Unifying Silos to Reimagine the E2E Customer Journey
Service Design | Strategy | 2025
[ Hellon |Consultancy Porject ]
About Client
A heritage UK energy and home services provider, trusted by generations of households for power, heating, and home care solutions. Referred to as "UK Energy Co" throughout this case study for confidentiality reasons.
Team
Andreas Pattichis
Cameron Suckling
Olivia Li
Timeline
3 Month
Project Overview
For years, the company operated its Energy and Services divisions in silos, unintentionally creating a fragmented experience for customers. Internal reviews revealed that valuable cross/up-selling opportunities were being missed — opportunities with strong potential to drive business growth. It became increasingly clear that change was needed. This project was launched to explore how a more connected approach could unlock value, deliver more meaningful experiences, and build long-term customer trust
Why this project...
The Challenge
How might we break down internal silos to build a shared view of the full customer journey and deliver more connected, user-focused, and needs-driven services?
My Role
As a junior service designer, I supported the end-to-end design process, working independently on key artefacts while collaborating closely with senior designers to ensure alignment and impact across the project.
Took ownership of drafting core design artefacts such as service maps, frameworks, and journey visuals, later refined with senior input.
Draft interview guideline and supported stakeholder interviews and internal research activities.
Synthesised insights through note-taking, affinity mapping, and analysis.
Contributed to defining cross-/up-sell principles and concept directions.
Worked closely with senior designers to refine outputs and align with project goals.
Project Objectives
This project embarked on a two-phase journey to first identify and then demonstrate the value of an end-to-end customer lifecycle view.
Phase 1
Phase 1 focused on understanding the current state, identifying opportunities and blockers, and proposing cross-sell concepts.
Phase 2
Phase 2 validated these ideas through quick-win pilot campaigns, using simple but high-impact solutions to test integration and build confidence for deeper alignment between Energy and Services.
Phase 1 Outcome
Reimagining the Customer Lifecycle Through Strategic Design Thinking
Delivered a clear end-to-end view of the customer journey, identified high-impact cross-/up-sell opportunities, and uncovered key capability gaps. Provided a future-state vision and prioritised campaign ideas to guide integration and support long-term business growth.
Phase 1 Outcome include:
Challenge analysis
Opportunity overview
As-is lifecycle map
Cross/up-sell principles
To-be lifecycle map
Concept overview
Capability gap analysis matrix
Phase 1 imapct
Impact Summary
The project established a strategic foundation for more connected, customer-centric cross-/up-sell efforts. It aligned teams across both business areas, raised awareness of shared goals, and reimagined what a seamless customer experience could look like. Six cross-/up-sell concepts were developed to support quick-win campaigns in Phase 2, helping to validate the approach and build confidence for deeper integration between Energy and Services.
Design Process
A simplified version of how I got there
A modified Double Diamond approach was used to efficiently unpack problems, align the team around a shared vision, and support the design and iteration of strategic solutions.
Discover
Kick-off
Insight Review
(30+ internal documents)
Stakeholder interview
(10 Stakeholder interview)
Pricing & proposition
Brand strategy & positioning
AI Product and Strategy
CRM Capability
Customer Operations & Sales
BG Service & solutions
Field force project
Define
As-is Map
Synthesis & Alignment
Identified early opportunity areas for cross-/up-selling
Identified common challenges (e.g. split systems, team silos)
StrategyLAB Workshop
To-be Mapping
Interim Playback
Vision
Cross/Up-sell Principles
Concept Development
Consolidated 23 ideas into 6 key customer-facing concepts
Strategy Capability Gap Analysis
Assessed internal readiness (tech, processes, people)
Finalisation & Playback
Outlined potential Phase 2: pilot and customer validation
Develop
Phase 2
on going...
Deliever
Phase 2
on going...
Discover the silos
Insights
Comprehensive Insight Review:
We began by analysing existing internal documentation, encompassing brand strategy, customer insights, and existing journeys, to build an initial understanding of the current state and identify any pre-existing knowledge around cross-selling efforts.
