ITIL®4 – Mapping the Customer Journey

All service providers are in the business of customer and user experience. It is not enough to compete on products and services, how services are delivered is as important as what is delivered.

The customer journey is the complete end-to-end experience customers have with one or more service providers and/or their products through the touchpoints and service interactions with those providers. In order to focus on the outcomes and on the customer/user experience, service providers are seeking to master the art of mapping their customer journey. Doing so allows them to maximize stakeholder value through co-creation of value throughout the entire value chain.

The customer journey begins by understanding the overall macro-level of steps or groups of activities that generate the need for interaction between the customer and the service provider. These activities begin at “Explore” and end with “Realize” where the value is actually being consumed by the end-users.

The Band of Visibility

ITIL 4 gives a fresh perspective to service management and stresses a holistic approach. During a customer journey, there is a line of visibility beyond which customers cannot see the service provider’s activities. Similarly, there is a line of visibility beyond which the service provider cannot see the customers’ activities. This applies to internal and external customers and service providers. The band of visibility represents the activities and resources within a service relationship that are visible to both the service provider and the service consumer. All parties need a clear understanding of the boundaries during the steps of the journey in order to understand how invisible elements influence the band of visibility and to ensure that everything within the band of visibility is properly managed.

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