About Challenge Community Services
For over 65 years, Challenge Community Services has championed social inclusion and person-centred support within regional communities from its head office epicentre in Tamworth. Their diverse services include Disability Services, Foster Care, Allied Health, and Business Services, all geared towards enriching lives and fostering growth.
The Situation
Recently, Challenge Community Services embarked on a journey to strengthen its operations with its fresh strategic plan. One of the critical projects identified was Customer Journey Mapping to Reimagine the Customer Experience. Recognising the importance of this initiative, they sought an expert external partner to facilitate the process, known for bringing the energy and empowering vibe to engage the audience and keep the communication flow and ideation alive. With her prior experience as a Challenge executive alumni and expertise in thought-provoking people development and strategic facilitation, Natalie was approached to lead the endeavour.
The Approach
Natalie commenced the project by immersing herself in understanding Challenge Community Services’ strategic pillars. She co-designed the agenda through several Zoom calls and meetings with the leadership executive team and project sponsor to ensure alignment with their goals and desired outcomes. The leadership team used these scoping calls to measure the why and how of the work.
The process began with a deep dive into the current state and desired future, leveraging internal documents and advocating for the inclusion of lived experiences and customer voices. Natalie brought in an inclusion lived experience disability consultant to ensure a comprehensive “voice of the customer” perspective was strongly present in the room to challenge unconscious biases or blindspots.
The Solution
Natalie facilitated a series of scoping calls and mapped out a clear agenda for the two-day onsite workshop. This included activities focused on empathy mapping, identifying customer personas through body mapping, and envisioning the future touchpoints of client engagement. Through collaborative exercises like fireside chats and collective circles, the team fostered empathy and respect, ensuring all voices and perspectives were collated.
The room was primed for deep work, and a mix of divergent and convergent thinking plays was applied to leverage the leaders’ collective wisdom and maximise agreed-upon outcomes. Dedicated scribes used a mix of writing, photography, and video to capture all thinking over the two days, allowing the leaders to stay fully engaged in the play and keep moving forward with their thinking.
What is Customer Journey mapping?
Crafting a customer journey map involves visualising customers’ journeys, encompassing their roles, pains and gains, and perceptions across the stages of interactions with an organisation. This exploration enables a comprehensive understanding of the stages your customers experience during their customer lifecycle, from awareness, consideration, decision, and service delivery to loyalty.
The Outcome
The workshop proved highly motivating and engaging, exceeding expectations regarding the volume of data and recommendations generated. The team achieved consensus on priorities and initiated a key working group to drive implementation forward. Subsequently, they witnessed quick win tangible results, such as increased subscriber engagement in marketing emails, demonstrating the effectiveness of their design thinking.
What is a Lived Experience Disability Consultant?
Lived Experience workers draw on their life-changing experiences of disability, service use and experiences, or the impact of walking beside and supporting someone through these experiences to build relationships based on a collective understanding of shared experiences, empowerment, choice and control.
Lived experience is central to organisational culture change. Lived Experience work or practice is recognised as a unique professionalism that offers a valuable contribution to organisations.
The Testimonial
A testimonial from Challenge Community Services underscored Natalie’s exceptional facilitation skills and profound impact on the team. Her expertise and warm and inclusive approach resonated deeply with the participants, leaving them equipped with enhanced tools and a renewed commitment to their purpose.
It was an absolute pleasure to have Natalie facilitate our Client Journey Mapping Workshop. Natalie’s expertise and engaging presentation style not only met but exceeded our expectations. Her approach was both insightful and beautifully executed, resonating deeply with our entire team. Natalie’s ability to relate to and connect with her audience was evident as she guided us through complex concepts with ease and clarity.
Throughout the workshop, Natalie helped us construct a robust framework for reflecting on and improving how we work in partnership with the people we support. She demonstrated a depth of understanding and empathy towards the needs of our clients. Her strategic insights were invaluable, enabling us to visualise and plan effective improvements across our customer engagement. Natalie’s impact on our team was profound, leaving us with enhanced tools and a renewed commitment to our purpose.
Her professional demeanour, coupled with her warm and inclusive facilitation style, made for a transformative experience. We are immensely grateful for her contribution and highly recommend her services to any organisation looking to deepen their impact and improve the services and support they offer.
– Naomi McCorkell, Executive Director, Disability Services – Challenge Community Services
Conclusion
Through collaborative effort and guided expert external facilitation, Challenge Community Services successfully transformed its approach to client engagement to reimagine the customer experience. By centering their efforts around empathy, inclusivity, and strategic insights, they not only exceeded their goals but also strengthened their commitment to serving their community with excellence.
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