Learn how to think like the customer

The internet has changed everything.

“The market and the customer behaviour are now changing more quickly than ever. If you don’t keep up, eventually you come to a breaking point where you can no longer compete.”

The words of Toni Keskinen, Senior Advisor at the Finnish brand agency Knowledge and Magic. He has extensive expe­rience of mapping out cus­tomer journeys and has writ­ten three books on the subject.

One clear example of how the market has changed is that customers are increas­ingly using shops as display windows and then ordering the goods online. At the same a lot there, but they also influ­ence customers to buy.

“That’s why Apple has so many more salespeople on hand in their shops.They sell a lot there, but they also influ­ ence customers to buy their products online. For them, the shops are a very important brand­building channel.”

For many companies, this change represents a major challenge. They must adapt their business to take into ac­count individual customers’ emotions and expectations. And then they have to be able to think like the customer.

According to Toni Keskinen, there is only one way to do this: map out the customer journey. This means that you identify all of the contact points between the customer and the company, from need to purchase and recycling.

The document

A mapped customer journey is a relatively uncomplicated document in which you draw time lines with each possible interaction between different kinds of customers and the company. It includes everything – from the custom­ er looking for information on­ line, going into a shop or phoning customer service, to the customer buying the product, posting an online re­ view or recycling the product. The document also describes which emotions the customer experiences at each stage.

“Using the mapped cus­tomer journey, you can work to further develop your busi­ness. It’s about facilitating the purchasing process by identi­fying the hot spots where the company meets the custom­er.”

For example, if the custom­ er is irritated when buying from the online store, maybe it needs to be faster and smoother. If the customer is finding it difficult to decide, maybe he or she wants a phone call offering advice.

Cardinal errors

According to Toni Keskinen, the error that many compa­nies make is that they try to push the customers in a certain direction so that they do what the company wants. They apply an inside­ looking­ out perspective, when they should really be doing the opposite.

“It’s easier to ride a wild horse in the direction it’s al­ ready heading than to try and make it change direction. If instead you adapt to the cus­tomer and lead them in the di­rection they’re already mov­ing, you end up getting it right.”

Another problem is that many companies are built up according to old organisation­ al structures. If the Marketing Department doesn’t know what the Sales Department and Customer Service are do­ing, there’s a major risk that the customer journey will be interrupted.

“Then the customer doesn’t have a smooth experience. Blind spots are created in the business where no one takes responsibility, so poor cus­tomer experiences are swept under the rug. In the worst case it results in a kind of cor­porate autism.”

Much of Toni Keskinen’s work as a consultant consists of breaking down old struc­tures and bringing about an effective flow of information between different units.

“Many companies try to optimise each of the departments separately. The problem is that this can create conflicting in­terests, disrupt other parts of the company and create new blind spots. It’s necessary instead to create an ho­listic view and get the departments to start sharing knowledge and vi­sions.”

Mapping out the customer journey

Tony Keskinen uses a number of dif­ferent tools to map out the customer journey, such as individual in­depth interviews, questionnaires and anal­yses of online data and CRM data.To obtain a more comprehensive view of reality, he constructs a couple of dif­ferent scenarios featuring different kinds of customers.

Once all the data has been ana­lysed, he identifies which measures are required. It might involve devel­oping new products and services, de­veloping better tools for customer service, redesigning the website or training and directing the staff to adopt new behavioural patterns. Analysing data also makes it pos­sible to identify what the customer actually wants.

“There are two realities. What cus­tomers say and what they actually do. So you need to compare interviews with data that shows how customers act.”

Once the customer journey has been mapped out, Toni Keskinen de­ signs a route map for the company. The aim is to get the information flow moving and to make sure that the company meets the customer’s expectations.

The result can be really good. One telecoms company increased its sales of Internet subscriptions by more than 200 per cent after mapping the customer journey. In his analysis, Tony Keskinen concluded that the company was asking customers too many unnecessarily complicated questions about what kind of con­nection they had,which frightened off a lot of them.

All the salesperson really needed to ask was which sub­scription the customer wanted and to provide information about price and delivery time. The company could obtain the technical informa­tion from other sources by searching based on the customer’s address. But it’s not only increased sales that are important.

“By providing a better customer experience,you’re building the com­pany’s brand in the long term. A mapped customer journey quite sim­ply results in a bigger profit, better business and a lower cost.”

Stralfors.co.uk