In Episode 8, we tackle one of the biggest blockers to CX impact: the communication gap. You’ve done the journey work, identified opportunities, and implemented solutions. But can you explain the impact in a way that drives decisions?

This episode focuses on vertical storytelling, the skill that connects customer insight to business value, leadership priorities, and investment decisions. Metrics and insights provide the context, but the real shift is how you tell the story.

The skill gap holding CX back

Most CX and service design professionals are strong horizontal storytellers. They can walk stakeholders through the customer journey from left to right, across phases and steps, in a way that builds empathy and shared understanding.

But this is also where things often stall.

In executive conversations, it usually sounds like a play-by-play:

First, the customer becomes aware, then they visit the website, then they sign up… It’s interesting, but the unspoken question quickly follows: So what should we do? Where should we invest? What actually changes if we act?

That gap is all about framing, and vertical storytelling is what bridges it. It connects journey insights to strategy, metrics, and decisions. It shows how customer pain links to opportunities, solutions, and the business goals leaders are accountable for. It also shows how those goals trace back to real customer experience.

When that logic is made explicit, journey work becomes easier to understand, easier to trust, and far more likely to drive action.

Horizontal vs. vertical: What's the difference?

Horizontal storytelling is the customer's narrative through time—awareness to consideration to purchase to onboarding. It's left-to-right through different phases. Traditional journey mapping.

Vertical storytelling connects up and down from the journey:

Going up: Customer pain → Opportunities → Solutions → Metrics → Business goals

Going down: Strategic objectives → Metrics → Customer insights → Opportunities → Solutions

Both directions show how journey work connects to business impact.

What vertical-first looks like

Instead of walking through the journey chronologically, lead with business context.

Horizontal approach: "We mapped the bag check-in journey and found several pain points around the drop-off process..."

Vertical approach: "Our goal is to reduce cost per seat mile below 14 cents while driving ancillary revenue above $75 per booking. Journey analysis identified bag drop challenges as a top pain driving both customer frustration and negative business impact. We prioritized the opportunity 'How might we simplify the bag drop process?' and implemented Mobile Pre-Drop in August. Since go-live, both metrics are trending toward target."

Same insights. Completely different impact. The journey is still there, but framed within business context.

Closing the loop with metrics

Vertical storytelling requires connecting journey work to metrics—but not inventing new ones.

The principle: Connect to metrics your business already tracks. Don't create another silo.

In Episode 2, we introduced leading and lagging indicators. Now the question is: how do you operationalize them to demonstrate impact?

The practical approach:

1. Mark when solutions go live on your metrics timeline

2. Track leading indicators (early signals like attendance rate) weekly or monthly

3. Track lagging indicators (outcomes like churn) on their normal cycle

4. Tell the cause-and-effect story with evidence

For metrics that change weekly, monthly, or quarterly, manual tracking works fine. For indicators that change daily or in real-time, integration with data sources becomes necessary.

Example from Marc's Circle community:

"We implemented 'personal outreach prior to first session' in April. Attendance rate (leading indicator) improved within weeks. By June, churn rate (lagging indicator) began decreasing. The data suggests this solution is contributing to our retention goal."

This isn't scientific proof—but it's compelling evidence connecting your work to business outcomes.

Techniques for vertical storytelling

Technique 1: Stakeholder-specific views

Different stakeholders need different levels of detail:

Executives: High-level phases, aggregated metrics, top 3 opportunities ranked by business impact, ROI projections

CX Directors: Connected lifecycle data, nested journeys by team responsibility, prioritization reports

Product/Operations teams: Detailed steps, specific quotes, opportunity requirements, solution specifications

Same underlying data, different views for different decision-making needs. Treat stakeholders as customers with different needs.

Technique 2: The vertical cascade

Show the connection explicitly—top-down or bottom-up:

Strategic objectives → Metrics → Customer insights → Opportunities → Solutions

Then trace it back up. You're making the logic visible, showing you're strategically working on things that matter to the business.

Technique 3: Lead with metrics, follow with story

Instead of: "We mapped the onboarding journey and found friction points."

Say: "Activation rate is 34%, below our 50% target. Journey analysis identified specific friction points. Here's what we implemented and here's the impact."

Metrics provide the business frame. Journey insights provide the why and how.

The mindset shift

This isn't about abandoning customer advocacy. It's about translation.

From: "I'm here to advocate for customers."

To: "I'm here to help the business succeed by understanding and serving customers better."

Both care about customers. One speaks business language.

The best presentations combine both storytelling types:

• Start vertical: Business goal, opportunity, expected impact

• Go horizontal: Customer experience, where pain happens, what customers said

• Return vertical: Proposed solution, roadmap, ROI projection

Horizontal builds empathy. Vertical drives decisions. You need both.

Key takeaways

Vertical storytelling transforms how CX communicates value to the business.

The gap: CX professionals often excel at horizontal storytelling (customer empathy) but struggle with vertical storytelling (business impact).

The shift: Lead with business context, not the journey itself. Connect customer insights explicitly to strategic objectives and metrics.

The techniques:

• Create stakeholder-specific views—same data, different focus

• Show the vertical cascade explicitly—from pain to business goal

• Lead with metrics, follow with customer story

• Combine horizontal and vertical for maximum impact

The foundation: Metrics enable vertical storytelling. Connect to existing business metrics, mark when solutions go live, and track both leading and lagging indicators to show cause and effect.

Remember: Developing vertical storytelling often requires building business acumen. Understand how your company makes decisions, what metrics matter to leadership, and how resources get allocated.

What's next?

Episode 8 completes the core Journey Management Playbook—from defining business challenges through measuring and communicating impact.

Advanced topics for future exploration include sustaining journey management over time, scaling across teams and regions, and strategic-level applications.

Further exploration

Watch the full Episode 8 for detailed demonstrations of vertical storytelling techniques and stakeholder-specific views.