The surprise
A well-constructed customer's journey has a massive influence on the organization and its directors since it allows an innovative way of thinking and avoiding fixed views.
During the first times in which we presented the analysis of the customer's journey to organizations, we were stunned by the great interest it had created, even among experienced executives that came a bit skeptical to the meeting. The ability to look at an external analysis of the genuine customer's experience creates empathy and understanding among the corporate clients, sets the issues and the challenges of the journey in an explicit way and allows the organization to focus on the solutions’ development.
From our experience at Whiteboard, the process is extremely powerful and effective.
Many organizations speak about the customer's journey, but not all of them are able to make this tool useful and beneficial for them. After various solutions' design with our clients, using the customer journey tool, we've been able to acquire many insights. We wish to share with you three key thoughts:
First thought - where does the journey begin? What is the earliest touchpoint that we should explore?
For example, in a hospital – the first touchpoint is the beginning of the customer’s pain.
For a travel agent – the Touchpoint is the live event that drives people to consider a vacation.
When we address these touchpoint and what comes after them, we not only get a glimpse of the thing that drives the process and brings the user to us. We get a large amount of opportunity areas for the interactions we can create with our customer, where we can influence his choices and decisions.
Second thought – it's not just about us! An impactful customer journey doesn't merely consist of the stages he goes through in our organization. His journey comes across contact points he has in different places, which helps him to reach his own goals.
Think about paying at the post office before you renew your driver's license.
Imagine you walk in the mall, on the way to a clothing store. The coffee stand, the signs and even the traffic in the parking lot you come across are an integral part of your journey to the store and have an impact on the decision making process regarding your purchase.
Opportunities for innovative solutions can be found in places you are not even aware of, but that the customer does encounter in his journey.
Third thought – different customers have different journeys. Many organizations use a single ‘mainstream’ customer journey. There is no such thing.
Image the elderly customer of a bank Vs. The young one.
Think of the people who work from home – the ones that have young children and the ones that doesn't.
Their experiences throughout the journey are entirely different from each other. We must be aware of these differences and reflect them in the solutions we design.
All in all, the customer's journey model allows us to map, be aware and be surprised by our customers' needs, limitations and desires.
Furthermore, the customer journey lets us control the organization's various interactions with its customers, redesign them, meet them at points they did not expect and gives you a competitive advantage at the moment of truth.
The encounter between those two worlds constitutes a powerful tool for planning an innovative and impactful solution – for customers, for your organizations and for yourself.
Want to design your effective customer journey?
*CDRI Taiwan Project, Conducted By Designthinkers Group, Amsterdam