“It’s not about what’s your best option. This is your only option”

Those were the words of an airline employee in Pittsburgh, following the cancellation of my flight to Washington, D.C. The agent had put me onto the next available flight. There was nothing more to do about the situation, and my questions were a waste of her time. The pressure on me to accept my fate and let her go home could hardly have been less subtle.

Most of us would like to think that we’re more customer-centric than that individual. However, unless we check the self-centered tendencies of our organizations, we run the risk of being every bit as difficult to deal with — expecting customers to adapt to our language, practices, and policies. That won’t cut it anymore because customers have plenty of options. Companies that want to thrive today had better understand how to meet or exceed their customers' expectations throughout their journeys.

That’s where customer journey maps come in. These tools are proving their value to companies that want to improve customer experience. When they’re used in strategic discussions, training exercises, and design practices, they help stakeholders throughout the organization to keep in mind the processes, needs, and perceptions of customers who are trying to achieve their goals. In my recent research on "Tools For Mastering The Customer Experience Ecosystem," I explained how the packaged vacation firm, TUI, used journey maps to plan for the future of vacationers' end-to-end experiences and how a logistics firm used journey maps to improve customers' experience with its parcel tracking service. 

In my presentation at Forrester's Forum For Customer Experience Professionals East, I’ll show examples of companies that are using customer journey maps for a variety of purposes — to meet the expectations of multichannel shoppers, to provide help to customers in emergencies, and to design B2B solutions that deliver value to all parties in the value chain. Please join me if you’re interested in learning how companies create effective customer journey maps and embed them into decision-making.