Overview
While providing comprehensive financial services to therapists, Heard faced a critical challenge: our understanding of our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) had diverged from our actual customer base. Different teams operated with siloed perspectives— Marketing focused on acquisition personas, while Product and Design teams developed workflow-based user profiles and this was negatively impacting the overall customer experience.
Strategic Initiative I launched an effort to unify our customer understanding across the entire journey. The goal: create a single source of truth that would align all teams—from acquisition through service delivery.
These were the key deliverables to build this unified view, I focused on three core elements:
Customer Journey Map: Documenting the complete client experience
Service Blueprint: Mapping internal processes to customer touchpoints
Unified Personas: Creating shared customer profiles for all teams
Process
Experience Audit
I conducted a comprehensive analysis of the complete customer lifecycle—from initial discovery through product adoption and renewal. This audit mapped every customer interaction point with Heard's services.
Stakeholder Integration
Following the initial audit, I conducted cross-functional stakeholder sessions to document:
Internal processes supporting each customer touchpoint
Team responsibilities throughout the journey
Key handoff points between departments
Journey Mapping Using these insights, I developed a detailed customer journey map highlighting emotional states and key moments. The following excerpt focuses specifically on the critical sign-up and onboarding phases:
Customer Journey Map
Using these insights, I developed a detailed customer journey map highlighting emotional states and key moments. The following excerpt focuses specifically on the critical sign-up and onboarding phases:
Service Blueprint Analysis
Building on the customer journey map findings, I created a comprehensive service blueprint documenting all customer-facing and internal actions at each touchpoint. This analysis exposed previously unidentified experience gaps and opportunities for improvement across the entire organization.
The exercise generated actionable insights that were prioritized within relevant team backlogs for implementation. This systematic mapping process proved crucial for aligning internal operations with customer needs.
Personas Refinement
We developed comprehensive personas by synthesizing multiple data sources:
Service blueprint insights
125 hours of documented user research
Previous research study findings
Customer support ticket analysis
Stakeholder interview insights
Outcome
The unified persona framework transformed our approach to the customer experience, aligning three key segments across all touchpoints. This shared understanding enabled Marketing, Sales, and EPD teams to better target and serve our ideal customer profiles.
The alignment sparked tangible improvements:
Marketing messaging evolved to match product language
Sales began tracking prospect behaviors that informed onboarding design
Teams initiated collaborative projects to address identified experience gaps
This cohesive approach created a feedback loop where customer insights from one team strengthened the effectiveness of others.