Fit for a perfect customer journey

COLUMN Every provider has now understood that they need to expand their business model digitally in order to reach the future. The decisive factor here is also how to provide appropriate communication support in both worlds for customers who are constantly commuting between offline and online. By Anne M. Schüller*In a recent survey of 176 marketing managers from various industries, the Digital Brand Leadership Study by Esch Brand Consultants found that just 34% of the companies surveyed record customer journeys across analog and digital channels. 23.3 percent only look at analog and 18.7 percent only at digital touchpoints. 24 percent do not record the customer journey at all. However, those who do not do this at all or only incompletely are poking around in the dark, relying on incorrect assessments and following dangerous guessing games.what the study also wanted to know: are companies even fit for modern touchpoint management and the inevitable digitalization? All respondents see internal culture as a major challenge. And they are right to do so. It is the basis for future market success. In disruptive times, completely new demands are being placed on the way we work together. The silo structure that still prevails throughout is no longer compatible with a networked customer world. This is because departmental goals and the associated vested interests prevent synchronized processes.Getting fit means: first indoors, then outdoorsBefore you can embark on the journey into the digitalized new world, the framework conditions must first be right. The key question here is: How do we organize our company in the age of digital transformation? Above all, this requires a transformation to a more agile state. This means that everything that makes an organization slow has to go. And everything that makes it fast has to go. In order to achieve this, we need to rebuild the organization. Management as we know it is coming to an end, because exponential developments cannot unfold in linear organizational models. Rigid processes are of little use when fluidity is urgently needed. And centralized control does not work in complex systems. Self-organizing structures are much better suited to this. The best examples of this are evolution itself and the most complex thing that nature has ever produced: the human brain. Another example is the most successful business model of all time, the mother of digitalization: the Internet. The Internet has no boss.Obsession with customer concerns: a must from now onOnline and offline are merging, work and leisure are merging, man and machine are merging, boundaries between inside the company and outside no longer exist. And everything is networked with everything else. Only in companies is there still alpha-hierarchical regulation and governance. Outdated management methods and an antiquated understanding of leadership are the biggest stumbling blocks on the way to a new business and working world. In addition, traditional management structures spend most of their time organizing themselves instead of taking care of the business and the customers: planning addiction, budget excesses, process obsession, target fetishism, blind faith in methods and cramped sets of rules are a huge money, time and motivation-destroying machine that no one will soon be able to afford. While conventional managers think primarily about themselves and costs, the new generation of founders has long since understood that everything revolves around customers (and their data). They call it customer obsession. If you want to reach the future with or even before the young savages, you not only have to digitize your business model, you also have to think and act strictly from the customer's perspective.Understanding the customer journeyThe term customer journey originally comes from e-commerce. It describes the user's path when surfing the web, from views and clicks to a yes. What is often forgotten in this view: A potential customer not only jumps back and forth on the web, but also combines virtual touchpoints with real ones. The item purchased online is delivered by a courier. And the "last cookie", i.e. the impulse to buy, was often enough not the newsletter, but the best friend. However, people only become active as advocates when they are fully convinced themselves. Because nobody wants to embarrass themselvesFrom the company's point of view, new business usually takes priority. From the customer's point of view, on the other hand, care and maintenance are crucial. Because only the experiences in the "moments of truth" after a yes can lead to repeat purchases and recommendations. In addition, the customer clicks into the online world via various devices. Very rarely do they follow the channels provided by the provider, which act in isolation and uncoordinated or even compete with each other. No, they go their own way. The customer-specific offline-online-mobile customer journey must therefore be the linchpin of all company activities.The customer perspective is crucialOf course, it is not possible to explain in detail how to develop customer journeys in a column. If you are interested, I recommend my new book Touch.Point.Sieg. If you get down to work, it quickly becomes clear which touchpoints are missing from the customer's point of view, which are highly relevant and which are completely irrelevant. Unnecessary touchpoints can be excluded or deactivated - in order to save costs. As the report on the study explains, one insurance company found that of the 120 existing brochures, only 18 were used in the daily work of brokers, and most companies focus primarily on paid and owned touchpoints, i.e. those that are under their own control. However, if you develop a customer journey from the customer's perspective, it quickly becomes clear how intensively you have to deal with the "new moments of truth" that precede a purchase request. This is because customers who are ready to make a purchase prefer to first go to the mostly web-based "O tones" of third parties. Depending on the industry, well over 50 percent of all pre-purchase decisions are made in this way. And that means: you have to develop your customers all the way to the recommender.EPOMS helps with travel planningIf you analyze customer journeys in detail, there are five groups of touchpoints that need to be addressed. I summarize these under the acronym EPOMS:- Earned touchpoints are those that are earned through good work (reviews, press reports, recommendations, etc.).- Paid touchpoints are purchased by the company (ads, banner ads, Adwords, TV and radio spots, posters, etc.)- Owned touchpoints are contact points that you own (website, company blog, customer magazine, online store, retail store, etc.).Managed touchpoints are managed by the company in third-party locations (Facebook, Twitter, external call center, trade fair stand, etc.).- Shared touchpoints are those that a customer shares with others (products, experiences, experiences as well as content produced by the provider).The shared and earned touchpoints are increasingly decisive for a company's success. However, it is precisely these touchpoints that are not yet sufficiently utilized in practice.The book on the subject:Touch.point.victory. - Communication in times of digital transformationTo order: http://www.touchpoint-management.de/bestellung-touchpointsieg.htmlThe author*Anne M. Schüller is a management thinker, keynote speaker, multiple award-winning bestselling author and business coach. With a degree in business administration, she is considered Europe's leading expert in touchpoint management and customer-focused corporate management. She is one of the most sought-after speakers in the German-speaking world. In 2015, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the German Speakers Association. Her clientele includes the elite of the German, Swiss and Austrian business world. Her Touchpoint Institute trains certified touchpoint managers.