The Survivor Experience
The Veterans Experience Office (VEO) and the Office of Survivors Assistance (OSA) collaborated to enhance the understanding of the Survivor experience in accessing benefits and services. Beginning in FY 2019, OSA partnered with VEO to delve into the nuances of Survivors' interactions with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). This partnership led to the development of prototype solutions in FY 2020, aiming to improve Survivor experiences. In FY 2023, OSA reengaged with VEO to revisit the 2019 Survivor research, seeking to expand upon the initial findings, update the journey map, and develop a service blueprint. This work was compleed in FY 2025.
The Survivor Journey Map visually illustrates a survivor’s entire experience (their perspective) interacting with VA, including their thoughts, feelings, and pain points, to foster empathy and identify opportunities for improvement. Its purpose is to gain a holistic understanding of the survivor’s needs, highlight inconsistencies in the user experience, and provide a shared understanding across VA to assist in designing more intuitive, seamless, and effective service and benefit delivery for the survivor.
The service blueprint maps the VA people, processes, and technologies engaged in providing services and benefits to survivors. It depicts how VA interacts behind the scenes and with the customer to create the experience for survivors, ultimately serving to align VA directly to the survivor’s needs and improve overall service and benefit delivery.
The combined artifacts provide a comprehensive, 360-degree view of both the customer's emotional and experiential journey and the internal operational processes that deliver that experience. The purpose is to bridge the gap between the external customer perspective and internal operational realities, allowing VA to identify and address pain points, optimize processes, and align internal activities to create an easy, effective, and emotionally resonate experience for survivors.
