In search of the perfect customer journey - Mapping the customer journey

1. MAPPING
JOURNEY
THE
CUSTOMER

2. MANAGEMENTSUMMARY
MAKINGSENSE
OFTHEDEFINITION
NEWCHALLENGES
ANDOPPORTUNITIES
WHATARETHE
BUSINESSBENEFITS
THERESEARCH
THESTARTINGPOINT
WALKINGINTHE
CUSTOMERS’SHOES
EMOTIONSAREGOOD
CONTENTS
REMOVINGFRICTION
SILOBUSTING
JOURNEYSARENOTLINEAR
NOTALLTOUCHPOINTSAREEQUAL
THEIMPORTANCEOFMEASUREMENT
LEADFROMTHEFRONT
PEOPLE-THE5THP
OURCONCLUSIONS
CONTENTS

3. ONE SIZE
DOESN’T
FIT ALLMANAGEMENT SUMMARY
And this is becoming an increasingly hot topic as all
businesses grapple with the increasing complexity of
a multi-channel world.
There is no one size fits all solution. All brands have
specific requirements shaped by the competitive
context, customer needs and requirements, strategic
positioning, organisational context, culture, and so on.
The key to a great experience is to build it one journey
at a time, by walking in the shoes of your customers.
We have identified some common themes which we
have brought together to stimulate thinking.
Your starting point use the brand positioning and
your understanding of the customers you serve as your
blueprint for the customer experience
Walking in the customers’ shoes design from
the outside in, not from the inside-out, with a deep
understanding of how your customers want to be treated
Get emotional great customer journeys obsess about
the feelings and emotions of customers and appeal to
their gut
Removing friction make it easy for customers to do
business with you
Silo-busting the importance of a joined up customer
experience facilitated by cross-functional working
Journeys are not linear the changing nature of the
multi-channel customer journey
Not all journeys are equal identify the journeys with
the greatest impact on the customer experience and on
business outcomes
The importance of measurement measure
satisfaction with the experience not the touchpoint
Lead from the front leadership and accountability are
critical if this is going to work
The 5th P map and design the colleague experience
to help win and retain talent and deliver an engaging
colleague experience
We believe great brands obsess, not only about
how they look, feel and behave, but about the
experience they deliver to their people, their
customers and prospects.

4. Our research identified that while there is much talk about the
customer journey, different people can mean different things
when talking about this.
We have developed this definition which we think is simple,
straightforward, and all-encompassing and combines the rational
and the emotional.
‘The customer journey is the sum of a customer’s
interactions with a brand designed to deliver a brand
affirming customer experience’
We will use this definition through this paper.
And the journey will start long before the customer directly interacts
with the brand, before they might even be a customer, in channels
the brand might not even own, and might finish long after it thinks the
customer has stopped interacting with it.
We have found that many businesses think that it is processes that
define the customer journey and the customer experience. This is
wrong. And we will discuss why in this paper.
In summary think of the journey as a route through the following key
stages of the customer lifecycle:
• Awareness • Research • Purchase • On boarding • Servicing
• Re-engagement • Dis-engagement
In the remainder of this paper we will share our thinking on some
things to be considered when thinking about how the customer
experience might be improved across all touchpoints through each
stage of the customer lifecycle.
We think the learnings discussed here can help build
business success.
Making sense of the
DE FI N IT ION

5. The world is becoming increasingly complex. We now live in
a multi-channel world and this presents new challenges and
new opportunities for anyone in the business of selling and
servicing customers.
And success will require an understanding
of this new reality and how to interact
seamlessly with customers, across all
channels, and with relevant and timely
communications, that combine to deliver
a great experience that truly delights.
Customers today have many more ways and
a more complex mix of channels to use to
check out the market, compare prices, buy
products and services, raise a service query,
make a complaint or leave, sometimes for
good. However all are looking for the best
value; for confirmation that they have bought
the right brand; for the easiest buying
experience; and for the most personalised,
most knowledgeable service.
If brands are truly to deliver on their promise
to customers, they must pay close attention
to the experience they deliver. To provide
distinctiveness and differentiation, and
sustainable competitive advantage.
We are often asked to help clients
understand and improve the customer
experience in this multi-channel world.
And as people passionate about customers
and as an agency committed to helping
businesses grow their business, we wrote
to share our learnings and our thinking.
This is not a ‘How To Manual’ but a
collection of thoughts from our experience
and our research to stimulate your thinking.
NEW
CHALLENGES
OPPORTUNITIES
AND

