Situation
Armstrong Flooring makes more floors that, well, just about anyone. Like most other manufacturing businesses, Armstrong is constantly researching new products, making its supply chain more efficient, and managing its brand.
Challenge
Given the accelerating pace of customer and retail change, the company wanted a new way of seeing what the future might bring–and a new way to know what adjustments it might have to make to stay relevant with its current and future customers.
Solution
To introduce customer experience, we started with a leader-level workshop on Journey Mapping. In the workshop, the commercial and residential teams learned the basics of creating journey maps and managing projects with them. But, they got something else too.
StoryMiners imagined a new way of making floors (based on 3D-printing floors on-site) and presented it to both teams to see how well–and how quickly–they could adapt. The future-state journey map concepts they had just learned made it much easier for them to envision the new idea and to collaborate on its execution. Team members detailed specific encounters (like in-store initial set-up, in-store operations with customers, even upgrades) which made the scenarios more believable. Each team presented its remarkable add-ons, innovations, and techniques for turning this imagined product into something they all wanted.
Results
Now, Armstrong is using Journey Maps as part of their product and service innovation as well as to help meld operations between departments—all in the name of better customer experience and more profitable business.
