight requires some critical thinking and setting some clear time and resource to doing this.

Things to think about when planning insight activity

Planning - Staff are constantly learning about the services they offer the customers who use them, but it is important to set aside some designated time for properly conducting research activities that lets them take a step back from day to day responsibilities. This is equally important for planning research with custom-ers as it is for investigating individual services, support systems and staff roles.

Approach - Begin thinking about your research by asking what you want to know more about. The more clearly that you can define this the better able you will be to choose an approach that will deliver the best results. Research methods vary in terms of their use and the type of information they produce and should be carefully considered. Choosing the right method will become more clear as you define your question.

Generating insights

insight to idea

Methods - Once you have decided on the subject of your research think about how specific your question is. Are you looking at a broad topic such as customer perceptions of the Gateway environment or are you looking at the attitudes of a specific group of customers such as the elderly. A variety of methods are available for use and considered below in terms of their usefulness in providing input for a workshop.

Surveys - These are a good way to get consensus on an issue but often fail to produce detail around why this is so. Because this approach is more about consensus than detail it may be most helpful early on in an investigation to identify areas for future focus.

Groups - Group formats, such as focus groups are helpful for airing varied perspectives. This can be particularly valuable, for example, for evaluating existing services and ideas. Groups discussions often bring to light issues that may not have been previously considered. Because there are many voices to be heard they often fail to produce any depth.

One on one - These are often best suited for investigating more specific questions. Methods such as observation and interviews are very effective for building a very clear picture of the user’s experience that includes details and examples of their interaction.

Outputs - Good customer research produces insights that challenge us to rethink the service being offered. Be prepared to question what you know. Make sure any research that is carried out is written up, analysed and communicated in an engaging manner.

Generating insights

insight to idea

To find a list of insight tools and methods developed and selected by the Social Innovation Lab for Kent (SILK) please visit the website at www.kent.gov.uk/silk

Generating insights

Research principles

Always clearly explain your research objectives to avoid suspicion from customers.

Consider your subject’s privacy and comfort when you choose a setting for conducting your research.

Talk, listen, watch and don’t judge. Make an effort to empathise with the people that you speak with. Try to see the situation through their eyes. There is a rhyme and reason for everyone’s behaviours and attitudes.

Capturing the results of your research is as important as conducting it. Record insightful stories that helped you to empathise and understand users. They will often have the same effect on others.

insight to idea

insight to idea

The workshop is designed to bring together staff from across the Gateway to examine the needs of their users, identify gaps and spot opportunities for service improvement. Each session is a collaborative effort and should involve a team of at least six Gateway staff members whose experience is relevant to the subject of the session.

This chapter will help you plan and deliver a workshop to a team of Gateway staff. The workshop should always come after a period of insight gathering (see previous section), in order to inform the session.

Adequate preparation will ensure that each session is successful in:

Inspiring action on future improvementsCreating a shared understanding of a customer’s journey and the issues that they face Producing a visual representation of the customers and their journeys.

The workshop

insight to idea

Prepare

There are a few things to keep in mind when planning the session. The following points are helpful when considering how the session will actually run.

A session can be used to explore a particular theme, such as bereavement, or a specific customer group, such as single mums. Narrowing these down in advance will produce best results. Greater focus will provide richer detail.

The choice of environment is important. Consider an alternative venue to the one you are used to. This can help reinforce a fresh perspective. Choose a place that is comfortable and well-lit. If possible, arrange the furniture in an open format where everyone can see each other and spread out materials easily.

The workshop is meant to be fun and engaging. A variety of workshop aids and stimulus materials have been created to help participants capture relevant details and connect with the process.

Make sure you have the right scenarios for the session. Although a deck of scenario cards is provided, which represent a variety of cases drawn from the experiences of Gateway staff, it may not contain a scenario that suits your particular session. Facilitators should feel free to add a scenario that suits the context of the session, or guide participants in the creation of a scenario. Be wary of scenarios that are too specific or mundane.

The following section provides instructions for facilitating the five stages of the workshop and includes examples, timings and tips that are essential for a novice, as well as an experienced facilitator.

The workshop

insight to idea

Make sure you have the following items prepared in advance of the workshop. You may need to get extra copies made.

Most of the material is intended for re-use, but you will always need a fresh stack of Post-it notes of different sizes and colours, pens, a flip chart and blue tack/tape.

