Prioritizing Improvements Based on Customer Impact
Not all problems are equal. The key to lasting CX improvement isn’t fixing everything—it’s fixing the right things first.
Over two decades of guiding CX transformations has taught me one truth: process complexity and technical effort don’t drive customer satisfaction. Only pain points that customers feel do. BPMN isn’t just a diagramming tool—it’s your lens for seeing which journey steps hurt most and which changes are actually feasible.
This chapter shows how to combine journey insights, process complexity, and implementation effort into a single prioritization framework. You’ll learn how to use BPMN models as decision-making maps—turning abstract frustrations into actionable, high-impact changes.
Why Prioritization Matters in CX
Every organization faces the same challenge: infinite issues, finite resources.
Yet teams often prioritize based on internal urgency, not customer impact. That’s why we need a structured method—one rooted in visibility, data, and human experience.
BPMN gives you both. It shows not just what happens in a journey, but who’s involved, where delays occur, and how each step affects the customer. That visibility is the foundation for smart, sustainable prioritization.
Building a Framework: Customer Impact vs Effort Analysis
Start by understanding your journey through the customer’s eyes. Not just their emotions—but the actual pain points that make them hesitate, abandon, or complain.
Then, for each pain point, assess two things:
- Customer Impact: How severely does this step affect satisfaction, retention, or conversion?
- Effort to Fix: What’s required to improve it—new systems, process rework, cross-functional alignment, staff training?
Not every high-impact problem needs to be fixed first. And not every easy fix will move the needle. The goal is to find the sweet spot: high impact, low effort.
Use BPMN to Visualize the Trade-Offs
Go beyond spreadsheets. Use your BPMN model to annotate pain points directly on the flow.
For example:
- Mark a long wait time with a red flag near a Wait for Approval activity.
- Add a note to a Submit Documentation step: “Frustration point: 78% abandonment rate.”
- Link a Complaint Escalation path to a data source showing repeat failure rates.
Now, you’re not just listing problems—you’re seeing them in context. That context reveals what’s truly blocking progress.
Step-by-Step: Choosing Which Journey Steps to Improve
Here’s how I guide teams through this process, using BPMN as the shared language.
- Map the journey with BPMN: Include all major steps, decisions, handoffs, and exceptions.
- Identify pain points: Use customer feedback, support tickets, and journey analytics.
- Annotate BPMN with impact scores: Score each step from 1 (low) to 5 (high) for customer frustration.
- Estimate effort: Use a 1–5 scale: 1 = minor change, 5 = rewrite an entire system.
- Plot on a matrix: Place each step in a grid—Impact (y-axis) vs Effort (x-axis).
Now, focus on the top-right quadrant: high impact, low effort. These are your quick wins and your best starting points.
Example: Onboarding Journey in a Financial App
Consider a mobile banking app’s onboarding process. The BPMN reveals:
- Step: “Verify Identity via Document Upload”
- Customer Impact: 4.8 (high abandonment at this step)
- Effort to Fix: 2 (can simplify UX, reduce fields, add real-time validation)
That step belongs in the “quick win” zone. Fixing it improves completion rates with minimal technical work.
By contrast, a step like “Verify SSN with Third-Party Service” might be a 5 on impact—but a 5 on effort. It’s not the right place to start.
Using BPMN Guided CX Prioritization
BPMN isn’t just about flow—it’s about clarity, ownership, and alignment.
When you annotate a BPMN model with pain points and effort estimates, you’re not just documenting. You’re starting a conversation.
Stakeholders see:
- Where the customer suffers.
- Who owns each step.
- Why one change may matter more than another.
This transparency helps teams agree on priorities—without politics, without guesswork.
When to Prioritize High Impact, High Effort Steps
Not every improvement fits the “low effort, high impact” mold. Some high-impact problems require systemic change.
Here’s when to consider them:
- You’re building a new product or service.
- Multiple pain points stem from the same root cause (e.g., outdated legacy system).
- Fixing one step unlocks improvements in 3–5 others.
In such cases, your BPMN model becomes a roadmap. It shows the dependencies and ripple effects of change.
Decision Matrix: Choosing Which Journey Steps to Improve
Use this simple table to guide your decisions.
| Impact/Effort | Low Effort | High Effort |
|---|---|---|
| High Impact | Do this first. Quick wins. | Plan long-term. Justify with ROI. |
| Low Impact | Do only if low risk and time permits. | Do not prioritize. |
Always anchor decisions in data—not opinions. Use BPMN to prove the pain point, not just assume it.
Real-World Insight: From Chaos to Clarity
I once worked with a telecom company whose support journey had 120+ steps across 8 departments. Customer satisfaction scores were dropping. But no one could agree on what to fix.
We rebuilt the journey in BPMN. Annotated it with real data: abandonment rates, average resolution time, support ticket volume.
Then we scored each step. The top 3 improvements? All in the “high impact, low effort” zone:
- Adding a self-service FAQ for password resets (effort: 1, impact: 5).
- Adding a confirmation email after form submission (effort: 1, impact: 3).
Fixing these three steps boosted satisfaction by 22% in 90 days—without a single new system.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I measure customer impact in BPMN?
Annotate each activity with metrics: abandonment rate, average time, complaint volume, or NPS score. Use color coding or icons to highlight high-impact areas.
Can BPMN help me choose which journey steps to improve, even without data?
Start with voice-of-customer feedback, frontline stories, or support logs. Use those to identify pain points, then validate with data. BPMN helps you visualize and prioritize even with limited quantitative data.
What if the highest-impact step requires high effort?
Don’t ignore it—just don’t start there. Break the problem into phases. Use BPMN to model the migration path: what changes first, what’s next. Show the long-term vision.
How often should I re-evaluate my prioritization?
Review every 3–6 months, or after major changes to the journey. Use updated data and feedback. The BPMN model is not static—it evolves with the experience.
Is BPMN guided CX prioritization only for large enterprises?
No. The method scales to teams of any size. The key is clarity. Even a simple BPMN sketch can surface insights that spreadsheets miss.
How do I get stakeholders to agree on pain points and effort?
Use the BPMN model as a shared workspace. Invite CX, IT, and operations to annotate together. Disagreements often stem from misaligned understanding—BPMN makes the journey visible to all.
