time. To get ready to create your inventory, you will need to define your channels first.
Codify Your Channels
Your organization likely has some recognizable customer channels, such as websites, mobile apps, call centers, physical stores, and so on. A specific product or service may leverage all or only some of these channels. You also may have a greater or lesser presence in different channels. Here are some approaches to get you started. In general, remember to keep in mind the three facets discussed previously: interaction, information, and context.
1. Start with the obvious. What are the major channels you support or where you interact with customers? For example, a customer setting up, placing, picking up, and refilling prescriptions at a CVS Pharmacy at Target may interact with multiple channels owned by the two companies (see Table 1.2).
TABLE 1.2 COMPARISON OF CHANNELS
| Target | CVS |
| Target.com: Pharmacy | CVS.com: Target |
| Store—Main Line | Pharmacy—Direct Line |
| Physical Environment (Parking, Signage, Displays, etc). | Physical Environment (Signage, Displays, etc). SMS/Messaging |
| Target Mobile App | CVS Mobile App Direct Mail Email |
2. Choose the right granularity. As you identify channels, go beyond broad categories such as “web” or “print.” A finer granularity will help you think more strategically about how to use specific channels and to identify where new channels are needed. If you have State Farm insurance, for example, the mobile channel has multiple native applications (see Figure 1.9). Differentiating each of these as separate channels helps clarify the current and future roles of each application in supporting different customer needs and contexts.
FIGURE 1.9 In larger, more fragmented product and service ecosystems, a more granular definition of your channels can help reframe what each subchannel really offers customers and how they relate to other subchannels.
3. Be specific. In some cases, you may be delivering different experiences based on the technological affordances of different devices. If your website has different features or touchpoints on larger screens than smaller screens that are assumed to be mobile, define those separately. For example, “Standard main website” and “Mobile main website.” This will help you parse and reimagine how to design for varying intersections of technological affordances and customer context.
4. Note who owns each channel. As you take stock of relevant channels, you should note which groups and accountable executives own them. In some cases—as in the CVS pharmacy at Target example—you also want to determine what external vendors or partners make decisions related to specific channels. As later chapters will reveal, you will need to reach out and actively collaborate with these people in the future.
5. Be ready to adapt. You will probably discover new channels as you and your team go beyond the obvious. Over time, you will also see your channel mix change—either through your efforts or others. Just get a good foundation, start your digging, and adjust as needed.
Build the Orchestra
A helpful analogy for understanding and explaining to others this shift from channels as destinations to enablers of end-to-end experiences is an orchestra (unsurprising, given the title of this book).
What About Research?
Start exploring new frameworks by doing discovery alone or with colleagues. Doing so will help you get a feel for how to define your channels and identify the touchpoints within them.
However, this is merely a prelude to your first movement of work: engaging directly with the customers and other participants. Chapter 5, “Mapping Experiences,” will cover the importance of performing qualitative research as a team to understand the needs of people and how they interact—or could interact better—with your organization.
In an orchestra, you have many instruments playing in concert with one another. The conductor determines (working from sheet music) which kinds of instruments will help bring the piece to life. What does each instrument need to play? When do they play solo? Where do they harmonize with other instruments?
Orchestrating experiences means approaching channels with this thoughtfulness and intent. Within each broad category—web, mobile, email, environments, call center, and so on—determine what channels exist. What is each channel’s role? Where are your channels out of tune? Where are they creating dissonance? When you widen your lens beyond individual channels to customer moments enabled by channels, you will open new opportunities to orchestrate and reimagine the end-to-end experience.
We’ll now move on to the notes your instruments play—touchpoints.
Coda
• A channel is a medium of interaction with customers or users.
• Channels are deceptively complex, as they enable how you interact with people, yet also create barriers within organizations to design across channels.
• Channels have three facets that define them: interaction, information, and context.
• To change the channel-centric mindset that dominates most organizations, start by defining your channels as enablers of moments, not isolated destinations.
• Approach your channels as a conductor would an orchestra. Choose, tune, and direct them with intent.
CHAPTER 2
Pinning Down Touchpoints