6. The design and development of a successful customer journey can optimise business
benefit in three significant ways:
business benefits
1 2 3Identification of new business
models and income streams
The development of click and
collect business models by many
retailers was facilitated by a deep
dive understanding of the customer
journey. This allowed them to see
the issues inherent with their
existing customer journey and how
this might be changed to reflect
changing customer needs and
technology enabled opportunities.
Consequently new business models
were developed to defend existing
revenue streams and generate
new ones.
Reduction of costs
Time and time again we saw
businesses using detailed customer
journey planning to identify and
eliminate duplicated costs and
unnecessary hand-offs and to
eliminate significant levels
of waste without impacting on,
and indeed sometimes enhancing,
the customer experience.
Improved levels of
customer satisfaction
There is significant evidence that
high levels of customer satisfaction
on service elements that matter
most to customers, result in higher
levels of customer retention, cross
sales and on-going business
profitability. A carefully considered
customer journey mapping
programme can only help deliver
more satisfied customers leading
to higher business profitability
through repeat purchase, low
customer churn and positive
word of mouth.
What are the
“In our mind
customer journey
mapping and
execution pays.”
business benefits

7. We set out to answer the question ‘how are top companies re-designing
their customer journeys to cope with the complexities of an increasingly
complex multi-channel world?’
We wanted to identify some of the common themes that companies think
about when addressing this challenge. And in identifying these themes
we first read the academic literature to provide a framework to aid our
discussion with industry leaders.
We followed this up with a series of discussions with customer journey
champions in online and ‘clicks and bricks’ businesses across a broad range
of sectors including:
• Automotive • Energy • Events and Exhibitions • Financial Services
• Government Agency • Retail • TelCo • Tourism • Transport
It is the learning and insight from these discussions, our experience of
working in this field as an agency and as clients, and our reading that we
have distilled into the thinking that we outline over the following pages.
IDENTIFYING THE BUILDING BLOCKS TO A MULTI-CHANNEL WORLD

8. THE
STARTING
POINT
MANY SUGGESTED THAT THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
IS THERE TO HELP DELIVER THE BRAND PROMISE.
IT MUST THEREFORE BE ALIGNED WITH AND
SUPPORTIVE OF THE STRATEGIC INTENT OF THE
BUSINESS AND THE BRAND.
The brand acts as the blue print and without
this as the starting point customers will be
alienated and confused; unnecessary cost
added to the business.
EVERYTHING STARTS FROM THE
BRAND AND THE CUSTOMER
Head of Marketing,
High St Retailer
If we think about air travel as an example,
everything about the Ryanair customer
journey will align with its overall strategy as
a cost leader whereas BA seeks to deliver a
more premium experience.
And if the brand is one starting point
the other must be the customer. Our
research stressed time and time again the
importance of understanding customers’
rational and emotional needs.
There is no such thing as a universal journey
that will satisfy all customers in all mindsets.
Businesses will design journeys to mirror
the customer and mind-set segments that
informs much of their business thinking
and marketing strategy.
WHEN YOU FLY RYANAIR YOU
EXPECT A VERY DIFFERENT
EXPERIENCE FROM THAT YOU
WOULD GET WHEN FLYING WITH
BRITISH AIRWAYS
Marketing Director, Telco
CASE STUDY
One of the UKs most iconic tourist venues
designed its customer journeys around
its globally recognised brand and around
the customer segments and mindsets
of its visitors, shaping the experiences
it delivered accordingly.
As a brand which sees itself as being about
‘edu-tainment’ it creates an experience
which ‘preserves its historic heritage and
distinctiveness in a homogenised world’.
It allows its customers to walk into and to
experience another world and this dictates
many of the choices it makes.
And having established the brand context
for its experience, it designed a seamlessly
integrated online and offline customer
journey from start to finish for its core target
segments and mindsets:
• Icon Seekers, requiring a light touch and
a quick journey dip-in and experience,
who wanted to say ‘been there, done it,
got the t-shirt’.
• Consuming Families, seeking a truly
involving and highly participatory
educational and entertainment
experience which they could do together
• Trippers of a Lifetime, looking to linger, to
prolong and to capture the experience,
to make memories with heavy reliance on
online channels to prolong the experience
and the memory
By aligning the experiences with its brand
heritage and against the varying mindsets
of its customers, the brand was able to
evoke a range of emotions in its customers
and to deliver the experience they were
looking for.

