customer journey

Have you started journey mapping yet? Or are you still wondering why it's an important tool to have in your customer experience management toolbox?

Have you ever wondered why the customer experience is a journey, not a destination?

The best journeys answer questions that, in the beginning, you didn't even think to ask. -Jeff Johnson

I originally wrote today's post for Intradiem. It appeared on their blog on April 14, 2014.  

Can you name one of the most powerful and most important customer experience training tools available to your organization?

Got empathy?

There's been a lot of talk this year about empathy and the customer experience; Bruce Temkin even advocates for making 2014 the Year of Empathy.

I originally wrote today's post for Delight's blog on May 9, 2013.

In my previous post, I talked about the tools that you’ll need to facilitate the first step of your VOC strategy, Setting the Stage.

I thought these statements from the Consumer Journey report by Kantor WorldPanel reinforce the message that we have been telling our clients:

I named this blog CX Journey™ for a reason - to convey that the the customer experience is just that, a journey.

What does that mean? It means that, while it's important to look at the individual touchpoints, moments of truth, interactions, channels, etc., it's more important to remember the whole journey, the entire experience that the customer has with your brand or organization as he's trying to do whatever job it is he's trying to do.

Last August I wrote that Marketing needed to develop five key-capabilities to drive the Consumer’s Decision Journey. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend you do. Although this post can stand on itself, it may help you to see the bigger picture. A picture that looks at contextual marketing through a Service Dominant Logic lense.

Where are you on your customer experience (CX) journey? Well down the path? Just starting? Dreaming of the days when "customer experience" will become a conversation topic, never mind a priority? 

Regardless of where you are, I believe a customer journey map is in your future. If you've never created one or have never even heard of one (your name wouldn't happen to be Barney Rubble, would it?), then some basics are in order.

How well does your organization execute the omnichannel customer experience? Is there awareness around it? Is it a priority?

If you answered "No," it's time to rethink this. As I noted in a post from this summer: You must protect [your brand] at all costs. And by the way, your customers know your brand - they don't care about your business model. They care about the experience they (know they) are going to get when they enter an establishment with your name over the door. This applies not just to partnerships or licensees, which the post was referring to, but also to your various channels (store, online, phone, etc.) of operation.