Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

Touch Points and Deliberations, 2021

How can you analyze touch points along the customer journey as part of a design process? Are there contemporary models that can be illuminating in analyzing touch points in the process of design?

This article will review a few of these models and then arrive at practical and theoretically sound questions that can be used as a basis for analyzing and redesigning touch points as part of a customer journey and the surrounding ecosystem of value co-creation. This falls within the approach that I have been describing in previous posts about adaptive design for collaborative ecosystems.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a contemporary paradigm in developing innovative approaches to rendering service and products to clients and customers. It has been applied by IDEO to product development; by REOS Partners to global societal issues; and in the UK to improve government services. Others have adapted it to healthcare environments such as in the case of the Fairview Medical Center  as described by Winby, Worley and Martinson. The Design Thinking, Innovation Lab approach is now in use by many others.

The Design Thinking methodology centers on the customer journey and customer experience. It focuses on touch points that occur along the customer journey. Touch points are specific points where the customer engages with the providing enterprise in order to obtain goods or services. Ethnographic research is utilized to follow the customer and actually be with the customer along the customer's journey and at each touch point.

In ethnographic research, the customer is placed at the center of the analysis which seeks to understand what the customer is trying to accomplish. The analysis delves into the customer's context as part of exploring the customer's experience. Inquiry looks at the context of the customer with regard to how their lifestyle, emotions, support systems, family, etc. impact their needs and experience. The goal is to arrive at a deep understanding of their point of view in the customer's own language. Otto Scharmer refers to this process as one of dialogic interviewing. Essentially we learn to "walk a mile in their shoes."

Key questions in understanding touch points are as follows.

• What are the emotional highs and lows of the user?
• What role does the surrounding context of the user: life style, culture, relationships, support systems play in creating their experience?
• What is the user's experience and how does this compare to what they would perceive as an ideal experience?
• How do technical processes support this?

Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic)

What may be missing in our current approaches is a conceptual underpinning which addresses our contemporary world that increasingly looks at value in terms of the knowledge and skills exchanged. This can be either exchanged directly or indirectly by being embodied in goods. I believe this conceptual underpinning is provided by the growing discipline of S-D Logic set out by Vargo and Lusch (2004, Journal of Marketing, updated in Vargo and Lusch (2016, JAMS) initially with regard to the field of marketing. In endeavoring to apply the S-D Logic approach to the field of redesign, there are a number of factors that can be considered in the process of analysis. I believe that these can be applied to a given touch point.

S-D Logic talks about an exchange. The exchange has been described overall as an exchange of services or more specifically as an exchange of resources especially of skills and knowledge. Key here is a focus on how these resources are accessed, adapted and integrated.

The questions that I believe can be asked in an S-D Logic view fall into the following categories.

• Accessibility: How accessible are actors and resources to the customer from the network surrounding the customer? How can this network of actors be reconfigured to make resources more accessible?
• Adaptability: How are resources customized to fit the needs of the customer?
• Integration: What actions does the customer take to help realize value from the resource - to co-create their own consumption experience?

Knowledge Management

As one delves into the S-D Logic approach, one notices some similarities to the field of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management conceptualizes steps in the process of knowledge absorption and use which is what S-D Logic describes in terms of an exchange.

• Knowledge development, acquisition, generation, exploration. This consists of activities which bring to light knowledge that is new to the individual, group or organization.
• Knowledge transfer, knowledge absorption. This is the movement of knowledge from one location to another and modification of the knowledge in the receiving unit.
• Knowledge retention, integration, exploitation. The knowledge becomes embedded in routines, processes, communities.

My Approach to Touch Point Analysis

The following represents what I would want to inquire into and impact as part of a touch point analysis and redesign. These questions benefit from all of the past work by others set out here.

• What knowledge, skills and resources are exchanged. By whom?
• What is the accessibility of knowledge, skills, resources and necessary people. How does the configuration of the network surrounding the user impact this?
• What is the user experience: current and ideal?
• Where and how does the actual experience of the user deviate from the expectations of the ideal?
• What activities does the customer-user and others perform including those people in the user's social context that impact value to the user?
• How can IT devices and platforms best support value to the user?
• What are helpful institutional supports, e.g. roles, integrating mechanisms, effective communication.

With these questions as a basis, one can hopefully begin to analyze the touch points along the customer journey as a basis for future redesigns.