9. GREAT CUSTOMER JOURNEYS ARE DESIGNED FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
AND THE BIGGEST CAUSE OF FAILURE IS WHEN THEY ARE DESIGNED
FROM THE INSIDE OUT. IN OTHER WORDS, CUSTOMER JOURNEY
MAPS NEED A CUSTOMER EYE VIEW OF THE BUSINESS.
There is a big difference between an
inside out process design and outside-in
customer journey design.
Inside out designs focus on the interests
of the business and not the customer and
will aim to maximise process and cost
efficiency. Such journeys focus on rational
internal content such as workflows, hand-
offs, scripts and the like.
“THE BIGGEST RISK FACED BY BUSINESSES
IS THAT THEY THINK OF THE JOURNEY AS
A PROCESS...ANY BUSINESS WANTING TO
EXAMINE ITS CUSTOMER JOURNEYS MUST
DO SO FROM THE OUTSIDE IN AND LEARN
TO WALK IN THE CUSTOMERS SHOES.”
DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE,
PUBLIC SECTOR
Such designs will not consider the needs
of the customer, their emotions and
feelings. A great customer experience
should evoke emotions. This requires real
outside-in thinking and insight.
Many businesses involved in our research
recognised that customer journey mapping
exercises do set out with best intentions
to develop a customer-centric design, but
the intense internal knowledge of those
involved in the design programme, mean
that without careful moderation these
programmes will soon drift from outside-in
to inside-out thinking.
“INSIDE-OUT JOURNEY DESIGN IS ABOUT
WHAT A BUSINESS WANTS THE CUSTOMER
TO DO-THIS IS NOT WHAT THE CUSTOMER
WANTS YOU TO DO.”
HEAD OF MARKETING, AUTOMOTIVE
Businesses that succeed in designing and
delivering a customer experience that totally
fulfils the rational and emotional needs of
customers, make great efforts to walk in the
shoes of their customers and will use intense
moderation to do this well.
Walking in the customers’ shoes to ensure an
outside-in approach to customer experience
design is the key principle to emerge from
our research.
SHOES
WALKING IN THE CUSTOMERS’
CASE STUDY
A conference and exhibition centre
ensured all involved in the design of its
customer journey re-vamp learned to
walk in the shoes of its customers.
With intense facilitation through
workshops, they ensured that an
outside-in approach was maintained.
The business used as a matter of course
a detailed customer segmentation model
to drive its marketing and operational
programmes. This was used to develop
detailed customer pen profiles and each
participant involved in the journey mapping
exercise was asked to adopt a customer
and to live in the skin of this customer.
Using this biography, encompassing a
range of hard and soft facts covering
demographic, attitudinal and emotional
factors, each participant in advance of
the workshop was asked to experience
the experience of this customer from the
outside in; to log what they did and how it
made them feel along with other thoughts
and emotions; and to capture ideas
for improvement.
This information and these insights
were brought into a workshop process in
which the participants were kept strictly in
character through the moderation process.
At every stage in the design process the
workshop would ask itself how my customer
would respond if this was to happen; how
would they feel/were feeling at this stage;
what would they want to happen next; how
would they want to be treated and spoken
to; and so on.
This was ‘likened to the process of
method acting’. However, it was a highly
effective way of walking in the customers’
shoes to build an outside-in customer
journey to deliver an outstanding
customer experience.

