Seeing What Customers Actually Feel: The Power of Journey Mapping
The Result Was Great, but the Experience…?
The support we were providing was great - genuinely world class. Our teams consistently delivered support for the Royal Navy in incredibly tight windows, overcoming material shortages, last-minute discoveries, and logistical hurdles. These weren’t routine tasks. They were complex interventions, executed in demanding conditions by deeply skilled people who genuinely cared about doing the right thing.
But something still wasn’t right.
Despite our technical success, end-user feedback revealed a recurring gap. Maintainers and operators on board the ships appreciated the results, but they couldn’t always see the plan. Sometimes, work appeared disjointed, lacking a clear sequence. Activities unfolded in unexpected ways, often disrupting living and working spaces without sufficient visibility into when, how, or why.
We had built a technically sound system, but we hadn’t designed the experience.
That gap wasn’t about competence. It was about clarity. It was about how our work was felt by those women and men living and working on-board .
Journey Mapping: Making the Invisible Visible
We partnered with Engine to bring a fresh perspective rooted in Service Design. Together, we engaged a cross-section of stakeholders: our teams, the contract customer, and crucially, the end users.
The goal was simple: map the journey. Not as a process chart, but as a lived experience.
We began with our operational platform support, tracing the recognised value chain from initial requirement through planning, execution, and completion. We then expanded the approach across multiple contracts and service areas.
What emerged wasn’t merely a sequence of steps, but a shared narrative highlighting what actually happened, what got in the way, and how it felt.
We introduced a consistent language: pain-points, friction, moments that matter, front-stage and back-stage. We overlaid emotional touch-points with supporting processes. For the first time, we defined our service through the customer’s eyes, not just through the lens of process flow.
The impact was immediate.
We identified over a dozen clear opportunities; practical interventions that could increase transparency, reduce friction, and make life easier not just for the end users, but for our teams as well. From communications planning to improved visibility of work sequencing, we were doing more than simply improving service - we were simplifying its delivery.
From System Logic to Human Experience
The power of journey mapping didn’t lie in exposing a major failure. It lay in surfacing the small, persistent gaps that good intent alone couldn’t bridge. Gaps where our processes made perfect sense to us, but not to those they affected. And gaps where technical excellence masked emotional disconnection.
It also helped us reframe our understanding of the value chain. We moved from asking, “What’s the next step in the process?” to “How does this feel for the person experiencing it?”
That shift sparked deeper empathy, richer conversations, and more thoughtful design.
Elevating Journey Mapping to Strategic Leadership
At an executive level, journey mapping becomes far more than a design exercise. It becomes a strategic tool. By revealing the lived experience of customers, it helps leaders:
Decide where to invest in capability to create the biggest impact;
Identify where to simplify or automate to reduce friction;
Shift from contract compliance to experience differentiation - turning service into a competitive advantage; and
Scale insights across portfolios, embedding empathy into culture and operating models.
In our case, journey mapping became a bridge between operational delivery and strategic growth. By showing what really mattered to end users, it unlocked stronger trust, higher satisfaction, and even organic contract growth.
Lessons Learned and Common Traps
The biggest trap is to treat journey mapping as another process map. If the output is a diagram rather than a story, it risks missing the point. The value lies in making the invisible visible. Surfacing feelings as well as facts, experiences as well as steps.
For leaders, three questions can help:
What does this service feel like for the people experiencing it?
Where are we unintentionally creating friction, despite our best intent?
How could small changes improve both outcomes and experience?
Reflection: Designing with Empathy
Journey mapping reminded us that technical brilliance is only part of the picture. If we want to lead with purpose and simplify complexity, we must consider the human experience alongside systems thinking.
Sometimes, the most powerful improvements begin not with a spreadsheet, but with a conversation.
Closing Reflection
What would it mean if your next improvement started not with data analysis, but by asking how the service actually feels?
👉 In the next article, I’ll explore the Business Model Canvas: a framework that distils strategy onto a single page and helps leadership teams create shared alignment.
