Session Information:

Stop Ignoring your Customer's Journey Enterprise

In this session, Tony will discuss the steps of a customer journey, including the key touchpoints upon which to focus.  This session will crystalize your thinking and put your customers at the center of your thinking when you design your products, service, and overall brand experience.  The outcomes of a customer-focused approach is a reduction in customer friction and the increase in brand loyalty.  This leads to repeat business, growth, and brand advocacy.

• What is the customer journey?
• Determining Your Key Touchpoints
• The benefits of the customer-centric focus
• Analyzing customer wins, pain points, and questions
• Activity:  Bringing journey and touchpoints to life 

Session Transcript:

Hi everybody thanks for stopping by to stop ignoring your customers journey I'm Tony Johnson and I'll be walking you through today's session and i want to start by talking about my favorite place in the world the Walt Disney world resort I can remember the very first time that i went to Walt Disney world it was actually when i got married my wife and i we found Disney kind of late in life and i remember flying down we lived in the northern part of the u.s. at that point and I remember flying down and taking a bus over the monorail around and walking in the front gates for the very first time and i will tell you you know it's it's a bit intimidating the first time you go to Walt Disney world there's a lot to do a lot to see but I remember walking into the front gates and looking straight down main street USA.

It's this line of shops that line up the magic kingdom and and this was my view and i will tell you when I looked down and saw that castle I was hooked I mean hook line and sinker hooked but the best part was after having you know a week there having a fantastic vacation of having a tremendous honeymoon.

I will tell you the one thing that run true with me was how well they treated everybody there and how mindful they were of the journey their customers were taking right down to them offering up these uh just married buttons that my wife and I we uh we we wore those things around like the biggest geeks you ever saw and the reason.

We had those just married buttons was they took the time to ask us if we were celebrating anything we actually showed up to the resort and and we told we were getting married and i'll be darned if when we checked in to our hotel to our resort there were two of those little just married buttons waiting for us and all kinds of times throughout our journey.

There they were wishing us well we wore those buttons around they used them really as a sounding call for folks to say you know hey congratulations on getting married that kind of stuff and they have those same kind of buttons for you know your birthday for first visit for happily ever after which was the ones we were wearing for getting married.

So I think understanding that a company like the Walt Disney company has to really think about every visitor that comes for the first time and the visitor that comes many times and you may find the same thing inside of your business and so that all comes around this idea of considering your customers journey of considering what they they're going to go through during their time with you with your organization and how can you really combine people and hospitality to provide the very best experiences.

So again I'm Tony Johnson, I've been a customer experience officer for many many years and I really want to share with you all the things that I have come up with over the years throughout working with organizations to help them put their customer first and keep their customer at the center of everything they do and that's primarily.

What we're going to talk about today but you know things change and I think that's why it's so very important to consider your customers journey because it's ever-changing after I went back to the Walt Disney world resort and we actually moved down my wi-fi to central Florida not too long ago when we actually moved down here we started going all the time we're annual pass holders we love the place but going back after coronavirus things have changed you have to wear a face mask there's signage all over the place about health and safety there's social distancing and limited crowds so it really brings home the fact that everybody has to think about these changing expectations.

So you know think about some things that maybe were you know luxury items not too long ago or nice to haves now they become price of entry so i always think about the backup camera the backup camera is something that really does make me think of something that you know just 10 years ago was a luxury item you had to pay extra for it now you could rent the cheapest entry-level car and it's probably going to have a backup camera or how about wi-fi you know used to be you got on an airplane or went to a hotel and if you had wi-fi at all you had to pay for it.

It wasn't very good and i know we probably all struggle with airplane wi-fi when we're out traveling when we finally get back out there but I will tell you now it's very commonplace for it to be everywhere and it's expected i actually went to a hotel and i had to pay for wi-fi. I kind of hurt right because you just expect it to be a part of your hotel experience how about a company like chipotle think about what they were 10-15 years ago.

You know I believe that really when you look at that assembly line model high quality food assembly line made right there in the moment you know that was a big deal 10 years ago now there's any number of different restaurants that have picked up on that and then finally this idea of gps anybody else out there have those gps's you know from 100 years ago that was big as a small screen television you know I know I had one back in the day.

Now it sits in the palm of your hand so again a changing expectation when it comes to what it means to have gps and the reason I bring all of this up is because it's so important to understand that customer experience has become a true differentiator 90 of Americans are using customer service as a factor to decide if they're going to do business with a company or not it's a huge number it comes from American express.