10. E m o t i o n s a r e g o o d
We often find that customer journeys are built to improve
responsiveness, speed and efficiency, and service
quality satisfaction. Brands are built to satisfy rational
and emotional needs so why is this not reflected in the
Customer Journey?
More and more brands are realising that customer
experiences are driven by both emotional and rational
factors. They are still asking ‘how quickly must I do this?’
but also want to understand how they must satisfy
customer feelings.
Here customer journey planning will consider the
emotional needs of the customer before designing
the interventions in the experience that will do this.
Journeys that meet and even exceed emotional and
rational expectations are truly high performing, offering
high levels of distinctiveness and differentiation.
Best practice would add emotion mapping to identify
how customers are feeling at each stage of the journey
and how they might like to feel or could feel. The gap
between could feel and might be feeling can be closed
through ‘gut appealing’ interventions and moments of
emotional theatre.
Case Study
A leading High St financial services business
considered the emotions of its customers within
its mortgage business when re-designing its
customer journey.
Previously the focus was on redeeming the mortgage
quickly and efficiently with the minimum of fuss.
Processes were designed to deliver against a time-
driven SLA. It was cold and ruthlessly efficient and met
the customer need for speed and efficiency with the
minimum of fuss and the barest of communication.
Through emotion mapping the business identified
that this could be a key milestone in the customer’s
mind – they now fully owned the house they had spent
the last 25 years trying to buy. And they expected their
bank to recognise the significance of the event.
On understanding this emotion, the bank injected
greater empathy into its staff and scripts and letters
to acknowledge the significance of the event.
The journey for the customer still remained efficient
but it was now done in a warmer and more empathetic
manner fully acknowledging the emotional needs state
of the customer.
“We are always looking to find
ways to appeal to the gut...so we
set out in our customer journey to
build an emotional connection.”
Marketing Director, Transport
“I am constantly looking to
understand how my customer
is feeling? How do they want
to feel? How can I help?”
Head of Marketing, Tourism

11. Case Study
A High St phone retailer had developed its
channels in isolation and over time leading
to a substantive lack of integration and a
high level of friction.
Pricing online differed from in-store
pricing; the stock was different; store
assistants were unable to answer queries
about online stock; phones bought online
could not be collected or returned in-store;
and its support centres were divided on
channel lines.
The result was a hugely splintered channel
and customer service proposition, high
levels of customer dissatisfaction and
unnecessary costs.
Starting with the buying and after-sales
support journeys the business re-
designed the customer experience around
the customer and not the channel.
Pricing and product range were made
consistent across the channels with
channel pricing used for selective tactical
promotions and not as a pricing strategy.
Information was made available across
all touchpoints on all products and the
channels re-positioned to complement
not compete.
Additionally a click and collect proposition
was developed; phones bought online could
be returned and serviced in-store; and the
sales support was available online.
The result – a better customer, more
joined up customer experience; improved
customer satisfaction; reduced churn;
better business results.
All businesses should m
ake it as easy as possible for the custom
er do business with, whether researching
a product or service, buying it, or raising a service query or a com
plaint. Indeed, this m
ust be a highly
desired outcom
e from
any custom
er journey design.
This can be difficult for any customer
journey design but has proved especially
troublesome in a multi-channel world
where touchpoints have been developed in
isolation, at different times and in different
silos with different accountabilities,
ownership and even strategies. This leads
to an experience loaded with friction.
And customers want an experience that
is seamless and fully integrated, not
splintered. They expect an experience that
provides access to informative content
across all channels and touchpoints; to be
able to order and buy anytime, anywhere;
to be able to use the same payment
methods, account, loyalty and gift cards in
all channels; to be able to collect ordered
products in store; to have goods delivered
anywhere and anytime through extended
delivery locations; to be able to make
returns in store when ordered online with
a range of refund options consistent
across the channels; to access customer
service support that is knowledgeable,
multi-channel, personalised and consistent.
By starting with the customer, by identifying
the journeys that matter to them, and
by building channels around customer
need, it is possible to build a frictionless,
integrated and seamless customer journey
that delights.
“If Amazon can make it easy
to buy with their one click
technology, why can’t everyone
make it as frictionless.”
Head of Marketing, On Line Retailer
“We have in the past tended to
start with the channel and build
the customer journey within the
channel. Th
is was wrong and led to
in-built problems from the start.”
Head of Marketing, TelCo
REMOVING
FRICTION

