Connecting Three Service Siloes That Shared the Same Customer
Situation
A real estate organization offered home sellers three pathways: a traditional agent network, a virtual brokerage, and a for-sale-by-owner tool. Each was run by a separate business unit with its own systems, staff, and assumptions about what sellers valued. From the company's perspective, these were three products. From the seller's perspective, there was one experience with uneven handoffs.
Complication
The three business units had limited visibility into each other's operations. Each optimized for its own metrics. Nobody had mapped the full seller journey across pathways or identified moments where sellers would benefit from knowing about alternatives. There were operational opportunities (communication handoffs, after-hours support, agent matching) and strategic ones (natural cross-sell moments when sellers' needs shifted mid-journey).
What I Did
I designed the research around collaborative workshops that functioned as both data collection and alignment. I conducted interviews with five recent home sellers across pathways, then facilitated service blueprinting workshops with each business unit to map current operations: customer actions, frontstage interactions, backstage activities, and support systems.
I validated a five-phase seller journey (Thinking & Researching, Preparing to List, Showing, Offering & Negotiation, Closing & Moving) and designed a future-state blueprint showing how the pathways could work together across the full experience.
Impact
Full journey mapped - Five-phase seller journey validated across all three pathways, with current-state and future-state blueprints
Breakdowns identified - 10 service breakdowns surfaced across handoff points, after-hours gaps, and communication failures
Cross-sell opportunities - Identified natural moments when sellers' needs shifted mid-journey and they would benefit from knowing about alternative pathways
Alignment achieved - Workshops gave three siloed business units shared visibility into each other's operations for the first time
Methods & Deliverables
Seller interviews | Service blueprinting workshops | Current-state and future-state journey mapping | Cross-pathway failure analysis | Stakeholder alignment facilitation