So just know that customer experience really does matter and when you think about it from a leadership standpoint and I know many of you out there are probably leaders within your organization think about how you and your leadership team are treating your teams on the ground because remember your frontline team really is the face of your organization and so if they're connecting with the teams if your leaders are doing a really good job of taking care of your team members well then those team members are going to turn right around and take great care of the customers of the guests and the consumers.

That you're taking care of so just remember this sort of triangle of power is really really important now the other thing that i always like to talk about as we sort of get into this idea of journey mapping is who's your competition go ahead and type it in the chat if you want to right now type in who is your competition and really think about who you're really leveraging yourself against now as you're typing this in you might be thinking gosh my competition.

You know is the other widget company down the street you know if you're a restaurant if you're an IT company you might be comparing yourself to other restaurants and other it companies so just keep in mind that your competition truly is anybody that your customer does business with and that's a powerful thing when you think about that the fact that when they call your business.

They are probably comparing you to the last time they picked up the phone and called amazon or particularly your online ordering process if you have one of those how does it compare to itunes to amazon to you know barnesandnoble.com how do you compare to all of the other big hitters out there when it comes to your online marketplace you are getting compared pretty much to anybody that your customer knows about or does business with and that comes down to driving great experiences driving those experiences that tie together all the key components.

So that your customers know it goes beyond just good service it goes beyond just a great product it goes beyond safety and health and safety and all those kind of things and drives home this idea of a holistic all-in-one experience it's going to make your customers want to come back again and again when it comes down to quotes.

I think we all probably have our favorites and this is one of mine nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care anybody know who said that if you do type it in the chat i'll give you just a second and it was absolutely teddy Roosevelt one of my favorite presidents and so i thought it would be you know you know compelling.

Since, we just you know in in the us just went through our our election process so again one of my favorite quotes and and the customer journey is the best way to show your customers you care because you have the opportunity to make their lives easier and as we are in the middle of what I'm calling the great service comeback thinking about how you can connect to your customers in new and authentic ways you know in this postcode world as we all were a part of an evolving marketplace.

Let's think about this framework let's think about safety one of the most important pieces and something we can never neglect hospitality and this idea of of quality is so very important and then finally simplicity so safety hospitality quality simplicity these are the four pieces and parts that make up the framework.

So if we jump in a little bit is your safety embedded into every aspect of your organization is is everything you do framed around safety so make sure that you're embedding it into every aspect of your business and your culture and paying more than just lip service to it think about hospitality have you aligned your team's behaviors with your brand identity that's a really important part and something you've got to make sure you do because this people first approach it does take training and it takes behaviors to drive those business results.

That you're looking for because remember like I said before your frontline associates are the face of your organization how about quality are you creating value for your customers and delivering that with consistency not just once not just twice but every single time that's an important piece because consistency and value that's going to inspire trust and then finally.

Let's talk about simplicity can you make it easy and effortless and deliver things in a timely manner because that is always the way to give the very best service it's it's effortless it feels timely it feels efficient it feels like it just happens just for you.

So those four pieces are so very key now we've talked about those four but but so what what do we do with that stuff that's that's an important part so if you want to think about how we start to tie this together there are four core pieces and the first is your people so they're your front line teams they're the ones that are driving for success every single day it could be your leadership team it could end up being the people on the front line.

It could be your employees and associates who are serving customers directly but your people make all the difference next we're going to talk about product so this is the thing you have to sell it could be a solution it could be a product it could be a service whatever your your main source of revenue is what what is that thing you're offering how are you making people's lives easier and better that's your product now think about your place where do you do business so so far we've got kind of the who the what and now we're talking about the where so i want you to think about the place where your service happens now that could be a brick and mortar type of a storefront it could be online it could be a call center.

It could be completely via chat or AI but just know that your place does matter and then finally what's your process how do you train your team what are your your standards and processes and rules and regulations and and all of the things your policies inside of your organization all of those things are very very important when it comes to driving customer experience so these four things is really where you hang your hat these four channels are where you hang your hat when it comes to customer experience and I've called this the customer touch point experience formula and that's how we're going to walk through this whole idea really of journey mapping that is what we're getting at right now but the one piece that I want to share because I always love to give away just a little bit more than I promise.

So you know when I think about how you can deliver great service and much of what we've talked about so far comes down to that moment of truth on the front line and so I think this this customer strategy formula these behaviors this moment of truth type of service is really where it comes down to how you can deliver so I want to give you this idea of guest.

So this is something that that i teach and train every single day and and it's about greeting customers as as you meet them and again this works on the phone this works online this works if you meet somebody in a hallway or across a counter this is how you can serve people but it starts with a great greeting and that acknowledgement can you understand them figuring out what they need personalizing service how will you elevate their experience with add-ons and and with anticipatory service that makes everything feel just for them and then seek out guests make sure that again.