12. There is no doubt that the biggest barrier to the
development of a friction-free totally seamless
customer journey is usually down to cross
functional disconnects.
At the heart of the challenge is the siloed
nature of service delivery and the insular ways
of doing business that can flourish within
these siloes. Often these siloes and the levels
of disfunctionality that arise are driven by
competing ownership of channels with no
single point of accountability, and competing
priorities and incentives e.g. a sales person
might only be focussed on closing the sale but
will hand-off to the on boarding team to bring
the customer into the organisation and will have
little interest into what happens at that stage.
Hand-offs can be a real barrier to a smooth and
totally integrated customer experience.
It is often argued that you cannot design and
develop a customer centric customer journey
without the involvement of the customer.
This is not necessary. Colleagues know what is
going wrong with the existing customer journey.
Their working knowledge of the processes,
augmented with real customer understanding
and insight will allow you to design a
silo-busting customer journey that delivers a
great customer experience. In our experience
this approach far outweighs any disadvantages,
provided this group is facilitated to see the
journey from the outside in and not as an
inside out process.
Such an approach often leads to significant
breakthroughs in journey and experience
design with a reduction in complexity; less
hand-offs; and improved communication
at key moments.
BUST
SILO
-ING Case Study
A global financial services brand looked to
re-engineer its customer journey to deliver an
enhanced customer experience as part of a
strategic review of its proposition.
As part of this programme it adopted a blank
sheet of paper approach using its staff rather
than re-design its existing journeys which
it saw as dysfunctional, out of date and
lacking integration.
This was done through a series of facilitated
workshops involving business development staff,
specialist advisers, relationship managers and
admin support staff drawn from a number of
locations, and supported by functional experts
such as IT risk and compliance managers.
All were involved in delivering the product
and service to the customer or in designing
the delivery processes and thereby influencing
the customer experience. All channels were
represented and in all groups reporting lines
and accountabilities were mixed.
The combined experience of the groups was
augmented with customer profiles and data
driven analysis. Through extensive facilitation
to develop the re-designed journey and service
from the outside-in, the groups designed
significantly improved customer journeys
to deliver an integrated and friction-free
customer journey.
This also identified that to embed the journey
and the service experience required not just
cross-team working in the journey design
but also joined up organisational design,
metrics and incentives that supported journeys,
not just touchpoints.
One suggestion examined is giving
accountability for a journey to each member
of the management team to ensure that in
the interests of the customer experience,
the silos stay busted.
“THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY WE
FOUND TO BREAK DOWN OUR
BARRIERS AND SILOS WAS TO
ASSEMBLE CROSS-FUNCTIONAL
TEAMS TO WORK TOGETHER AND
TO COME UP WITH SOLUTIONS
THAT WILL STICK.”
HEAD OF MARKETING, FINANCIAL SERVICES
“WE WOULD BE UNSTOPPABLE
AND WE WOULD HAVE A WORLD
CLASS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
IF WE COULD GET ALL OUR
CHANNELS WORKING TOGETHER”
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DIRECTOR, PUBLIC SECTOR

