Connecting Internal Chaos to Customer Experience Through Service Design

The Challenge

Forrester’s major service faced scaling issues due to missing end-to-end guidelines. Employees were forced to create daily stopgap solutions just to deliver basic service. The result: customers experienced wildly inconsistent service quality depending on which team member they worked with.

The Approach

Dual Journey Mapping

Mapped both employee and customer journeys in parallel to identify where internal dysfunction was bleeding into customer interactions. This revealed that what appeared to be a customer experience problem was actually an employee experience problem.

Root Cause Analysis

Traced each instance of inconsistent customer experience back to its internal source — missing handoffs, undocumented processes, and tools that forced employees to improvise. The pattern was clear: fix the internal system, and the customer experience fixes itself.

Unified Service Blueprint

Built a comprehensive service blueprint that addressed both employee and customer experience simultaneously. The blueprint created clear guidelines that eliminated the need for daily improvisation while maintaining the flexibility teams needed for edge cases.

Forrester Guidance Session service blueprint showing channels, actors, activities, needs, pains, and client emotions across the onboarding journey — A section of the dual journey map — mapping channels, activities, needs, pains, and client emotions simultaneously. Each row reveals where internal dysfunction bleeds into the customer experience.

The Results

Before

Employees created daily workarounds to deliver basic service. Customers received inconsistent quality depending on which team member they worked with.

After

Unified service blueprint with clear guidelines eliminated firefighting. Consistent customer experience regardless of team member.

What Was Delivered

Unified service blueprint solving both employee and customer experience issues simultaneously
Eliminated daily firefighting required to deliver standard service
Scalable framework supporting growth without quality loss
Consistent customer experience across all team interactions
Streamlined workflows serving both employee efficiency and customer expectations

What This Demonstrates

The Forrester engagement illustrates a principle that applies to almost every service organization: customer experience problems are often employee experience problems in disguise. By mapping both journeys simultaneously, the real leverage points become visible. The service blueprint didn’t just document what should happen — it eliminated the conditions that forced employees to improvise in the first place.