How can you analyze touch points along the customer journey as part of a design process? Are there contemporary models that can be illuminating in analyzing touch points in the process of design?

This article will review a few of these models and then arrive at practical and theoretically sound questions that can be used as a basis for analyzing and redesigning touch points as part of a customer journey and the surrounding ecosystem of value co-creation. This falls within the approach that I have been describing in previous posts about adaptive design for collaborative ecosystems.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a contemporary paradigm in developing innovative approaches to rendering service and products to clients and customers. It has been applied by IDEO to product development; by REOS Partners to global societal issues; and in the UK to improve government services. Others have adapted it to healthcare environments such as in the case of the Fairview Medical Center  as described by Winby, Worley and Martinson. The Design Thinking, Innovation Lab approach is now in use by many others.

The Design Thinking methodology centers on the customer journey and customer experience. It focuses on touch points that occur along the customer journey. Touch points are specific points where the customer engages with the providing enterprise in order to obtain goods or services. Ethnographic research is utilized to follow the customer and actually be with the customer along the customer's journey and at each touch point.

In ethnographic research, the customer is placed at the center of the analysis which seeks to understand what the customer is trying to accomplish. The analysis delves into the customer's context as part of exploring the customer's experience. Inquiry looks at the context of the customer with regard to how their lifestyle, emotions, support systems, family, etc. impact their needs and experience. The goal is to arrive at a deep understanding of their point of view in the customer's own language. Otto Scharmer refers to this process as one of dialogic interviewing. Essentially we learn to "walk a mile in their shoes."

Key questions in understanding touch points are as follows.

• What are the emotional highs and lows of the user?
• What role does the surrounding context of the user: life style, culture, relationships, support systems play in creating their experience?
• What is the user's experience and how does this compare to what they would perceive as an ideal experience?
• How do technical processes support this?

Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic)

What may be missing in our current approaches is a conceptual underpinning which addresses our contemporary world that increasingly looks at value in terms of the knowledge and skills exchanged. This can be either exchanged directly or indirectly by being embodied in goods. I believe this conceptual underpinning is provided by the growing discipline of S-D Logic set out by Vargo and Lusch (2004, Journal of Marketing, updated in Vargo and Lusch (2016, JAMS) initially with regard to the field of marketing. In endeavoring to apply the S-D Logic approach to the field of redesign, there are a number of factors that can be considered in the process of analysis. I believe that these can be applied to a given touch point.

S-D Logic talks about an exchange. The exchange has been described overall as an exchange of services or more specifically as an exchange of resources especially of skills and knowledge. Key here is a focus on how these resources are accessed, adapted and integrated.

The questions that I believe can be asked in an S-D Logic view fall into the following categories.

• Accessibility: How accessible are actors and resources to the customer from the network surrounding the customer? How can this network of actors be reconfigured to make resources more accessible?
• Adaptability: How are resources customized to fit the needs of the customer?
• Integration: What actions does the customer take to help realize value from the resource - to co-create their own consumption experience?

Knowledge Management

As one delves into the S-D Logic approach, one notices some similarities to the field of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management conceptualizes steps in the process of knowledge absorption and use which is what S-D Logic describes in terms of an exchange.

• Knowledge development, acquisition, generation, exploration. This consists of activities which bring to light knowledge that is new to the individual, group or organization.
• Knowledge transfer, knowledge absorption. This is the movement of knowledge from one location to another and modification of the knowledge in the receiving unit.
• Knowledge retention, integration, exploitation. The knowledge becomes embedded in routines, processes, communities.

My Approach to Touch Point Analysis

The following represents what I would want to inquire into and impact as part of a touch point analysis and redesign. These questions benefit from all of the past work by others set out here.

• What knowledge, skills and resources are exchanged. By whom?
• What is the accessibility of knowledge, skills, resources and necessary people. How does the configuration of the network surrounding the user impact this?
• What is the user experience: current and ideal?
• Where and how does the actual experience of the user deviate from the expectations of the ideal?
• What activities does the customer-user and others perform including those people in the user's social context that impact value to the user?
• How can IT devices and platforms best support value to the user?
• What are helpful institutional supports, e.g. roles, integrating mechanisms, effective communication.

With these questions as a basis, one can hopefully begin to analyze the touch points along the customer journey as a basis for future redesigns.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Having spent a good deal of time reviewing countless articles on industrial symbiosis, the circular economy and everything in between, I have come up with one overarching reaction which is: Be careful what you wish for.