13. journeysare
notline
ar
The customer journey should be easy
to plot out and analyse. It starts when
the customer is first exposed to the
brand or ‘meets the badge’ and ends
when they decide to move away from
the brand for good.
Journeys are usually mapped in linear
fashion and assume that all customers
will progress in a steady line. Today, the
reality is very different.
There is now a new and increasingly
complex communication and delivery
ecosystem which impacts the way
people connect, engage, influence and
are influenced. Platforms and networks
such as Facebook and Twitter and
mobile devices such as tablets and smart
phones, and communication modes such
as e-mail and text messaging, have made
the design and delivery of the journey-
experience a complex and moving target.
Businesses with real customer
understanding are best positioned
to understand how their customers
use the traditional, usually physical,
manifestations of their brand, alongside
the newer more digital channels of
communication and delivery.
This insight is used to properly identify
how to seamlessly integrate the channels
that support the customer need and
the brand positioning, getting them to
work together to deliver a truly satisfying
customer experience.
This might be best done through
the active involvement of a team of
cross-functional experts armed with
channel knowledge and customer
insight. This team is best positioned
outside the channel silos allowing them
to think about the journey holistically,
identifying opportunities for cross-
channel improvements and thinking hard
about the devices, platforms, networks,
communication systems the customer
is using and how the customer can be
engaged across this communication
eco-system.
“It used to be easy-a customer
would meet our brand through
an ad, they would come into our
shops and hopefully walk out with
something having had a quick
browse and if we got it right they
would come back, it is so much
more complicated now.”
Marketing Director, High St Retailer
“We used to think of it as
Purchase Funnel now it looks
more like a Purchase Fish Model”
Head of marketing, Telco
Case Study
A major High St retailer, one of the largest
retailing chains with over 2500 stores and
60m visitors, understood the extent to
which consumer behaviour was changing
and re-designed its channel proposition
in response.
Previously, the role of the store drove
product sales but the advent of digital
channels has led to a shift in this role.
The store is now seen as a brand and
product showcase capable of driving
revenues across channels through
in-store theatrifiaction. The store is now
a destination to augment the brand
experience in the total customer journey.
In this environment technology through
the use of tablets, OCR codes and the
like is used as an enabler of the store
experience and empowering the people
who work there with knowledge.
But although it recognises that its
customers are rapidly embracing a
multi-channel experience, as a brand
with advice at the heart of its proposition,
not all platforms have the capability
to deliver on this. It therefore carefully
selects the channels it will use to deliver
a customer-led multi-channel experience
across the customer journey.
Providing a seamless customer
experience will enable it to respond
to the changing experience and
expectations of its customers.

14. We recognise that not every interaction a
customer has with us, has or has ever had
equal influence and so we do not treat all
interactions and touchpoints equally…we
prioritise critical moments of truth in the
journey and aim to be distinctive there.
Head of Marketing,
Mobile Phone Retailer
No business has the resources to fix
everything for the customer.
Head of Marketing,
Energy
Many businesses think hard about defining the journeys that matter most to
customers and to the business. They focus resources on those journeys and the
specifically critical moments and touchpoints where the brand can be seen as
special, and on being merely good on the less critical aspects of the customer’s
overall experience.
Deciding where to begin the transformation
programme requires top-down judgement-
driven evaluation or bottom-up driven analysis,
preferably both.
A cross-functional working session, drawing
on existing research, will help identify the most
significant journeys and the pain points within
these that damage the customer’s experience
and brand perception. Data used might include
customer satisfaction scores, complaints and
unresolved call volumes. Initial judgement-based
thinking can identify early wins that can act as a
spur for further change.
Such an approach is especially suitable
when seeking to fix a few glaring problems
in specific journeys. However, sometimes a
more data driven, more empirical approach
is felt necessary.
Here additional research into the customer
experience is required, combined with
existing customer and employee satisfaction
and operational data to assess performance.
Regression models can be used to understand
the journeys and touchpoints with the
greatest impact on overall perception and
business outcomes.
This is no small task, is time consuming
and requires the acquisition of new types
of information and its assembly in new and
different ways. Businesses should adopt
the approach that is best suited to its
culture and the availability of data, insight
and understanding.
NOT ALL TOUCHPOINTS ARE
EQUAL
Case Study
A High St mobile phone retailer drew on
extensive customer research to identify
the shortcomings with the most significant
impact on the customer experience, on
perception and business performance.
Using the knowledge of its cross-functional
project team supported by customer
research, the team developed a fact
base to understand those journeys with
the biggest impact on overall customer
satisfaction and business outcomes.
This approach led it to identify that the
phone repair journey, an emotionally
charged experience previously overlooked,
could produce a significant positive impact.
By walking in the shoes of its customers it
understood there was a significant feeling
of emotional and practical loss when
the phone was out of service. Speed of
replacement was seen as key but also the
need to avoid public embarrassment with
a replacement phone.
This became a key moment of truth.
The journey was significantly re-engineered
to make the service speedier. Recognising
the emotional significance of the phone
itself, a high quality temporary phone was
now provided.
The repairs function was moved from a
‘back office backwater’ to a key component
in the customer journey, making it hugely
differentiating service.

