Welcome to the second post in my Epic Customer Journey series!  If you missed the first post, you can find it HERE.

In today’s post I will walk you through what is a customer journey and why to create one.

As I mentioned in the last post, clients are seeking a transformation experience when they visit their natural health practitioner.   They no longer accept a script of what to take when, and a follow up appointment in a month.  They want, and need, additional hand-holding & support.  The great thing from a business point of view- the more value we include, the higher the price point our offer can be!

Firstly, let’s define a few points we’ll discuss here – customer experience (or journey); customer experience (or journey) map; and touch points.

Customer journey or the customer experience:  It’s the offer you make, the journey of transformation you want to take them on.  For the client example in my previous post, it’s their weight loss journey.  It might be a series of consultations; an online course; meal plans and exercise regimes; or a combo of all of these.  The aim being to get them from their PAIN POINT (waiting to lose weight) to their GOAL (losing the weight).

(*note there are two ways of looking at the customer journey is more aligned with the service you’ll provide and the transformation you’ll take your client on.  The customer journey often relates to converting a cold contact (perhaps someone on your mailing list) to a warm client (someone who buys from you).  In our service oriented world, I use both terms interchangably but generally refer to the customer experience as the journey through the service).

Touch-points: these are all the points throughout their jouney where you/your business/your brand “touch base” with the client.  This could be in the form of a consult, an email, a phone call, a downloadable workbook; a follow up call; an sms…anything where they are in contact with you or your business.

Customer journey/experience map: think of it like a flow chart.  Throughout the experience what are all the times and all the ways that you connect with your client?  You’ll need to note these down. We want to know every…single..one, as they create the chain that is your customer experience.

Customer journey:  It’s the offer you make, the journey of transformation you want to take your client on.

So how do we create our customer journey map? I like to do it on post it notes (’cause I’m old-school) but you can also use programs like Trello or Asana, you could write it in Word or an Excel sheet. 

The reason I prefer Post-Its or Trello is the ease of swapping things around. As you get going through it, you might see that for example, your “workbook download” is better to happen after your “follow up email”.  So using something you can easily change around is a bonus.

What you’re going to do is write down every touch-point you have with the client. Every time you have contact with that client.  Let’s say for our weight loss client we have the following in their journey with us:

– initial consultation, a few follow ups and a final consult, over about 3 months

– a workbook on goal setting

– a meal plan and food journal

– emails when they sign up, weekly emails to touch base and a congratulations email at the end

– weekly coaching calls

Now, with all your little post-it notes, lay them out in the way that makes the most sense in your customer experience.  Then review it – do you have enough consults? Too many emails? Is the goal workbook useful or not?  This way you can craft the ultimate customer experience.

Join me in the next in this blog series on the Customer Journey – mapping the inbound experience (the clients that are interested enough to sign up to your list, but haven’t bought from you yet).

So get those post it notes out and join me on the facebook group to share you a-ha’s! Trust me, there’s always lightening bolt moments doing this process..

Let’s do this!

Cass xx