L1 · Architecture Discovery & Audit

See how your customers really experience the business — and where it’s letting them, and your teams, down.

A 4–6 week diagnostic. We map every customer touchpoint with your commercial teams, run depth interviews with your customers to test the internal view, and benchmark against comparable organisations. You get a complete picture of where the business supports your commercial outcomes — and where it quietly undermines them.

The customer lifecycle we map

Every stage. Every touchpoint. Every handoff.

Most organisations document the customer journey in fragments — a sales process here, a service script there, an onboarding email somewhere else. L1 maps the whole lifecycle in one place: the view your commercial teams know exists but rarely see joined up.

Stage 01

Attract

  • Lead generation
  • Content & SEO
  • Paid campaigns
  • Referrals & word-of-mouth
Stage 02

Acquire

  • Enquiry & application
  • Product selection
  • Quote, price & contract
  • Activation & welcome
Stage 03

Onboard

  • First 90 days
  • Setup & data capture
  • First-value moments
  • Relationship manager intro
Stage 04

Engage

  • Day-to-day servicing
  • Self-service usage
  • Lifecycle communications
  • Relationship moments
Stage 05

Retain

  • Renewal & re-contract
  • Cross-sell & up-sell
  • Churn-risk signals
  • Satisfaction & NPS
Stage 06

Advocate

  • Case studies & references
  • Testimonials & reviews
  • Referral programmes
  • Advisory panels
How L1 works

Five steps. The same method used at DHL, Staples and O2.

The audit follows a defined sequence. Each step builds on the last. By the end, you have an evidence-based view of where the customer experience is breaking down — and why.

Agree the journey spine

Set the lifecycle stages and the scope with the sponsor and the marketing lead. Confirm how deep to go at each stage.

Map the as-is experience

Workshops with your commercial teams. Every touchpoint, every stage. Technology involvement and handoffs surfaced as we go.

Surface pain points & Moments of Truth

Internal voting in the workshops. The biggest problems named, the highest-impact moments prioritised.

Test it with your customers

Depth interviews with customers and prospects. The internal view checked against what customers actually experience.

Benchmark and synthesise

Interviews with comparable and best-in-class organisations. Findings reorganised into requirements your build team can act on.

What we capture for every touchpoint

Ten attributes. No shortcuts.

Every touchpoint across all six stages is examined against the same ten attributes. That depth is what makes the output buildable — a high-level journey map isn’t enough; your implementation partner needs the specifics.

Rational needs

What the customer is trying to get done at this point.

Emotional needs

How the customer needs to feel — confident, reassured, valued.

Frequency

How often this touchpoint happens in a typical customer lifetime.

Scale

How many customers it affects — niche, segment-specific, or universal.

Channel

Where it happens — portal, email, phone, in person, at an event.

Functional owner

Which team is accountable — marketing, sales, success, finance, IT.

Pain points

Where the touchpoint is failing today — for the customer or the team.

Root causes

People, process, or technology — and often all three at once.

Moment of Truth

Yes or no — is this make-or-break for the relationship?

KPI

How you know it’s working — the measure the board should track.

What the audit produces

Five deliverables. All ready for the board and the build team.

Every L1 produces the same five artefacts. They’re built to be acted on, not filed. Three describe where you are today. Two prepare for what comes next.

Current State Assessment

The synthesis of the audit — pain points, Moments of Truth, root causes, and technology handoffs across the whole lifecycle. Where the experience breaks down, and why.

Customer Lifecycle Map

Every touchpoint, every stage, internally validated and tested with customers. The outcome you want at each stage, made explicit.

Segmentation Framework

How to group, target and personalise. Your ideal customer profile defined and tied to the growth targets the board signed for.

Build-Phase Handover Bridge

Findings reorganised into requirements your implementation partner can build against. Not a deck of observations — a brief that translates straight into technical specs.

Quick Wins List

Actions your commercial team can take immediately, with named owners and timelines. No need to wait for the build to start.

Engagement timeline

Four to six weeks. One protected sequence.

Timing scales with scope. Entry completes in four weeks; Strategic runs to six. The work flows in a set order — discovery before voice-of-customer, voice-of-customer before benchmarking, benchmarking before synthesis.

Initiation

Sponsor alignment · document immersion · workshop prep

As-is mapping

Workshops with commercial teams · Attract & Acquire stages

Stakeholder interviews

Marketing · Sales · Success · Finance · IT · Operations

As-is mapping

Onboard · Engage · Retain · Advocate · pain points & MOTs

Voice of customer & benchmarking

Customer depth interviews · comparable-organisation benchmarks

Synthesis & board readout

Requirements specification · executive presentation · sign-off

Investment by revenue tier

Three tiers. Same deliverables. Scoped to scale.

The audit produces the same five artefacts at every tier. What scales is the number of workshops, the depth of the customer interviews, the breadth of the benchmark programme, and the integration complexity of the business being audited.

Entry

£5–20M revenue

£15K–£25K

4 weeks · single business unit

Full lifecycle map · 3 customer interviews · single-function workshops · single-session board readout.

Core

£20–100M revenue

£28K–£45K

5 weeks · multi-function

Entry deliverables · multi-function workshops · 5–8 customer interviews · 3–4 benchmark interviews · committee presentation pack.

Strategic

£100M+ revenue

£50K–£60K

6 weeks · multi-entity

Core deliverables · cross-entity workshops · 8–12 customer interviews · extended benchmark programme · two-session board readout.

Past audit outcomes

What L1 changed.

“The audit surfaced the customer pain points our teams had been working around for years. The build team finally got the requirements brief they actually needed.”
Head of Membership · UK mid-market trade body · [Anonymised]
“We were about to spend £400K on a platform replacement. The audit showed the gap was in the business, not the technology. We acted on the brief instead — and got the outcomes.”
CIO · UK mid-market industrial · [Anonymised]
The principle

Architecture before technology.

Define how the business and the customer experience must work first. Then specify what the technology has to do to support it.

Book the introduction call →