15. MANY COMPANIES HAVE A
COMPREHENSIVE MEASUREMENT
PROGRAMME TO ENSURE THAT THE
CUSTOMER JOURNEY CONTINUES TO
SATISFY AND DELIGHT CUSTOMERS.
Typical measurement
programmes might include:
• Net Promoter Score
• Mystery Shopping of
key interactions
• Speed measures and other
operational efficiency measures
• Errors
A few businesses have a process
of Hot Alerts with service personnel
alerted when a customer scores
below a given threshold and to
take action.
However, businesses which
measure touchpoints are getting
a distorted picture suggesting that
customers might be happier than
they actually are.
Measuring satisfaction at transaction
and touchpoint level fails to
understand that customers view
the experience as a whole and
not through organisational silos.
Businesses should try to
understand journeys that matter
most to customers and business
performance, and to measure
satisfaction at journey level rather
than at touchpoint level.
A business that measures and
manages the complete customer
journey will gain a better
understanding of the root causes
of areas of dissatisfaction; and
will discover more effective ways
to collaborate, to break down
organisational silos.
IT IS ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE NOT
THE TOUCHPOINT - THAT IS WHAT
MATTERS TO CUSTOMERS
Head of Customer Service, Utility
NOTHING LASTS FOR LIFE SO WHY
DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR CUSTOMER
JOURNEY WILL NOT REQUIRE TO BE
MONITORED TO ENSURE IT CONTINUES
TO BE FIT FOR PURPOSE
Marketing Director, Travel Operator
Case Study
A major utility company closely measured
all service interactions with its customers.
It could tell how quickly calls were answered;
how many were abandoned; how long the
calls took. And using an SMS text based
system they measured customer satisfaction
and delight with their recent interaction.
These scores and measures were fed
back to service supervisors and front line
employees. Against all these measures
the service level provided was high.
However, the regulator also measured the
service experience and these measures
revealed a high level of dissatisfaction with
the overall interaction.
While the company measured service at
transaction level (e.g. phone enquiry or
engineer visit), the regulator measured at
journey level (e.g. on-boarding, moving house).
These two different approaches identified
that while customers weren’t especially
dissatisfied with any one phone call it was
the cumulative experience across multiple
channels and touchpoints, that really
mattered. In fact customers weren’t at all
bothered about single touchpoints.
New customer on-boarding was an especially
complex journey for both customers and
the business involving multiple touchpoints
and interactions across a combination of
sales, service, billing and engineering silos.
Each interaction reportedly went well but
the on-boarding process as a whole was
a source of great customer dissatisfaction.
Measuring at transaction level missed this.
By re-designing its measurement programme
aligning it with what mattered to customers,
the business re-examined what it was doing
and how it was doing it. To think about
journeys, not touchpoints, and to work cross-
functionally to address the issues arising.

16. NO PROJECT TO IMPROVE THE
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WILL WORK
WITHOUT THE ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
OF THE C-SUITE. BUT OFTEN THE
C-SUITE CAN BE UNINTERESTED
IN THIS WORK. IT IS IMPORTANT
THAT THEY ARE ENGAGED AND
UNDERSTAND THE EXPERIENCE
BEING SERVED UP TO CUSTOMERS.
LEAD
FROM
THE
Many businesses encourage their C-Suite to
walk in the shoes of the customer, to see the
business how the customer sees it, not how
those at the top of the management tree
think it comes across.
Once top management experience the
experience, the resources and will required
to change and improve will be more readily
prioritised, including changes to incentives,
structures and governance models if required.
The visible involvement of senior management
will signal a real statement of intent that this
is important.
In parallel with the tangible involvement of
the C-Suite, businesses with clear executive
accountability for the management and
development of the experience are significantly
better placed to ensure that their customer
journeys work.
Traditionally this accountability, where it
existed, sat with the Marketing Director or
Chief Marketing Officer as the customer’s
representative within the business. In truth it
doesn’t matter where this person sits as long
as there is clear accountability and everyone
in the business knows who the go to person is.
Increasingly we are seeing the emergence of
the role of Chief Experience Offer or CXO
who sits alongside the CMO and the CFO
in the company hierarchy.
Businesses which say that the customer
experience belongs to everyone mean that
no one is accountable and responsible.
FRONT Case Study
At a global insurance provider the
Head of Customer Experience had specific
accountability for working across functional
lines to improve the customer journey.
To optimise understanding by the Executive
Team of the difficulties and problems
faced by its customers, a programme of
educational exercises was developed.
In one exercise each executive took
it in turn each week to simulate the
customer experience by going through
a transaction as a customer, logging
observations, thoughts and emotions,
positive and negative.
In another exercise the management
team were given one complaint a week
to investigate and answer from start to
finish, without delegating. In this way the
management team got the opportunity to
uncover the cause of the complaint and
any defects in the processes.
Additionally switchboards and PAs,
traditional gatekeepers to the time and
resources of management, were instructed
that calls and e-mails from customers with
concerns should be directed to senior
managers on request. For the first time
senior management had direct contact
with customers and concerns. The few that
were escalated to the senior management
team were invaluable in educating them.
‘Back to the floor’ exercises can take
time and courage commodities,often
in short supply. The willingness of the
management team to adopt these ideas
showed genuine commitment to customers
and colleagues, and unearthed many
opportunities to make a significant
change to the customer experience.
IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THOSE
WHO DICTATED AND BUILT THE
PROCESS GET THE CHANCE TO
VIEW THEIR HANDIWORK
Head of Customer Experience, Insurance
IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE
THE QUALITY OF AIRLINE FOOD,
SERVE IT IN THE BOARD ROOM
Director of Customer Experience,
Public Sector