The workshop

Gateway visit - customer journey map1 per pair of participants

Persona illustrationsDeck of 12 per workshop

Idea cardsDeck of 3 per pair of participants

Persona template1 per pair of participants

Gateway services menu 1 per participant

Scenario cardsSelection of cards per group

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insight to idea

Tips for facilitating

Leading a workshop requires providing direction, managing a group, coordinating active participation and stimulating an open discussion. At times it can be a difficult task to engage everyone and maintain a shared focus. We think this short list of tips is helpful to review before you begin.

Stand up - This helps let everyone know who is in charge of the session and where they can expect to get their directions from.

Set the rules - Clearly define the rules early on and repeat them if necessary. Encourage everyone to express themselves. Don’t allow more than one conversation at a time and make sure people listen and don’t criticise each others’ ideas before they’re written down. Suppressing negative criticism will foster creative expression.

Give them something to do - Passivity is a common response to workshops. Given half a chance participants will sit back and watch you attempt to entertain them. Prepare yourself by reviewing the back pocket prompts (on the following page) which can be used to stimulate discussion and get people back on track.

Be prepared - Think through the sorts of questions you might be asked about your session and have the answers ready. Be clear in your own mind what you need to achieve during the session and how much time you have.

Write things down - Ensure everyone’s contributions are captured on paper (Post-it note, flip chart, etc). Make sure everybody has a pen and paper in each session to capture ideas so you don’t have to.

Interject and summarise - Be firm about stopping people from opening up an issue too much. This can divert the session in the wrong direction. A good way of limiting people from talking too much is by trying to capture what they are saying in writing, or even better, getting them to do so.

Focus on the end, from the start - Time flies when you’re facilitating. Start the session with the end in mind. So, always demand that people contribute practical ideas, summarise their views and get to the point. Be prepared to park tricky issues if they will take too long to resolve.

The workshop

insight to idea

Introduce

Begin by communicating the objectives of the session.We are here to:

Explore the needs of customers by mapping their various interactions with Gateway, in order to see where we can make improvements to the service.

Identify opportunities for efficiency - saving Gateway time and money and improving staff experience.

Produce a list of improvements that will be actioned by Gateway staff.

Share information such as ideas and questions that will be recorded, shared between teams and fed into the Gateway’s planning process.

Explain the rough schedule and activities of the session:

- persona and scenario development - journey mapping - exploring possibilities for improvement - sharing, prioritising and actioning

If participants are not familiar with each other and their roles, this is the time for introductions.

Share researchUse this opportunity to share knowledge about customers and services, including any recent changes or trends. Any preparatory research should be presented or discussed to update all participants about the latest customer insights. If formal research has been conducted, such as focus groups or surveys the results of these should be presented formally.

The workshop

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A persona is a descriptive profile of an imaginary person whose characteristics are based on research-based knowledge of the user. The persona’s background information and other personal details such as their motivations, values and needs help to maintain a clear focus on the user’s perspective.

to highlight which services on this list are currently offered by their Gateway, before selecting the relevant ones to their persona.

Participants should complete the persona template, selecting an appropriate illustration and attributing to it a memorable name (e.g. Mr. Never Satisfied).

Persona development

Break the group into pairs - preferably getting participants to pair up with someone they don’t normally work with - and hand each pair the following:

- One or more scenario cards - A persona template - A Gateway services menu - A deck of persona illustrations

Using the scenario card, ask participants to select a couple of ‘interesting’ customers for whom this scenario would be relevant. These could be typical customers they tend to work with, or special cases. Ask participants to discuss these characters and select one they would like to develop as a persona.

Introduce the Gateway services menu and get the groups to think about what services the persona might make use of. Some participants may find it useful

The workshop

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The workshop

Persona card image here

Persona template Services selected from the list to be copied here

Rate the character on the two scales

Scenario cardto

insight to idea

The workshop

Facilitator’s back-pocket prompts

The following suggestions are important to keep in mind at all times. They will help you to get the most out of the session by helping you to avoid unnecessary barriers, focus thinking and help elaborate and capture good ideas.

Don’t be limited by practical concerns.Remind everyone that this is about creative thinking. Every step of the way we want to avoid being limited to thinking that there is only one way of operating. With regards to budget, staff, technology and space, support participants to think about alternatives without the need for immediately assessing their feasibility.

Break the journey up into smaller elements.When mapping a customer journey it is easy to overlook seemingly ‘mundane’ elements like waiting in a queue, asking for help or filling in a form. But sometimes the biggest improvements can come from changes to these elements in the journey.

