Last time I introduced the CXM top-down approach. Today I will show you how to start bottom-up by identifying customer touchpoints in an existing process landscape.

This time we don’t start with a customer journey landscape. We start with our internal business processes (like EPC diagrams or BPMN models) and identify customer touchpoints within these processes.

Next step is to specify the touchpoint by the help of a customer touchpoint allocation diagram to add all related objects to the touchpoint like corresponding communication channels, risks and initiatives, output or input data that are important for process execution, KPIs or touchpoint ownerships.

All that information allows you to obtain precise information about the as-is situation of the process respectively the customer experience. Based on these insights, there can be derived measures to update and enhance the business processes by the methods of the ARIS platform.

Your next step could be to analyze your touchpoints and to model the customer journeys with the customer journey steps. But be careful. It is very difficult to start with the bottom-up approach without forming the old habit to model from an internal perspective and to lose the focus on a customer perspective.

Let me give you an example. In your opinion the first customer contact takes place as soon as your customer enters your store. And this is also the point where your sales process starts. But in reality the customer would like to get more information before he visits your store. But he is not able to find the information. He can only find information about your competitor and …BAM! ..he is already lost before your internal process starts and before you can realize what just happened. As you see the customer perspective is really important.

But no matter if the customer journey maps and business processes are developed bottom-up or top-down, once drafted they have to be evaluated. To do so you can use reports or queries like “Cluster touch points” or “Find process related customer journeys” or “Find the risks and initiatives that are associated with customer touchpoints” or “overview of customer touchpoints” .

To obtain further information, you can subscribe to the “Customer Experience Management” tag, visit us at our CeBIT booth or get in touch with your local Software AG contact.