In-depth Stakeholder Interviews:
To gain a richer, 'inside-out' perspective, we conducted 10 stakeholder interviews involving 19 individuals from across both Energy and Service. These conversations aimed to uncover current challenges, strategic objectives, and existing cross-selling initiatives, highlighting the silos in strategies, systems, customer attention, and the blocked workforce.
Define Opportunities
As-is journey mapping
Strategically, we visualised the current customer experience across both Energy and Services in a shared lifecycle. This 'as-is' map served as a powerful communication tool, illustrating the fragmented journey and highlighting key opportunity areas where customer needs were not being met holistically. The map was a hypothesised view based on internal insights, acknowledging the need for future customer validation.
We have identified 5 areas - 17 immediate opportunities for cross/up-sell within the customer journey
StrategyLAB workshop
A collaborative one-day workshop brought together key stakeholders and sponsors. This was a pivotal moment where we recapped the project objectives, shared findings from the 'as-is' assessment, and co-created and prioritised 23 cross-selling and up-selling ideas. This session fostered a shared vision and facilitated a collaborative capability gap analysis.
Design Principle
Why Cross-/Up-Sell Principles Were Developed
The cross-/up-sell principles were created to address operational silos, fragmented customer experiences, and a business-led approach that overlooked customer needs. They serve as a foundation for unifying communications, recognising multi-product customers, and empowering frontline staff. Most importantly, they shift the strategy from reactive selling to a proactive, needs-based approach rooted in customer value.
Recognising Customers
UK Energy CO. ensures multi-product customers are recognised and treated with guaranteed service excellence.
Driven by Needs
UK Energy CO. is highly aware of customer needs, answering their problems with personalised products and services.
Unified Voice
UK Energy CO. is a reliable partner within customers’ lives, providing seamless support across Energy and Services within all channels.
How They Enable Future Work
These principles provide a clear, strategic foundation for all cross-/up-sell initiatives, aligning teams across the business around shared goals and consistent messaging. Built on research and stakeholder input, they define clear customer and employee promises that guide experience design, staff enablement, campaign development, and future tooling. By grounding future initiatives in these principles, the business can scale cross-/up-sell efforts in a way that’s both cohesive and customer-centric.
Envisioning the “To-Be”
About “To-be” lifecycle
The to-be lifecycle map is a visual representation of UK Energy Co's future state customer experience within its Service and Energy business.
It showcases the north star which enables cross/up-sell across Energy and Service whilst placing greater attention to key moments for multi-product owner customers.
How it help client moving forward
The map is a living framework that can be used to plan and highlight cross/up-sell moments across multiple stages, with an awareness of the holistic experience.
Assumptions:
Energy and Services will remain as separate business units.
Customer data will move without disruption between Energy and Services.
All platforms interconnected across energy and services.
Instead of a product/service-driven approach, we used “I need…” statements to reflect a needs-driven mindset.
How I develop ideas into concepts
Concept Development Flow
Concept example
How to Read a Concept
Concept overview
What I have learn
Reflection
Aligning and Prioritising Stakeholder Needs
We began by analysing existing internal documentation, encompassing brand strategy, customer insights, and existing journeys, to build an initial understanding of the current state and identify any pre-existing knowledge around cross-selling efforts.
Rapid Industry Familiarisation
I developed a quick-start approach to understand unfamiliar industries in short timeframes. This helped me deliver relevant insights and recommendations, even under tight timelines.
Creating Reliable Insights Without Direct Customer Input
When customer interviews aren’t possible due to budget, I rely on existing client research, internal expertise, and market references. I clearly label assumptions vs. facts to maintain transparency, and frame insights to be relevant, realistic, and actionable.
Crafting Actionable, Neutral Insight Narratives
I focus on writing insights that are clear, direct, and solution/actionable-oriented—avoiding unnecessary context or a blame tone. This helps stakeholders act on insights without defensiveness. For problem-identification projects, insights may take the form of well-defined problem statements to guide next steps.