Sound Transit: CX Roadmap

User Research

Client

Sound Transit

My Role

CX Strategist

Time

4 months (2019)

Tasks

Data analysis (user research), Personas, Customer Journey Map, Workshop Facilitation

About the Project

Sound Transit, the public transit system in Seattle’s metropolitan area, wanted to improve the customer experience across multiple touch points.

The Problem

Sound Transit is already conducting regular survey studies to identify gaps between customer expectations and their service delivery. The challenge was to create a cohesive picture of customer needs that can be prioritized and turned into a roadmap of project initiatives.

User Research & Data Analysis

I joined this project after the user research had been already completed. As the data was shared in their raw format I had to start with analyzing and summarizing the main findings.

1. Data Evaluation

We had data from customer intercept interviews, diary studies and stakeholder interviews. I used the method of an Affinity Diagram to cluster outcomes into meaningful topics, to identify gaps and to define the steps of a customer journey.

2. Assumptive Personas

One main output of the evaluation was the creation of customer groups (assumptive personas), their pain points and needs as an input for the customer journey map.

Customer Journey Map Workshop

We conducted a customer journey map workshop with stakeholders form different departments to discuss customer needs and to create alignment on project initiatives. The workshop was split into 2 phases:

1. Group exercise

We prepared a customer journey map for 3 main personas. The stakeholders were split accordingly into three groups to discuss each journey map. They added pain points and steps based on their expert knowledge and brainstormed ideas for improvements.

2. Prioritizing ideas

After walking through all ideas, we evaluated them on two dimensions: by (business) effort and (customer) value. The matrix helped us to identify quick-wins vs long-term projects and structure a roadmap for the year.

Challenges & Restrictions

The biggest challenge in this project was the very broad project scope. In order to collect as many data points as possible with qualitative methods we had to keep the interviews short and could therefore only touch on high-level topics.

The identified long-term project initiatives will now benefit from a more deep-dive user research phase.

Outcomes & Learnings

The outcome of this exercise was two-fold: the workshop was a place for stakeholders from different departments to come together and align on their goals. It also provided the team with concrete project ideas that they could turn into a roadmap for the year.

My personal learnings:

I had to moderate the workshop remotely – which was a successful experiment (with lots of extra preparation and support from team members)
Storytelling is key for customer workshops to help every participant to empathize as much as possible with customers.