How Business Analysts Help Fix Broken Customer Experiences—and What They Really Do

Key Takeaways

• BAs turn feedback into action by identifying root causes and driving targeted improvements.
• Journey mapping reveals gaps between customer expectations and internal processes.
• Measurable impact matters—BAs track results to ensure changes improve CX and business outcomes.

What’s Going Wrong with Your Customer Experience? A Business Analyst Might Have the Answer

Customers used to love the brand. They left five-star reviews, told their friends, and came back often. But over time, the tone shifted. Support tickets went up. Social media mentions turned sour. Sales started slipping, and the once-loyal crowd began exploring other options. The company knew something was off but couldn’t pinpoint where or why. Was it the product? The service? The app? Leadership had plenty of guesses, but guesses wouldn’t cut it.

They needed someone who could cut through the noise and make sense of it all. That’s when they brought in a Business Analyst (BA).

BAs aren’t just about spreadsheets and process flows. They’re customer detectives. They dig into how people interact with a company—from the first click to the final complaint—and figure out what’s broken, missing, and can be improved. They don’t just identify issues; they help fix them, using data and real-world customer behavior to recommend smart changes.

This blog explains how Business Analysts help turn disappointing customer experiences into standout ones. From analyzing feedback and mapping customer journeys to proposing changes and avoiding the usual traps, BAs bring clarity and direction to organizations trying to earn back their customers’ trust.

Let’s look at how they do it—step by step.

Analyzing Customer Feedback: What the Data Is Really Saying

Before a business can improve the customer experience, it must know what customers are experiencing. That’s where a Business Analyst starts—by analyzing customer feedback. This analysis isn’t just about reading reviews or checking the latest Net Promoter Score (NPS). It’s about identifying patterns, themes, and trends across multiple input sources.

BAs pull feedback from a variety of channels, such as:

• Surveys (especially open-ended responses)
• Customer support tickets
• Online reviews
• Social media comments
• User interviews and focus groups

Instead of treating these as isolated pieces of feedback, the BA looks for recurring issues. Maybe customers keep saying the mobile app is hard to navigate, or perhaps they’re frustrated with the returns process. These signals help the analyst understand the root of the dissatisfaction.

To make sense of all this, a BA might:

• Categorize comments by topic (navigation, billing, delivery, etc.)
• Use sentiment analysis – manual or automated — to understand emotional tone.
• Use tools like Microsoft Excel, Power BI, or Tableau to create visual summaries (charts or heat maps) to prioritize issues.

Business Analysts help organizations move from vague complaints to actionable insights by taking a structured approach to messy data. However, knowing what customers are saying is only half the story—the next step is to understand precisely where those experiences take a wrong turn.

Customer Journey Mapping: Seeing the Whole Story

Once feedback has been analyzed, the next step is mapping the full customer journey. Most companies think they know what customers go through—but often, there’s a big gap between what the business believes and what customers experienc According to a ClearVoice study, although 48% of companies have implemented a customer journey map, only 43% have validated its accuracy against real-world data from their CRM systems.

Customer journey mapping helps connect the dots. It shows each touchpoint a customer goes through—from discovering the brand to becoming a repeat buyer (or not). This journey mapping includes things like:

• Finding the product or service
• Visiting the website
• Making a purchase
• Getting support
• Receiving follow-up communication

A Business Analyst leads this process by collaborating with key teams (marketing, support, product, and operations). They build out personas to represent different customer types and walk through every step of the experience, asking:

• What’s happening here?
• What are customers thinking and feeling?
• What’s working—and what’s not?

A clear visual map highlights where customers hit speed bumps, experience confusion, or drop off entirely. That map becomes the foundation for change—clear, credible, and ready to guide the next step.

BAs also compare the customer journey with how things work behind the scenes to spot disconnects. For example, if customers expect same-day responses but support requests aren’t checked until the next day, that’s a gap worth fixing. Aligning internal processes with the customer journey helps ensure improvements work for the people they’re meant to serve—and sets the stage for making the right changes at the right time.

Turning Customer Insights into Action

Spotting the problems is just the beginning. Business Analysts work closely with teams to translate insights into action—making improvements that matter to customers and align with business goals.

