Have you tested your OWN customer journeys?

Yes, all of them. 

You see, until you experience what your customers experience, all the understanding you’ve developed with your Empathy Mapping work from the last episode will not bear fruit.

In this episode, I want to talk about your customer journeys – what, I hear you asking, there are many?  Yes, sure are! I also want to explore where they could be broken! 

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

(The Sketch for this blog post published with permission from it’s creator, Ron Showler)

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Show Notes – Broken Customer Journeys

• There are actually four customer journeys.
  1. people that come into your world and then leave again without further action;
  2. people that come into your world and want to learn more;
  3. people that come into your world to begin a relationship, such as joining your mailing list or community and
  4. people that come into your world to buy.

The Pothole Oracle

1. People might leave because it’s not the right time for them to take any further action, or it really wasn’t what they were looking for. Look over this journey, you’ll discover some traps that, if you removed or repaired, would make it easier for people to choose another journey – one that will actually help them.

2. People that come into your world and want to learn more. Be Your Own Customer. Go on these customer journeys yourself, just like a customer would.  Look for the information to learn more. You might be surprised at the potholes you discover – things that frustrate you, that will probably frustrate customers and lead them to abandon their journey.

3. People come into your world to begin a relationship. They might join your mailing list, giving you their email address in return for access to a valuable resource, or join your community.  Don’t immediately send them emails trying to sell your products! Remember, you’ve only started the relationship and they’re not yet ready for the big commitment Instead, continue to help them learn more, to help them achieve their goals, to engage them in conversations and nurture the fledgling relationship, without any expectation.

4. The fourth customer journey is the one taken by people who come into your world to buy. This is the ONE journey that most businesses focus on while ignoring the others, which leaves a large number of people that leave and go elsewhere. And then those businesses spend a lot of money trying to attract new people to the start of their ONE journey. Remember, there is the entire post-purchase experience. Provide guidance, further instruction, and accountability for the use of your product or service. 

Great marketing, empathetic, human-focused marketing meets people on each of these four customer journeys where they are at and guides them further on their particular journey.

What if you set out to build a deep relationship with people that are on all of these journeys and keep them in your world, so they progress towards achieving their desired goal as a result of their journey with you and that without any expectation? Maybe they’ll become your ideal customer, maybe not. Maybe they’ll refer others your way!

No doubt there’ll be potholes to repair right now on all of your customer journeys.  And there’ll be potholes that appear from time to time, that will need to be repaired.

Maybe you too, need a Pothole Oracle in your world!

So, go ahead – be your own customer.  Find out what the experience of each of the four customer journeys is like for your customer.  Perhaps ask a trusted person to be your Pothole Oracle!  I’m curious to find out what you discover – let me know!

My mission is to do Good Marketing, to make marketing Human, to make marketing a FORCE for GOOD – characterized by service, empathy, transparency and to make a meaningful difference to the people we care about AND to their customers too

Thank you for coming on this journey of Marketing Transformation with me. Let’s make marketing human again.

Resources

• Tales of Marketing Transformation Facebook Group – Join the Community here (Free but Priceless!)
• The InnovaBuzz Podcast – our other podcast on Innovation and Marketing, with awesome guests each week.

Listen to the Podcast