Designing the Consulting Engagement
The Design Problem
While Consulting has been delivering exceptional service to clients, it has also identified an additional level of service that clients could benefit from. The Advisor Experience Strategy team began designing a client experience ecosystem that could integrate into the consultation currently provided by the Consulting team. This consultation is a learning path that aims to clarify client needs, align services, and elevate the experience. By understanding clients' evolving needs over time (life-stage mapping), matching those needs with intentional services (lifecycle), and designing the ideal way those services are delivered (journey mapping), clients can enhance impact, drive loyalty, and differentiate their approach with a bonus of efficiency.
The Approach
As part of the team, I brainstormed ideas for the content and related activities as well as designed the presentation, activities, and playbook. During the brainstorm sessions, we considered the structure of the engagements including the amount of information, timing, and the method to deliver the content.
In the early stage of the ideation phase, I designed an initial version of some activities such as the Personas Canvas and the Life-Stage Mapping. The Personas Canvas, for example, presented a few key challenges: the number of steps and overall length of the activity, its limitation to in-person delivery only, and the fact that clients had to generate ideas from a blank canvas with no starting structure.
After the team redefined the outline, including a list of content, objectives for each teaching point, and timing, it became clearer that the initial Personas Canvas needed to be modified to better suit our plan. Some of these adjustments included: how the presentation and activities needed to work for both in-person and remote sessions, how much information could be conveyed at once without overloading the audience, and how to structure the content so the audience was guided to fill out a form rather than having to generate new information without any prompts.
For the Life-Stage Mapping, I created an initial version that considered primary, secondary, and tertiary clients, showing the personal and professional spheres for the primary client and how secondary and tertiary clients influenced the primary client’s decisions. This initial version included a set of milestones that could later evolve and expand, a worksheet, and a self-reflection component. All activities were refined over time through multiple iterations. The team ran pilot sessions to test these activities, and feedback was incorporated after each round.
In the early stage of the ideation phase, I designed an initial version of some activities such as the Personas Canvas and the Life-Stage Mapping. The Personas Canvas, for example, presented a few key challenges: the number of steps and overall length of the activity, its limitation to in-person delivery only, and the fact that clients had to generate ideas from a blank canvas with no starting structure.
The Deliverables
The engagement is structured around core sessions, each pairing teaching points with activities available as print or interactive PDFs. All teaching points are built into a presentation as part of the engagement. Each activity includes a filled-out example alongside a blank template containing instructions for completing the exercise. A subset of activities is also used as take-home work.
The first engagement continues the previous conversation from Consulting regarding Segmentation and goes more in-depth into Personas. The sessions then move to examining the personal and professional situations and needs of both primary and secondary personas who influence decision-making. The next steps involve determining the level of service divided by tiers, developing the Service Blueprint (front-stage and back-stage), and identifying pain points and opportunities. Finally, the sessions close with mapping the journey and evaluating which tasks should continue, stop, or start.
The engagement continues with a playbook that includes teaching points with illustrative examples, activities, and additional tools. This final piece consists of a collection of all resources, including work-in-progress materials, teaching points, activities, and additional tools. I designed the prototype for these assets, iterating on the layout and organization to ensure the playbook remained clear and easy to navigate for both the Consulting team and clients.
