How to Support The Digital Mindset Evolution in Real-World Clients
When the opportunity to work on a project for a client from the US came up, I had this idea that I was going to work with a client with advanced methodologies and innovation practices, and used to creating breakthrough products. However, most of the time we find ourselves working with organizations that are not digital natives and are undergoing a digital transformation process. A process which clients tend to relate to mere technological development instead of a cultural and organizational change that allows them to devise business strategies centered on the users’ needs.
This was one of those cases and I want to share some key lessons to face discovery phases with clients at different degrees of digital maturity.
The Case
With the rise of the adoption of digital channels by users and organizations, as well as the emergence of new competitors, a client specialized in providing services for the moving and freight transportation industry felt the need to redefine and improve its digital processes in order to scale its operations and become a relevant player in the relocation insurance industry.
In view of this need, along with a team of fluxers, we suggested developing an overall vision of the business processes’ current status in order to later propose a technology and product roadmap for the years ahead.
My role as a solution designer within the project entailed, on the one hand, supporting the client during the discovery phase, trying to establish certain premises that would boost the adoption of a human-centered mindset and, thus, make the first move towards introducing people and their needs as a means to draw up and devise new product and service strategies.
On the other hand, I worked on developing conceptual proposals aligned with functional and business requirements to reach agreements and start tracing the work path along with the client.
Learning to Start Over
As the discovery phase unfolded, along with the team we realized that the different conceptual proposals were causing tension when it came to putting the end users’ needs at the center.
In that regard, my expectations clashed with the client’s need to prioritize implementation over experience and to optimize a unique flow both for end customers and internal users, thus opposing the current trend of providing customized, intuitive experiences with diverse intents in order to increase conversion in digital environments.
In light of this situation, I had to rethink the strategy so that the conceptual proposals could adjust the client’s needs and requirements while also seeking to strike a balance between implementation and experience.
Working for a client from a different country, the cultural and idiomatic distance was another challenge when it came to grasping the relocation and insurance culture. Without access to users -something that usually happens to us in most of our projects- the challenge doubled: I had to understand the users’ mental model through the client’s point of view; and to counteract the bias that the stakeholders’ vision usually has regarding their service users, I relied on researches and reports related to the industry I was working for.
All of that helped me both grasp the relevance the habit of moving has in American life and get context for the ideation stage.
All-Terrain Solution Designers
Once the project concluded, I learned that it’s key to identify the maturity and receptiveness level of the client or the organization we are working for in terms of UX practices as soon as possible. It’s part of our role to design and execute different activities that give rise to collaborative and co-creation spaces that allow us to set the stage for the adoption of UX practices within organizations.
Having a better understanding of our role’s expectations within a project is key to be more effective when it comes to drawing up and devising conceptual proposals; thus, we avoid getting frustrated and thinking that we are not bringing anything to the project. In view of this scenario, we must let go and be open to change, even when we know that the client is not going down our proposal’s path or the one that prioritizes or puts end-users at the center.
This sort of situation is commonplace in most of the projects we’ve worked in, especially in those organizations that were forced to redefine their technology and business processes in pursuit of delivering more value to both their clients and their employees. In this regard, embracing uncertainty in the face of these transformations is also part of our role and it gives us a bonus when it comes to earning the stakeholders’ trust. That bonus will pave us the way to start suggesting value proposals regarding both the business and the users.
One Last Thought
The digital age offers SMEs digital tools that can be used to improve their performance and remain competitive in a constantly evolving, ever more digitalized and global economy, in which users are connected at all times and demand increasingly more regarding the experience they are offered.
This context gives us the opportunity to keep positioning ourselves as a strategic partner for our clients, not only by providing innovative solutions but also by collaborating in the organizational transformation process that enables the adoption of a human-centered culture.