It is challenging to take even a modestly critical view of what are important ideas and initiatives in our effort to alter our industrial framework to reduce the effects of climate change and other deleterious impacts on the environment. My defense is to quote Aristotle in saying, we should try to follow the "Golden Mean" - everything in moderation.

In this case, this is more an admonition to think carefully about what we are doing and not simply jump into action without considering fully the implications of our efforts. We obviously cannot afford to be inactive. However, we should try not to rush into unthoughtful action allowing our enthusiasm to get us into other - though different predicaments.

Dis-ease in the Body Politic

Notice to Readers: This post discusses the grave dangers to humanity from Global Warming.

In a touching video that I recently watched, Joanna Macy commented: "What is falling apart is a demented system - political, economic, corporate capitalism." She said this in the context of a discussion about the deep danger that our Planet is in as a result of human action.

Strategies for Responding to Climate Change, the Climate Crisis, the Climate Emergency

There appear to be three main strategies for attempting to motivate citizens to take action on climate change. The terminology by which this state of affairs is referred to is beginning to reflect the essence of the different strategies - Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Climate Emergency, a Decarbonized World.

One strategy is to scare the hell out of people in motivating them to take action. This is currently reflected by Greta and previously by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. This approach has been directed to both leaders and citizens. One benefit of this "scare-the-hell-out-of-them" approach is that it educates people on the severity of the real situation as presented by climate data and observation. It attempts to get this issue into the current political discussion. Education can be included here as a subset of the overall strategy. Being educated as to the reality of climate change should scare the hell out of people. Many campaigns to involve people have education as a key objective.

A Reflection on Education in the 21st Century

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

As I reflect back over my teaching during the five years that I have been in Israel, I am very mindful of the increasing role that ideas of "sustainability" have in my work. Of course, "sustainability" is the consequence of a variety of approaches which we often refer to by the title of "sustainability." One might also refer to this as how we will go about living within our planetary budget in the foreseeable future.

Creating a Better World

 

To survive into the future, businesses, organizations and our global society will need to develop updated assumptions about what it takes to do well as inhabitants of this planet. New ideas about the relationship of the economy, businesses, the individual and the biosphere will need to be developed to replace outdated ones. We need a new story of humanity's place as a contributor to the thriving ecosystem of our planet that reflects our full human potential.

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts, Revisited

How can one use the practice of design to implement sustainability approaches in organizations and in their surrounding ecosystems?

This is a daunting challenge especially with regard to ecosystems because the ecosystem of even a small polluter can be inhabitants of the entire planet or certainly a region of the globe.

One really needs to take a whole-earth perspective to fully comprehend this. This is vividly demonstrated in the recent "school-strike" catalyzed by Greta Thunberg of Sweden which involved 1.6 million young people in almost 1700 cities and towns in over 123 countries in every continent.

We do have to start somewhere in terms of organizations and one place to start is to gain a concept of the system with which we are dealing. This involves viewing the organization in terms of what may be a more linear, value-chain as well as seeing the organization as part of a larger ecosystem.

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts

There are several important questions with regard to using design to improve sustainability in organizations. The first is how does one take a large-scale ecosystem perspective to design while also maintaining a more detailed, linear value chain perspective. The second is what role does the customer journey and experience play regarding these two perspectives especially in large systems. This post looks at both of these.

Adaptive Design For Collaborative Ecosystems

This article sets out a working description of a collaborative ecosystem in which value is co-created. It describes what needs to be attended to in the process of adaptive design for the ecosystem. It sets out a path forward in pursuing adaptive design for a collaborative ecosystem.

Are you an Ecosystem?

Being an ecosystem involves recognizing all those engaged in the co-creation of value and in ongoing relationships with one another constituting a larger network. This is qualitatively different from seeing your organization plus all of the business relationships it has with its different providers and stakeholders. It is different from seeing your customer or client as the recipient of the goods or services that you develop.

Discovering the Ecosystem Within: An Approach to Design

The great irony with regard to business ecosystems is that businesses are not organized as ecosystems while at the same time they are ecosystems. All of the components of an ecosystem may already be resident in and about the organization while at the same time not being recognized as such. This post describes the phenomena and then takes a step toward addressing how to intervene to bring the ecosystem into ascendance.

Let's look for some of the attributes of an ecosystem in the contemporary organization. They exist in various stages of development.