In the U.S., even when people love a company or product, 59% will walk away after several bad experiences, 17% after just one bad experience.

PwC Future of Customer Experience survey

This is where insights become action. BAs help identify which changes will likely have the most significant impact without overwhelming the business. They often facilitate prioritization discussions using tools like effort-impact grids, MoSCoW (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, Won’t-have) analysis, or cost-benefit frameworks to weigh the value of each change against time, cost, and effort—both technical and organizational.

Here are a few common outcomes:

• Redesigning the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment
• Streamlining support ticket routing to decrease wait times
• Clarifying product descriptions or return policies to avoid confusion
• Improving onboarding instructions to help new customers get value quickly

Here’s a quick example. A BA noticed customers frequently abandoned their carts after entering shipping details. Reviewing feedback and support tickets, they pinpointed frustration with surprise delivery fees. The BA worked with the product and finance teams to update the checkout page to show shipping costs earlier. Within a month, cart abandonment dropped by 22%.

In addition to defining solutions, BAs also ensure stakeholders—such as marketing managers, user experience (UX) designers, and support team leads—understand the changes and stay aligned during implementation.

BAs help translate the “what” into the “how.” They work with product managers, designers, developers, and operations teams to write clear business requirements, define success metrics, and ensure that changes align with customer expectations.

However, recommending changes is only part of the job. The BA needs to measure the results to know if they worked and adjust if needed.

Measuring Customer Experience Success

It’s easy to assume that a shiny new feature or updated process automatically improves customer satisfaction. But without tracking the right metrics, you’re just guessing again.

This is where Business Analysts shine. They help define and monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), often in collaboration with stakeholders, to show whether customer experience is improving and where adjustments are needed to meet business goals.

Some of the most useful customer experience (CX) metrics include:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) – short surveys after an interaction
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) – how likely customers are to recommend you
• Customer Effort Score (CES) – how easy it was to complete a task
• Support ticket trends – are there fewer complaints in the same area?
• Conversion and retention rates – are more people staying with the brand?

BAs don’t just track metrics—they dig into them. If something isn’t working, they go back to the journey map and the feedback to see what needs adjusting. Continuous improvement is baked into the process, making Business Analysts critical players in any company’s long-term customer strategy.

Still, even the best plans can go off track without careful execution. That’s why the next step is all about what to avoid.

Avoiding Common Mistakes in Customer Experience Improvement

Even great ideas can go sideways if you’re not careful. Improving customer experience takes more than insight—it requires avoiding the landmines that can derail your progress before it even begins. Business Analysts help spot these issues early so they don’t become expensive problems down the line.

Here are a few common traps:

• Ignoring frontline feedback – Customer-facing employees often know what’s broken before anyone else. BAs make sure their voices are heard.
• Over-focusing on averages—Designing only for the “average” user risks ignoring smaller, high-impact segments. BAs help ensure these groups aren’t overlooked.
• Making too many changes at once – Trying to fix everything at once leads to confusion, poor testing, and even worse experiences.
• Skipping stakeholder input – If the right people aren’t involved in the solution, it’s unlikely to stick.

Business Analysts keep improvement efforts grounded. They ensure that proposed changes align with real customer needs and business goals and that they’re implemented in a way that teams can support.

You’re not just fixing issues anymore—you’re building a better customer experience. That brings us to the big picture: why Business Analysts are essential and how to build those skills.

Why Business Analysis Is Key to Better Customer Experience

Suppose your customer experience is off-track, and you’re unsure where to start. In that case, a Business Analyst may be precisely who you need. BAs combine empathy with analysis, turning vague complaints into real solutions. They help you listen better, plan smarter, and build experiences your customers enjoy.

Improving the customer journey doesn’t happen by accident. It takes the right tools, a solid customer experience strategy, and people asking the right questions.

Want to build those skills yourself? Watermark Learning can help you learn how to analyze business processes, map out better customer journeys, and drive changes that boost satisfaction and loyalty. Whether you’re new to business analysis or ready to take your skills to the next level, our training helps you lead improvements that matter—for your customers and your company.

Explore our Business Analysis courses and start improving customer experiences today.