They have what they need and and that if someone is is having a service movement that maybe isn't so exemplary making sure that you execute service recovery and then finally thanking customers and making sure that they feel gratitude and and wanting to come back because you sowed the seeds of hey we'll see you next time and when you think about places like where you do business.

You know it really is important to note that every single piece of your organization tells a story there are these unseen parts that only you and your organization can see there are the pieces and parts that are right out front and these details that really do tell a compelling story about your brand and and then finally there are missing details sometimes people only notice stuff when it's wrong but if you're doing a walk through your business.

If you're on your website if you're calling into your call center i challenge you to look at every single detail and say is this furthering the customer experience or is it taking away from the customer experience and you have to have that sort of outside in approach that that kind of looking in with a critical eye to see what you can experience from the point of view of the customer now one of the best companies i think about keeping things in line for the customer is amazon.

So i was always heartened by by the story about Jeff Bezos when he first started amazon and they were really thinking about how they were going to keep the customer focus in mind especially as they were growing they pulled out a chair at their conference table and they left it empty and that empty chair symbolized the customer so they always said no matter what they could look back at that chair and they could say okay that chair is the customer.

It is is this decision that we're making is it good for the customer is it bad for the customer is it good for us bad for us and looking for those those win wins when everybody gets a little bit of something out of every decision that's made but again it keeps the focus on the customer and that is a great lesson for any organization now let's dial in and talk about this idea of guest and consumer and customer journey so you know it really does demand a customer a guest focused approach to service this outside in where you're really you're not looking at things from the business's point of view you're looking at things from the customer's point of view and you're embedding this idea of customer loyalty of experience throughout every decision you make and then the other part to consider is your omni channel experience so it's not just good enough to be good or great at one of your channels.

It could be online it could be on the phone it could be live it could be chat they all have to be great they all have to talk together and they need to connect together in a way where your customer doesn't think gosh when I go to your chat experience it's a completely different you know experience I have to start all over every single time and and tell people my story and those kind of things so understanding that omni-channel experiences are about tying everything together in a compelling way.

So it feels exceptionally seamless for your customers and so when we think about this idea of journey mapping and this is really about making sure we understand what it means to do business with your company what are your customers thinking and feeling and seeing and hearing at every single step along their journey with you and that's interactions with people and with your place and with your product and with your process or like I said before the who the what the where and the how and then what are their pain points.

You know what are their questions and what are they trying to gain throughout the whole process all of these things tell a true story about how your customers are interacting with your brand and with your company and what they're going to perceive of your service so now let's jump in and talk about this actual idea of journey mapping so let's kind of go in and kind of take a look at this at this kind of virtual whiteboard here so when we think about this example that I'm going to walk through with you.

It's all about the journey mapping piece so what are the steps what actions are the customers taking what questions might they have and what pain points might they experience so i always like to look at things really in a in a realistic way in a real life scenario kind of way and we've all gone to a restaurant now if you would like please in the chat right now type your favorite restaurant type your favorite place to go out and eat could be anything from the humble hot dog stand.

All the way up to a five-star dinner but make sure you type in your favorite restaurant because i would love to see that so think about what it means to go to a restaurant you figure out that you're hungry you think about your options you make a decision on where you want to go you maybe you order into let's say in this case you're actually going to go out to a restaurant you're going to drive there you're going to park you're going to go in you're going to walk to the host stand you're going to talk to them and then you're probably going to wait for a second.

So these aren't all the steps but there are many of them especially in the initial stages of going out to eat at a restaurant. So I wanted to sort of line this up because again we've all got this shared experience of dining out so let's dig in even a little more let's talk about these first few steps of the customer experience and by the way as a part of the session today.

There are some downloadable forms that you'll be able to grab a hold of and you can actually download those and and they have some great journey mapping samples on there they actually have a worksheet that you can use to journey map in your own business because the idea here is to draw corollaries between the example we're going through right now and your business because this is where the magic starts to happen.

So I want you to think about the first step being parking so you may have to find a parking space you may have to navigate to the restaurant you may have to park in a garage and then you may be asking yourself questions is there free parking do I have to park in a garage is there street parking do they have a lot and then what are the pain points confusion about where to park the safety I have to make sure I have time to find a spot maybe do I have to pay for it and then you know the next part waiting.

You know so you're waiting for your table to be ready and then you have to ask yourself do you wait inside or outside do I have to wear a mask how long will it take they said it was going to be 10 minutes will it really be 10 minutes there's no place to sit could be a pain point there's no wi-fi.

