In 2004 I was the co-founder of a business at Hewlett Packard that crafted a customer experience from the ground up. Granted, I worked with some of the best experience designers in the world – Dreamworks Animation – who taught me a great deal about delivering an exceptional experience. They taught me how every detail in a user interaction with our solution needed to be focused on that experience. I was a dedicated apprentice, and I learned to craft not just the solution but the service, operations and business model as well.
Delivering delight to our customers wasn’t rocket science, but it required a shift in focus from what was best for HP to what was best for the customer. We needed to look at every aspect of our business from the outside in. And everyone in the business needed to understand the experience we wanted to deliver, questioning whether the decisions they made would convey the desired experience. They needed to step into our customer’s shoes and see how it felt to interact with their department.
Since then I have worked with many organizations who are putting customer experience first in their business. Those that do it right, that succeed in delivering delight to their customers at every interaction, are the businesses that are winning in the market.
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Uber is a classic case in point. In fact, customer experience is the number one way an established business can stay ahead of new competitors that are starting to encroach on their space. And an important tool in creating that excellent experience is the customer journey map.
Mapping the Customer Journey
Forrester recently conducted a study on the use of customer journeys to build an experience. Besides showcasing the business return from investing in customer journeys, this study really highlights the need for a holistic, collaborative approach to customer experience. Engagement from employees across functions in designing and delivering an experience is exactly where you are unique. No other business has the same collection of creative minds working with your customers!
If you are familiar with Lean methodologies, customer journey mapping has some similarities. Here is a flow to follow for starting to build a customer experience strategy for your business using a customer journey map:
- Ask every department to spend some time listening to your customer. What do they enjoy about their interactions with you? What are their pain points?
- Gather a cross-functional team to map out the entire customer journey as it is today. Capture highs and lows of each step in the journey. What are their workarounds? What makes them smile?
- Capture the key task your customers are trying to achieve. What does success mean to them? What outcomes do they want to avoid?
- Compare your customer success metrics to your brand message. Are you aligned with your customer’s definition of success?
- Map out the ideal customer journey. Identify improvements that can be made in every department and start to implement, measure and iterate.