17. One final thought...
We have longed believed that the brand is
delivered through its people. And to deliver
a great customer experience, colleagues
must be truly engaged in this.
The success of initiatives to build a
great customer experience depends
on those at the delivery point engaged
to support these.
If the design of the Customer Journey is to
bring the brand to life through deeds, the
only way a brand can make this happen is
if this makes sense to those who work in
the business. The brand experience must
have value and meaning for them.
Increasingly many businesses are placing
greater emphasis on the internal brand.
So why not use Customer Journey
planning principles and practices to
create a Colleague Journey to inspire
and motivate to deliver the brand and its
promise. After all those who work in the
business are on a journey to buy into and
engage with the brand from the moment
they are looking for employment until they
leave and even beyond. And like customers
they are capable of influencing and being
influenced by others.
We did not find any business applying
the principles used in designing the
Customer Journey to designing a great
Colleague Journey.
There is an opportunity to build a
truly experiential brand by learning to
walk in the shoes of those who work in
the business through:
• The recruitment process
• The on-boarding process
• The on-going management and
servicing process
• The leaving process.
And to ask:
• How well does the colleague
experience match the customer
experience aspired to?
• How well is the experience fulfilling
colleagues’ rational and emotional needs?
• Where are the service breakdowns?
• How well are these experiences aligned
with the brand promise?
• How can the internal communication and
delivery eco-systems address problems
and issues?
• What are the critically important parts of
these journeys?
We would love to write a compelling case
study on this topic.
PEOPLE
THE 5TH P
“PEOPLE ARE A KEY INGREDIENT
OF THE BRAND EXPERIENCE AND
INCREASINGLY THE ISSUE IS ABOUT
HOW COLLEAGUES DELIVER AND LIVE
THE BRAND ON A DAILY BASIS”
MARKETING DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL SERVICES

18. The world for businesses and customers is changing fast. Driven by new technologies and
developing business models, customer needs and expectations are rapidly evolving.
In this climate it is even more important that brands think about the experience they are delivering
through their people, their channels and touchpoints across the customer journey. All brands
are now experience brands and must consider carefully how they build this experience.
We hope that we can help identify those factors that can make a difference.
OUR
POINT
PLAN
10
1
The brand
is starting
point
2
Walk in the
customers’
shoes
3
Get
emotional
7
Not all
journeys are
equal
8
The importance
of measurement
9
Lead from
the front
10
The 5th P –
People
4
Remove
the frictions
5
Bust the
Silos
6
Journeys
are not
linear

19. For more information about this study
or how we can help build your business,
call Alan Gilmour on 0121 627 5040 or
email alan.gilmour@cogent.co.uk
Heath Farm, Hampton Lane,
Meriden, West Midlands
CV7 7LL.
Tel: 0121 627 5040
www.cogent.co.uk