Customer-centric growth across product lines
This is a fictional scenario showing a possible application of VDAF. It describes proposed improvements and success measures, with no claimed client results.
A shared customer view can help an organisation improve customer experience and develop relevant relationships across product lines. Customer journey analysis identifies where that ambition breaks down and translates it into priorities for capabilities, CRM, data and integration.
The strategic ambition
An organisation offers three complementary product lines. Its ambition is to become customer-centric, retain more customers and grow revenue through relevant cross-selling. Each product team currently manages its own customer records, service history and onboarding process. The organisation has limited visibility of the complete customer relationship.
For the customer, moving from product A to product B can feel like being passed between separate organisations. The same person receives separate customer profiles or identifiers for different product lines. They must repeat their details, explain previous interactions and navigate different teams and processes. Internal product boundaries become visible obstacles in the customer journey.
Follow the customer across the organisation
A customer buys product A, contacts support and later develops a need that product B could address. Journey analysis follows the customer across these touchpoints, including the handovers between sales, service and onboarding. Interviews, service cases and observed interactions would be used to validate the friction points below.
| Journey friction | Capability to improve | Proposed response |
|---|---|---|
| Repeated customer details | Customer identity management | Recognise the existing relationship across product lines. |
| Disconnected service handover | Case and service management | Share case status and establish handover ownership. |
| Onboarding starts again | Customer onboarding | Reuse appropriate information and coordinate the next steps. |
Establish a shared customer view
Match customer identities across product lines and make relevant relationship history, open service cases, needs and preferences available to authorised teams. Agree who owns and maintains the information. A logical shared view may draw on several systems; the architecture decision should follow the required experience and data responsibilities.
Resolve service issues before pursuing an offer
Use the shared view to identify an unresolved issue with product A. Service takes ownership of the case and confirms resolution. When a subsequent interaction reveals a relevant need, sales can consider product B using the customer’s preferences and the applicable communication choices. A sales opportunity follows the customer’s need and context.
Translate journey findings into a roadmap
Prioritise the capabilities that remove validated friction. Define the customer information required at each touchpoint, the authoritative sources, access responsibilities and the integrations needed to make it available. Sequence CRM configuration, data-quality improvements and service-process changes around a coherent customer journey.
Apply VDAF to structure the work
Use Governance and Guidance for assessment templates, methods, decision criteria and ownership. Develop organisation-specific Architecture Content: journey maps, capability assessments, findings, recommendations, architecture decisions and a prioritised roadmap. Review whether each proposed initiative supports the customer-centric ambition.
| Success measure | How to assess it |
|---|---|
| Customer effort | Track repeated information requests, repeated onboarding steps and journey feedback. |
| Customer retention | Compare retention and repeat purchasing for defined customer cohorts over an agreed period. |
| Cross-product growth | Track multi-product adoption, relevant-offer conversion and incremental revenue or margin. |
Establish a baseline, define customer cohorts and agree targets before delivery. Monitor service quality and preferences alongside commercial measures. Separate the effect of the changes from pricing, campaigns and market conditions when assessing growth.
Discuss a VDAF Discovery and Alignment workshop to identify the journeys, capabilities and architecture improvements that matter most to your organisation.
What is your organisation trying to change?
Start with your ambition. Together, we can identify the right architectural next steps.