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CASE STUDIES

UL Customer Experience Map

Overview

To help the UL product teams better understand how customers gain access to their Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) business as well as the life cycle of that process once they are a UL customer, I as the UX lead pooled together all available UX Research to build a high-level market access customer map allowing for a 10,000 ft view of the TIC Customers journey through UL.

Client:

  • Underwriters Laboratories (UL)

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Role:

  • UX Team Lead

Research Approach

Following proven UX mythologies, we continually aim to education the UL Product teams on our process. The customer experience map is part of the Research Diamond in the double diamond design methodology.

Discovery Objectives

  1. Capture end-to-end experience for market access use cases

  2. Document what we already know, capture institutional knowledge

  3. Identify areas where more research is needed

  4. Identify customer pain points and opportunities to improve the experience and inform where to focus

  5. Align the organization on view of the current experience, break down silos to create one shared, organization-wide vision

  6. Align with other ideal state maps from initiatives across UL

Previous Studies Informing Research

  • myUL Usability Study - Q4 2022

  • myUL Market Access Research - Q3 2022

  • Home Depot Market Access and Regulatory Compliance Research - Q3 2022

  • Regulatory Compliance Needs for Small to Medium Sized Business  - Q4 2022

  • Regulatory Compliance Needs for Small to Medium Sized Business in Brazil  - Q4 2022

  • Connected Experience User Research - Q1 2021

  • Customer/Application Overlap Analysis - Q4 2020

  • Flex Fulfillment Application Stakeholder Research - Q2 2020

  • Multiple customer surveys and insights

  • Validation from internal Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

Experience Maps Vs Customer Journeys

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  • Experience Maps generalize the concept of customer-journey maps across user types, products, and channels

    • Includes all personas and products/services

    • Helps identify all journeys

    • Visualization of multiple experiences

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  • Customer Journey Maps focus on a specific customer's interaction with a product, service, or channel

    • Focused on one persona and one goal

    • Unpack specific touch points that cause pain or delight

    • Target Specific Customers

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NOTE: Experience Maps are NOT meant to replace Journey Maps

Customer Experience Map

Click on Image to open the full screen version

Customer Experience Maps - Market Access Customer Experience Map - Current State - V1.5.jp

Research Findings (Needs and Gaps)

  • Improve the customer on-boarding experience

  • Define a path for a non-customer authenticated user

  • Conduct additional customer research to better understand the product design phase as we look to connect journeys

  • Map customer journeys and task flows across product team personas and organization types

  • Explore automation opportunities to enable speed to market (quoting, on-boarding, education, project status).

  • Provide customers with more transparency in the certification process (how long will it take, project status, timing, and scheduling), to eliminate unforeseen delays and expenses.

Identified Backlog Items (Problems to Solve)

  • Define experience vision and research strategy

  • Map current state experience for existing customers

  • Make it easier for Master Gate Keepers (MGK) in myUL to invite/manage users

  • Automatically invite users to myUL during the quoting process

  • General registration flow enhancements

  • Create an account type/role for users without a Party Site Number (associated company location)

  • Improved new user guided tours/training

  • Improved MGK user guided tours/training

  • Standardization of Written Technology

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