Every CEO’s New Obsession: The Customer Journey
The marketing landscape has changed drastically, and the transition from campaign-based marketing to the customer journey has C-level employees paying close attention. Surprising and delighting your customers is fundamental to business success, but focusing only on campaigns to create meaningful customer experiences can create disconnect.
CEOs are becoming aware of the customer journey – the experience the customer has from before they become aware of the brand or product through to buying it, using it and eventual replacement and hopefully, retention. CEOs can’t ignore the customer journey because it affects every single aspect of a business, from sales to customer service to marketing. Because a CEO’s job is to monitor the business holistically, they now have to pay close attention to the way the company approaches this customer journey.
WHY THE CHANGE?
So what prompted the change from campaign-based marketing to the customer journey? In short, it’s all about the personalisation and optimisation brought about by technological advances in mobile computing, social media and high-speed internet access everywhere you go. Customers today are constantly connected, and they expect individualised experiences from the companies and brands they trust.
Customers don’t want to be treated like a number. Instead, they want to be engaged with, courted and remembered by the companies they interact with. According to the State of Marketing Australasia, 49 per cent of marketers’ number one priority is driving increased conversation rates. In order to increase conversation rates, companies must provide the right information to help customers with what they’re looking for when and how they want it.
Furthermore, according to McKinsey & Company’s Customer Journey Transformation, transformation led by the customer journey can drive some serious revenue growth. By understanding when customers interact with you, companies can transform single interactions into personalised customer journeys.
What caused the customer journey revolution? Did customers want this kind of treatment first, or did they come to expect it when marketers began using big data to streamline their marketing techniques and fine-tune their advertising? What we do know is, in today’s hyper-connected world, the best companies innovate with customers. The customer journey is here to stay – and it’s a journey CEOs and chief marketing officers must adopt if they want to stay afloat in the new world of connected people, products and services.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Whether your company is just beginning to map out its customer journey or already has a plan in place, there are certain building blocks everyone using the customer journey model must have.
1. Setting the foundation.
Your customer journey map needs to have a strong foundation that makes sense for your business. For starters, look at the essentials of your customer data, outline your current customer journey map, and start thinking about your current touch-points that could be automated as standard/ongoing features of your journey.
2. Boost your programs.
Once you’ve got the current foundation set in stone, it’s time to think about bringing it to the next level. How do your techniques match up to industry benchmarks? How can you link your various individual campaigns together to create a seamless experience for your customers? What are some additional acquisition, on-boarding, re-engagement and retention touch points that can be added to take your program to the next level?
3. Building the journey.
After analysing every aspect of your current marketing strategy, it’s time to pull it all together into a forward-looking customer journey. Begin merging your online strategies with those you employ in the offline world. Identify other areas of your business that involve customers, and loop them into the wider strategy. Lastly, draw out your new-and-improved customer journey map but keep your pencil handy as your customer journey should always be evolving.
These are the basic building blocks of a customer journey, but there’s a lot more to consider as you begin to adapt to the new form of marketing. This workbook on Building the Customer Journey goes into more depth on setting customer experience goals, drawing up an example customer journey, and how to build your own in-depth customer journey. Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and try out something new – best of luck!
*Original Article by Ryan Bonnici: http://www.brw.com.au/p/marketing/every_ceo_new_obsession_the_customer_3gnnafegMGXZuGXy5rKiWO