Cluster 01 · Home Service Operations Ecosystem

The ResearchUnderstanding the Problem

How do I know
what is the right problem to solve?

To answer that question, I gathered perspectives from everyone involved in the service. I collected insights from 65 people across three stakeholder groups. Although each described different frustrations, a common pattern began to emerge.

Five artifacts, in the order they were made.

An engraved illustration: a magnifying glass resting over customer, technician and operations survey forms, with a pocket watch and handwritten notes around them. Inside the lens, three figures are labelled Customers, uncertainty and lack of visibility; Technicians, manual work and missing information; Operations and Dispatch, no real-time visibility. Circled in red beneath them: what is the common problem? Two pinned notes read what do they really need to know, and patterns, not problems.

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Surveys

Gathering the evidence

The surveys gave each group a voice in the same system. What looked like three different sets of frustrations began pointing toward the same underlying problem.

Different roles. Different frustrations.
The same need: One Shared View.

A pinned paper card headed: everyone asked for the same thing, nobody called it the same name. Customers didn't mind waiting, they minded not knowing. Technicians didn't mind being tracked, they minded being the one who had to keep every customer informed all day on top of the actual work. Operations didn't mind coordinating, they minded calling every technician every hour just to find out what was already happening. A taped strip at the foot reads: three complaints, one missing thing, visibility.

Every persona attribute came from a survey response, not an assumption.

Online surveys, interviews and text outreach, professional and personal networks, industry and online communities.

Affinity Mapping

Organizing the evidence

Grouped the research observations into meaningful themes, revealing patterns that individual responses alone couldn't expose.

Fragmented Information connected every pain point.

Six themes across all three stakeholder groups.

Affinity map with six themed columns: Visibility and Tracking, Communication Gaps, Reporting Method, Scheduling and Delays, Preparedness, and Tool Satisfaction. Each column holds colour-coded observation cards drawn from customer, technician and dispatch responses. A key insight panel below states that the problem is not speed or workload but that updates rely on people manually relaying information instead of one shared system. — Six themes across all three stakeholder groups.

Service Blueprint

Showing what's hidden

Connected customer actions with frontstage and backstage processes to reveal operational dependencies, communication breakdowns, and hidden inefficiencies.

Hidden Operational Processes shaped the customer experience.

Current state above future state, for every stakeholder and the systems beneath them.

Service blueprint pairing current state and future state rows for customer, technician, dispatch and systems across six stages from Schedule to Completion. Lower sections map pain points and opportunities per group, and a research findings panel lists the improvements stakeholders identified as most valuable. — Current state above future state, for every stakeholder and the systems beneath them.

Journey Maps

Tracing the experience

Mapped each stakeholder's experience across the appointment lifecycle to uncover emotional highs, frustrations, communication gaps, and opportunities for improvement.

Communication Gaps appeared throughout the entire appointment lifecycle.

Lowest point: waiting through a delay with no update.

Customer journey map across seven stages: Schedule, Waiting, Delays, Arrival, Service, Completion and Follow up. Rows show actions, thoughts, an emotion curve running from neutral to frustrated at the delay stage and uncertain at follow up, plus pain points and opportunities for each stage. — Lowest point: waiting through a delay with no update.

Personas

Giving it a face

Translated research findings into representative stakeholder profiles that captured each group's goals, pain points, behaviors, and needs.

Each role required Different Answers to make decisions.

Waiting Wendy, busy homeowner. Quote: I don't mind waiting, I mind not knowing. Needs accurate ETA, live tracking, delay notifications, status updates and technician information. Frustrated by long appointment windows and delays that are never communicated. — Waiting Wendy, the customer

Field Felix, field technician. Quote: give me the right info before I arrive and I can fix anything. Needs real time updates, better job info, automated customer notifications, inventory tracking and easier reporting. — Field Felix, the technician

Dispatch Diana, operations and dispatch manager. Quote: I need to see what is happening in the field without having to call someone to find out. Needs real time job status, inventory visibility, automated notifications, centralized scheduling and automated reports. — Dispatch Diana, operations