Take 5 minutes to write down ideas.If a group gets into a long discussion and ceases capturing ideas on post-its, it may be useful to ask them to spend a few minutes writing their ideas individually on post-its and then continue the discussion from there.

Always ask ‘how?’Some participants might be fixed in the way they perceive of the service. Continually asking how something is done, and how it can be done differently may help to free up the conversation.

Focus on one type of improvement at a time.Identifying opportunities for one type of improvement, such as how to direct customers to useful information at different points in their journey, may be easier than thinking about all types of improvement at the same time.

insight to idea

insight to idea

Customer journey mapping

In the next part of the workshop groups will explore how their personas interact with the Gateway. This exercise can be completed in groups of two or more, depending on how many participants are present and how many scenarios you want to get through. Each group should have at least one persona and should be provided with a Gateway visit - customer journey map and a stack of coloured post-it notes and pens.

1. Ask participants to write down the trigger for the visit on a post-it and place it in the top-left part of the ‘Trigger’ column. The trigger is derived from the scenario card and may include phone calls made or people spoken to in advance of the Gateway visit.

2. The group should spend the next few minutes writing down on post-it notes what realistically ‘happened’ to this persona on his or her visit to the Gateway, placing these in the appropriate rows.

It might be useful if the person who knows least about the scenario acts as note-taker, prompting the rest of the group to come up with ideas and capturing these on post-its. Encourage the groups to go into the detail of how things would work. For example, how would you ask a particular question and where would you log this information.

At the same time, it is good if every participant has a pen and a few post-its, to ensure that if their suggestions don’t get captured they can write them down themselves. If one person dominates the group, consider interjecting and asking the group to spend a couple of minutes in silence, with each person writing down their own suggestions.

The workshop

mins50 Encourage participants to identify all touchpoints-

these are are the points of interface between the service and the customer that can be improved through design. They may manifest themselves as the physical objects, environments, communications and people that customers come into contact with.

insight to idea

The workshop

This map represents a single visit by the persona to the Gateway, from the moment they enter the building to the moment they leave.

Capture all actions that took place before the visit in the ‘Trigger’ column (e.g., an appointment being booked to register a death).

The top row represents the customer’s actions and experiences. Note down each action, step by step.

The next row down represents the Gateway actions, divided into ‘front of house’ and ‘back of house’. This is where all actions, processes, information and automated procedures should be captured.

The area at the bottom is where we will be capturing the ideas, opportunities, and questions that emerge during the customer’s journey.

Capture any future or follow-up ac-tions in this column, such as additional visits, form-filling, etc.

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insight to idea

Once this has been captured, the group should explore how the journey could be improved. Ideas, opportunities and questions should be captured by each participant on a post-it and placed in the bottom row of the map. Remember to refer to the persona’s needs and expectations.

Next, hand out the ‘Direct’, ‘Collect’ and ‘Connect’ cards, which represent the ways in which we would like to improve our services. We use these cards to remind us of the ways in which Gateway can improve (see shaded box). Ask the team to capture the best suggestions for improvement on either of these cards and place them in the appropriate place on the journey map (use blue-tack/tape if necessary).

The group should consider the persona’s overall service needs, not just the immediate ones. For example, consider how an enquiry about one issue might link to other services that would be relevant to this customer.

The workshop

Direct - Customers are often unaware of the breadth of the Gateway offer. Identifying new opportunities where the Gateway may be able to help them or where they can help themselves may encourage uptake of services and a move towards more independent usage.

Connect - With so much knowledge and so many resources under one roof we want to take advantage of delivering as many benefits as we can to individual users as well as improve the Gateway’s ability to synchronise their own processes and support systems to accomplish more with the same amount of effort.

Collect - In order to maximise the Gateway’s potential to better respond to its users we need to better understand them. We want to inform ourselves about areas of their life that may suggest opportunities to offer them services that are currently on offer or not yet offered. Think about how we might encourage customers to provide us with more information about themselves.

insight to idea

The workshop

Ideas to be written in here

Catergorisation

It is helpful to encourage creative thinking by limiting the tendency to focus on reasons why an idea might not work, or why an opportunity might be a problem. Instead of dismissing ideas categorise ideas as one of the following:

Quick win• that could be actioned immediately and would not require a heavy investment Big investment • that would require additional funding, or long-term planning such as a change to the IT systemSystem change • that would require KCC or central government to change regulation or the way services are provided nationally. An example would be a way of sharing data that does not impinge on data protection.

