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The customer journey: A roadmap or a maze?


Imagine you are planning a trip. The map looks perfect – a clear route with scenic stops along the way. But as you set out, the roads are riddled with potholes, the signs are deceiving and the gas stations are closed. Frustrating right? That’s often how your customers feel when they go through the so-called “seamless” journeys you’ve designed for them. Despite your best intentions, the path too often becomes a maze, and we know how many dead ends there are.

So why does this happen and what can you do about it?

Your vision: A path worth defending

Your customer journeys should feel like a carefully constructed performance – every step designed to delight. On paper, you may have invested heavily in journey mapping and segmentation and had a clear value proposition across all touchpoints. No doubt your goal was convenience, relevance, and empathy for your customers, which led to loyalty, advocacy, and revenue for you.

Done well, this approach can be effective, making your customers feel valued and you gain efficiencies – lower service costs and more sales through self-service options. Sounds like a win-win.

Reality: Obstacles everywhere

In practice, however, the path often falters:

  • Disparate experiences: Your customers click on a personalized ad but land on a generic website. They call your support line and are connected multiple times, repeating the same problem to different people.
  • Technical overlap: Automation tools fail to empathize. Your customers face robotic responses that don’t respond to unique needs.
  • Incorrect messaging: You will thank loyal customers while spamming them with irrelevant offers or flooding them with meaningless emails.

Frustrations reveal an underlying truth: even if you desire great journeys, execution is often not enough.

Bridging the Gap: Lessons from Theatre

Think of the customer journey as a theater production. Your customers are an audience that expects a seamless experience. Behind the curtain, you must orchestrate countless moving parts—lighting, sound, and actors—to achieve the perfect performance. When things go wrong behind the scenes, it’s the audience that suffers.

Here’s how to get a standing ovation:

  • Make your own way:
    – Call your own customer service or browse your website. What is seamless in the boardroom is often not in real life.
    – Map the journey not only from your perspective, but also through the eyes of your customers.
  • Break the silo:
    – Remove separation barriers. Your customers don’t care about your internal structures – they just want their problems solved. Foster collaboration across teams to create a unified environment.
  • Focus on the key moments:
    – Identify the “moments that matter”. Whether it’s quickly resolving a complaint or surprising a loyal customer, these interactions define the journey.
  • Combine technology with humanity:
    – Technology should enhance, not replace, human interaction. Make sure your automation tools are empathetic and allow customers to seamlessly transition to human support when needed.
  • Measure what really matters:
    – Don’t just track internal KPIs like click-through rate or ticket resolution. Use customer-centric metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Effort Score (CES) to understand the true impact of the journey.

Conclusion: The journey is the destination

Your customers don’t demand perfection – only consistency and care. Bridging the gap between theory and practice of customer journeys requires more than just tools and metrics. It requires empathy, collaboration and a relentless focus on what your customers really value.

Ultimately, a great customer journey isn’t about ticking boxes or hitting KPIs. It’s about making every step effortless, meaningful and worth the trip.

Written by Greg Thomas and David Finch

(Image credit: Unsplash)

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