Start-ups: Creating Your Customer Journey

Jared Orr

It's no question that creating a quality customer journey is critical for any business. But the businesses that implement it quicker will be better off in the long run, in my opinion. 

When start-ups are constructing a customer journey, here are 3 questions I recommend asking:

1. If I could put 100 of my niche customers in one place for 60 seconds, what would I want to say to them to get them interested in my product or service?
2. If every new client had 24 hours to use my product or service before they could get a full refund, what would I do within those 24 hours to get them to sign on for another 3 months?
3. If every client that signed on for 3 months could get a full refund after their term was done, what would I do within those first 3 months to ensure they see long-term value in my product or service?

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have first-hand experience with creating a start-up customer journey? 

David Ellin

Here are some additional thoughts in addition to the great responses provide thus far.

1. Keep changing hats (perspectives) when developing your journey maps. It's ok to start building the journey map from your company's perspective - what experiences you want them to have. However, if you don't switch hats and look at the journey map from your customer's perspective, you'll miss critical steps - typically around handoffs.

2. Build your map, step away from it for a few days, then come back and review it ago. You'll realize all the steps you missed the first time.

3. Make certain that your journey map aligns with your corporate culture. If your culture is P&L driven, having a customer-first journey map is unrealistic.

4. Collaborate cross-functionally before finalizing your journey map. Make sure every department that touches the customer along the journey has input into the journey map and aligns their behavior. You can't prescribe how you want a department to treat a customer without their buy-in.

5. Make sure the journey is consistent. There's nothing worse for a customer than having parts of the company treat them well and others fall very short. To be successful, the journey should be consistent.

6. Once you feel you've nailed it, put on your customer hat once more and take yourself through the journey from their perspective. Fill in the gaps as appropriate.

7. Finally, once you really feel you've nailed it, review the journey map with a few customers. They'll tell you what you've missed.