Stakeholder Interviews - a Good Question to Ask
Stakeholder interviews often focus on what people do.
The gold, however, is in understanding how things move between people and teams.
The missing consideration
Stakeholder interviews are a conventional tool for mapping out a user/customer journey. We want to fully understand the process that a user/customer goes through. We want to understand their touchpoints with an organization.
What’s missing though, is one key consideration: handoffs between people/units/teams. Real frictions often happen during such transitions e.g. when Sales hands off to Development, when Support escalates to Product, when Marketing passes leads to Sales.
Hand offs matter because many things can go wrong during transitions, such as
information gets lost
expectations are misaligned
customers fall through cracks
no one owns the in-between moments
The strategic question
Therefore, an effective question to ask is:
Walk me through how you work with other units in that scenario.
What are the key handoff points during that process?
These questions reveal:
Silos and communication gaps
Misaligned incentives between teams
Where customer experience breaks down
Who owns what (or doesn’t)
Check out signals that indicate things aren’t doing well. For instance:
hesitation
frustration
phrases like “supposed to”
missing information
unclear ownership
workarounds created
The impact on user experience
Internal team misalignment has a cascading effect on the user experience - often not obvious till you map out the full picture.
For example, a service blueprint may highlight how multiple units are responsible for addressing the customer’s concern. From the vantage point of each unit, they are doing their jobs; but as a result the customer is frustrated with delays and inconsistent information.
Redesigning the handoff and overall coordination would have positive ripple effects across the entire user journey and ultimately contribute to increased satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
Key takeaway
When conducting stakeholder interviews for experience strategy, do go beyond mapping out the process. What happens between people can unearth systemic issues and open up useful opportunities.