How Vertical Storytelling Helps Translate Empathy into Business Value / Journey Management Playbook / Ep. #08
Service Design Show
Operationalizing measurement with cadence
They advise regular reviews of leading and lagging metrics to inform prioritization and treat failures as learning.
Okay, we are pretty good storytellers... but are we telling the right story?
As service design professionals, we nail it when it comes to what I call "Horizontal Storytelling".
We can walk anyone through the customer journey, step-by-step, building empathy for the user's pain and frustration over time.
But here is the somewhat inconvenient truth: As you might have experienced, your CEO or CFO often doesn't know what to do with that story. They are looking for something else.
They need "Vertical Storytelling".
They need to know how a specific pain point on the ground connects up to the strategic objectives of the business. They need to know the ROI. They need to know if the needle is actually moving.
In episode 8 of the Journey Management Playbook series, Tingting Lin and I are closing the loop.
We are moving from doing the work to measuring the impact.
If you’ve ever struggled to justify prove that your journey management efforts are actually influencing the bottom line, this episode is for you.
We dive into:
- How you can translate customer empathy into business language to get buy-in.
- Why you can't just rely on churn or NPS as your metrics, and how to find early warning signals that prove your work is having an effect now.
- How to connect your solutions back to the original business challenge to see if you actually solved the problem.
- And how to start measuring impact today without having to wait for perfect data integrations.
This episode provides the missing link between "making mapping a journey" and "driving business outcomes."
What is the one metric you struggle to track the most? Send me a reply or leave a comment on YouTube, we’d love to know where the biggest data hurdles are for you.
Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!
Be well,
~ Marc
--- [ 1. LINKS 🔗 ] ---
👉 Playbook Slides -
✅ Sign up for TheyDo - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/scjwb
--- [ 2. GUIDE ] ---
01:00 What's in store episode 08
03:45 Power of Vertical Storytelling
05:30 Proving Your Journey Map Worth the Investment
07:00 Biggest Mistake People Make in Journey Mapping
11:00 When a Simple Insight Changes Everything
16:30 'Horizontal' View vs. the 'Vertical'
23:00 How to Operationalize Your Journey Map
25:00 Start Small, But Map the Full Customer Story
26:00 Closing the Loop and Feedback Mechanisms
30:00 Summary: 3 Pillars of a Successful Journey Strategy
31:34 Differentiating Horizontal and Vertical Stories
33:00 Overcoming Internal Resistance to New Mapping
36:00 Stakeholders as customers
38:45 Translating Empathy into Actionable Design
39:45 Mapping an Employee Onboarding Journey
45:00 Debunking misconceptions
50:30 Software and Resources We Recommend
54:45 Second Essential Technique
58:00 Final Takeaways & Last-Minute Advice
1:00:00 5 Practical Tips You Can Implement Today
--- [ 3. FIND THE SHOW ON ] ---
- Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-spotify
- Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-apple
- Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-snipd
- Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-youtube
The AI-powered Podcast Player