Categorising ideas in this way is helpful for addressing the scale of each idea as part of moving from ideas to planning and actioning. Secondly, it demonstrates that thinking that takes place during the workshop is not limited to quickly and easily implementable ideas but a place to capture big picture ideas as well.

insight to idea

The workshop

Present

Now is the time to convene the whole group and to ask each group to present its persona’s journey as well as the suggestions that have been captured on the ‘Collect’, ‘Connect’ and ‘Direct’ cards. Your role as facilitator will be to capture these ideas succinctly onto three flip charts titled ‘Quick wins’, ‘Big investment’ and ‘System change’.

Feel free to interrogate the ideas to ensure that you know exactly what they are about and confirm that the group agrees it should be captured on the selected flip chart.

After each group has finished presenting, summarise the persona’s journey that has just been described and ask if there are any questions, before moving to the next group.

Prioritise

During this stage of the workshop participants will select the best opportunities and move towards planning for their exploration and execution. Provide each participant with a pen and ask them to get up and place a ‘tick’ next to their favourite three ideas on the flipchart.

Encourage them to go for ideas that either improve the experience for customers or improve efficiency for Gateway, or both.

Add up the votes and announce the most popular idea. Although it is not essential, a small prize could be awarded to the winning team e.g. box of chocolates or biscuits for the staff room.

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insight to idea

insight to idea

The workshop

Summary and action planning

Take a few moments to go over the work that was done in the session, and highlight any interesting or recurring points that might have emerged. Ask them what they thought of the activities and how this exercise might help them think differently about customers and the service that Gateway offers.

The workshop will inevitably generate a wish list of improvements that staff will be keen to see imple-mented. It is important not to create false expecta-tions with regard to who is responsible for actioning service improvements; ideally, most ‘quick wins’ will be actioned by the Gateway team that generated them.

To ensure that good ideas don’t get abandoned once the workshop is over it is advisable to assign actions to individuals at the end of the workshop. A well known coaching model used to ensure meaningful results is the GROW model: Goal, Reality, Actions, Will.

The workshop will have helped the group to identi-fy goals; it may be worth spending some time discuss-ing the current reality, i.e. what is the starting point from which we are trying to achieve these goals and therefore how much effort do we need to put in place. Next, different options for achieving this goal might be explored before ensuring that whomever is going to take action has the will and power to do so.

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Post Session Report

Date:Facilitator/s:Session topic/s: (phrased as a question)Staff present: (include name & organisation)Notes on ideas generated: (anything interesting)Selected ideas: (include categorisation)1.2.3.Immediate actions, responsibilities and time-table: (assigned to participants/ideas)1.2.3. Areas to investigate futher and timetable: (assi-gend to one person to report back to the group)1.2.3.

The workshop

Next steps

Make sure that participants are aware of what is going to happen with the outcomes of the workshop. Most ideas will be owned and followed up by the participants themselves, while some, larger investments of resource might need to be actioned by senior management at the local or county level.

The following report template has been developed as a tool for recording and disseminating the results of the workshop. It is meant to provide a record and a link between the session’s activities and outputs, and other Gateway staff who were not present at the workshop.

Future sessions can begin by reviewing past workshop reports to ensure ongoing progress, rather than starting from scratch each time. Creating and disseminating the reports will establish a practice of consistent reporting regarding the organisation’s efforts to innovate the services it delivers and openly define both a call to action as well as a plan for action.

insight to idea

The workshop

Wrapping up

Thinking about customers and how their Gateway experience could be improved doesn’t just have to be before and during a workshop. Encourage participants to take the methods learnt today and apply them to everyday service.

Make sure that the participants understand that they have done a good job and without their existing knowledge of customers, this exercise would not work as well as it did. Compliment them on their ability to understand and complete tasks, as well as generate some interesting and (hopefully) practical ideas which could help influence the way Gateway operates.

insight to idea

insight to idea

About this guide

Developed by Gateway staff, for Gateway staff this guide helps us to find out what customers actually need in terms of services and service delivery, and to structure a responsive Gateway offer.

Customers’ expectations are high - they expect us to provide them with efficient valuable services, protect their privacy and listen to what they have to say. Some are extremely grateful for any help they can get whilst some will never be satisfied.

Of course, you can’t please everyone all the time, but the better we get to know our customers the better we can help provide them with the services or benefits they are seeking.

Moreover, we can take a proactive role in helping customers help themselves as independent, active members of society.

Co-developed by:

Service design

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