5 Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid When Understanding the Customer Journey.

If you’re not thinking about your customer’s journey you risk a sub-optimal customer experience. This translates into risking your bottom line.

Did you know that an Amazon meeting always has at least 1 empty chair? Be it three, five or 15 people, no matter what size the meeting is, every Amazon event has one extra seat. Who is that empty chair reserved for? You guessed it, the CUSTOMER.

Customer journey mapping is all about understanding how people interact with your business from the CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE.

Here are the five most common mistakes businesses make when understanding the customer journey:

Mistake #1: Boiling the ocean

Don’t try targeting everyone, that’s like trying to boil the ocean. There are multiple perspectives.
To give an example, remember in high school the jocks, goths, and geeks. The jocks are into sports, goths into black clothing, and the nerds into computers.
You need to identify the customer type you want to serve. Each message and campaign should speak to just one customer type.

Mistake #2: Using the companies take on the customer journey

So you know exactly what the customer needs to do? That’s mistake number 2. You should be mapping what customers actually do, not what you want them to do.
Don’t engineer a customer journey based on what you want customers to do. It’s comparable to herding cats… you can’t herd cats – it’s not in their nature to be herded. You need to understand the journey from the customer’s perspective.

Mistake #3: Using a model instead of reality

This mistake is about not using real data. Your assumptions are always wrong. Validate ideas with online data. Do you have your customer journey being measured in a dashboard? Collecting facts about the customer and their behavior and dispersing that information to your team will give you the data to improve the journey and experience.

Mistake #4:First contact is the first touchpoint

Think outside the box – meaning the box of your products and services. Keep in mind that the journey begins well BEFORE the (potential) customer reaches your site or uses your product. Your challenge is to understand the process that brings a customer to you. The decision-making process does not start when they arrive. Customers have already done their homework and read reviews.

Mistake #5: Failing to plan

Failing to plan is planning to fail. This is a crucial element of your customer journey. Plan the processes to measure the customer journey. Plan to capture relevant data. Make sure inputs are good and revise your assumptions. Your plan should focus on getting real data on the journey to improve the customer experience and reach your goals.

Delight your customer. Happy customers pay more, more often. Learn how Customer Journey by Opentracker can help boost sales!