For over ten years, Proto has been continually refining our customer-centred design approach , creating a system that builds a deep understanding of customer needs and uses those insights to drive future CX improvements.
This dynamic approach to CX design is ideal for emotive subjects such as home, community and local government and would provide the core of Lane Cove Council's new CX approach.
We worked hand-in-hand with Lane Cove Council, defining the project's scale and aims through fifteen Lane Cove Council stakeholder and staff interviews before reaching out to their customers through fifty resident interviews and a complete social media review.
Connecting with Lane Cove Council's customers and listening to their voice produced vital insights that we mapped into five separate customer journeys related to core services: Tree Removal Applications, Hard Rubbish Collection, Council Venue Bookings, Parking Permit Application and After Hours Assistance.
For each journey, we created a hybrid customer journey map that incorporated the current state, mapping the touchpoint, resident problem, connected emotion, supporting verbatim and key insights, alongside a reimagined future state with proposed solutions to the uncovered issues. This was delivered within a 5-week sprint to match the resources and scale of the problems.
Visualising both the current customer journey map and an ideal future state allowed us to create a tangible roadmap of actionable initiatives that would lead Lane Cove Council to their model customer journey through attainable short, medium and long term goals.
These scalable initiatives gave Lane Cove Council the tools they needed not only to address their customer's needs in the short-term, but to stay agile enough to address changing customer expectations in the long-term.
By incepting a customer-centric culture that empowers staff, removes constraints and earns long-term customer loyalty, Lane Cove Council were able to transform themselves from a burden that slows progress into an enabler that enriches their customer's lives.
Through the use of scalable initiatives built on customer verbatim and compelling insights delivered by Proto, Lane Cove Council staff are now able to utilise every opportunity to delight and impress their community, giving the organisation a vital point of difference.
"Proto were really great at engaging with all different stakeholders throughout this process – from getting our operational staff on board to educating executives on why we were going through this process and how it would look. Proto had a clear understanding of what needed to be done and how best we could achieve it. Proto are not only very professional and good value for money, but also provided amazing service. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them."
Sara Howell, Customer Experience Manager at Lane Cove CouncilLet us help you identify the most important thing about your customers that will unlock your company’s growth.
TALK WITH A CX EXPERT“Working with Proto was a leap of faith, but they have become a major strategic partner in our CX evolution. The work they've developed and the way we've been able to embed it in the organisation has been absolutely phenomenal, and we're getting the outcomes we want.”
“Proto were a pleasure to work with. They were adaptive and responsive, and developed a deep empathy for both the client and their customers. The quality of their products and services was outstanding.”
“Without the customer experience insights from the research program, we would not have been able to identify the acquisition issues that we had. Changes to the customer interactions that led up to financial protection have reduced the outflow rates by 50%.”
“From an NPS perspective, I have gone Spinal Tap on you guys and gone to 11. I still think the work you did with us, the way you went about it and the deliverables amounted to one of the best pieces of consulting advice I've ever commissioned.”
“Over the last 18 months, we've constantly referred to the work Proto did for us when designing and developing all the improvements to the app we're making. We've found their work to be highly valuable and has resulted in significant improvements to the MyOptus App that, without their insight wouldn't have been possible.”
“The outcome of the prototyping has been exceptional and we continue to use the knowledge and expertise that Proto shared with us during their engagement. The icing on the cake for me was that Proto captured all of the insights from the customer workshops into an organisational asset that we now use as an integral part of our toolkit for training and briefing new team members.”
“Proto's in-depth customer research helped us to uncover underlying customer needs that wouldn't have been possible without an 'outside-in' approach. The team identified the core customer problems and provided actionable insights that enabled us to remove key areas of customer friction and frustration and redesign a credit card experience like no other.”
“I have worked with Damian and the team at Proto for several years. In this time, they have worked collaboratively with us to build a roadmap of strategic 'outside-in' initiatives that ultimately resulted in a 20 point increase in NPS. They imparted a great deal of CX knowledge, approaches and tools that have been invaluable to the team and the business.”
“Proto revealed and captured a ton of insights, putting Gumtree in a position where we can take our experience from good to great!”
“We won the AFR Smart Investor SMILES award for Best Online Broker. This award is based on customer voting and I believe this was as a result of a clearer focus on our existing clients which you helped us to understand.”
“The Proto team demonstrated flexibility in their approach which made such a refreshing change. They took the time to coach and mentor each of us in a highly creative and energetic environment. Furthernore, they helped us exceed our customer satisfaction targets, all whilst stripping out in excess of 20% of our service costs in under 12 months. Proto helped us to stay focussed on the customer which enabled us to win in the market.”
“We worked with Proto on an exciting & unprecedented challenge at Optus, to design the customer experience of the future. Damian & the team had high energy & together we operated as 'one team'. Proto worked hand in hand with us to bring the internal team up to speed, & also brought in global experts to work with us to take our deliverables to another level of quality & innovation.”
“Proto developed a membership strategy that addressed points of friction along our members journey, identified opportunities to improve and clarified the types of engagement that our members needed at the different stages in their career. We were impressed with the depth of insight that Proto were able to bring to the project - as well as the energy and ideas that they helped to generate.”
“Working with Proto was very much a partnership. We worked hand-in-hand to put CX on the map within the organisation. The team are flexible, trustworthy and do what it takes to achieve the best outcome. If you’re looking for a quality agency, providing quality data and insights – Proto are your guys. We received over 90 initiatives from the project of which 79% have now been implemented and we are seeing the benefits flow through!”
“Proto integrated into multiple simultaneous projects to ensure we achieved the best outcome. They brought real clarity around customer needs, the fundamental elements of our value proposition and provided a clear roadmap of where we're trying to get to. This allowed us to differentiate beyond the traditional proposition. As a result, one customer-informed initiative we developed was loanScore™. This unique innovation helps customers see how good their home loan is and evaluate their options for a better deal.”