I'm bored the kids are bored it's not very clean i see dust on the window ledges what's that sticky thing on my seat there could be a lot of pain points around waiting you finally get to your table and then you got to figure out what you're going to eat right so your step might be identifying the menu or your options so maybe you're reading the menu and making your decisions but then you might have questions what's vegan what's healthy what's vegetarian you know maybe you have an allergen what's good for me you know can I can I make substitutions and then you know determining dietary needs and what's in something that could be a pain point or maybe you can't read the menu or you know the other day.

I went to a restaurant and you had to scan the QR code to get the menu to pop up and maybe someone doesn't have a phone that'll do that or maybe they don't understand how because they're not tech savvy or maybe there was just a long way to get your beverages right so there could be any number of pain points you're experiencing and then leaving the restaurant.

You're all done and you're getting ready to go you might be getting your check and paying and walking out through the front door to the part but you know questions may arise like you know is the bill right where's my server where did i park am i going to come back to this restaurant again and then some pain points you know maybe you can't figure out where you parked maybe no one said thank you or see you next time maybe it took a long time to cash out i remember being in a restaurant not too long ago and i had a really great experience really good food good value it was really well done but at the very end at the finish line the one yard line it was almost impossible to flag down my server to get my check so that my wife and I could pay and leave.

So you know you know how it is when you get to the end of the meal and you're just ready to go and and we couldn't so that could be a way that you finish a really great experience in a really poor way and it detracts from the overall perception of your business so again the trick here is to take all these things we talked about these steps in the journey the actions the questions you know what are the pain points and things that might be happening and then go and fix them go and think about them in your business.

FInd the problems and the questions before they inconvenience your customers and just go knock them right out of their way just go smack them right out of the way fix them again before they inconvenience anybody and so that's going to be a key way for you to use journey mapping to drive customer loyalty and sales growth in your organization so please take the tools that I've given you the download the sheet and then go try this exercise in your business I promise you.

You will start to see and identify things that will make you much more successful just by smoothing out some of your processes now when we think about what that looks like I call this owning your dirt it's about asking a lot of questions it's about keeping your your head on a swivel I had a good friend of mine he was a restaurant manager actually you always talked about keeping your head on a swivel as you walk around your business looking at everything looking at choke points looking at problems that might be you know arising in your business just kind of standing back and watching what's happening in your organization and really observing in a critical way and never accepting that.

It can't be done that it can't be improved that there isn't a better way and constantly thinking about how you can rejigger your processes just a little bit for the good of your customer so one organization that does a great job with listening to customers and really taking steps to improve is the Ritz Carlton.

I can remember a couple of years ago my wife and i we went on a long weekend to the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota Florida and when we got there my wife realized that she'd forgotten her beach bag it was one of those places where you had to get on a bus and kind of go across the street to the beach and and she was thinking gosh how am I going to carry my stuff to the beach and all the stuff I want to take with me and and as she was talking to me.

We hadn't even gotten to the front desk yet we were four back in line and uh somebody from the front desk had come around tapped her on the shoulder and offered her this beach bag they had said you know please enjoy this beach bag we heard you forgot yours take this courtesy of Ritz carl and have a fantastic weekend wow we hadn't even had a chance to think about what we were going to do about that little I mean talk about a little problem right but it was such a great way for them to just move that problem right out of our way because their frontline associates were absolutely listening and keeping their ears open for customer feedback.

That voice of the customer and I was so thankful that they did that it made for a great weekend and we still have the beach bag today and it's great so thanks to the Ritz Carlton for that for sure so the other thing to note is that when strategies are translated into mindset you really can drive the most fantastic tactics and results and that's the thing you have to understand is it sort of starts with your vision of course but then you have to translate that into a mindset and into the tactics and into the training.

That's really going to help your business thrive and in again this ever-changing economy so remember to always translate what you're trying to accomplish the big vision you've got to translate that into the daily steps and behaviors that will drive success with your team and the reason this works the reason great training always works is is when it's storytelling driven.

When it's based on tactics and behavior based it really does start to drive this credibility not just with your team but with your customers because they see that translation of brand and a strategy into those daily moves that drive success both for your business and for your customers so you're always asking what's next.

I always like to think about what you should do next here's a couple of things i want you to plot your customer journey on the sheet I provided and I want you to identify your friction points and see what you can do to resolve those those rough edges and those questions that your customers might be experiencing and as we come to the conclusion please take a moment to connect with me i would love to hear from you if you have more questions feel free to ask them because I want to hear your story i want to hear your questions let's stay connected here and with that I will say thank you so much for giving me some of your valuable time thanks for talking about customer journey and have a great rest of your day everybody.