MKT.5:4.1 - Recover the customer’s wider activity and relevant expectations

Start before the provider’s first contact. Ask what the person is trying to accomplish, what other activities compete for attention, what preparation and other services are involved, and what happens after this contribution. Recover the conditions that could change the concept: urgency, access, prior experience, uncertainty, the need for independence or help, and the consequences of failure. Investigate these as practical differences, not demographic stereotypes.

Use qualified existing evidence where it is sufficient. MKT.12 can help resolve a consequential unknown about activity, expectations or experience. Specify whose account, which occasion and what time of recall it concerns. A survey after a whole service can answer a different question from a report during one encounter; neither automatically reconstructs the other.

Choose the reach needed for this decision. Include the other people, providers and customer work that can defeat the proposed experience. Do not attempt to map a person’s whole life when only a few connections matter. Retain differences between a first encounter and familiar repeated use when they change what explanation or help is needed.