Customer Journey Catherine Wheel

In an earlier post I explained how the Customer Journey for an organisation should not be a linear progression, but a cycle. To illustrate this I used a simple piece of ready-made clip art from PowerPoint and quickly inserted this into my content.

However, given a bit more time, I have now pulled together a better diagram to illustrate what I mean.

In this diagram I have used the same 5 segments to show the cyclical path a user takes (Awareness, Interest/Desire, Action, Experience and Advocacy). But I have also added an inner section that represents the running of Internal Process and an outer ring that represents the tasks that customers perform.

I've used various and more specific versions of this diagram in previous consulting work for clients, but I think this diagram represents a more generic approach which can be adapted as the need arise.
The only real problem I now have is… what do I call it?

For the time being, I think I'm going to use the term Customer Journey Catherine Wheel. A diagrammatic version of the popular firework that hopefully explains the round and spinning nature of both this model and the physical namesake.

What do you think? Is it a silly name? Can you come up with a better one?

The Customer Journey should be circular

A lot of different approaches are used for mapping the Customer Journey (the ‘soup to nuts’ depiction of your customers’ progress from unaware & unknown person to satisfied patron). Many typically show the path along different states of customer engagement, with the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire & Action) model being a tried & tested one that has stood the test of time – I've also referred to it a lot in this blog over the years.

But as we know, one person’s advocacy can be another’s awareness. And especially with online communications (and especially Social Media) now able to facilitate near-instant feedback about an experience or product, the ratings given by one customer can heavily influence a lot of other people to either find out more and alternatively it can put them off for good.  Or to put it another way, your customers are one of your greatest assets and in most cases they should not just be part of your retention activity, they should be used to fuel your acquisition activity too.

This advocacy therefore means that rather than the Customer Journey being a line from awareness through to the experience of the product or service, it becomes a circle looking something like this:

Awareness:
The phase of the customer journey where a person becomes initially aware of something and wants to find out more.

Interest & Desire:
I've merged the two AIDA model phases into one here, as things get incredibly blurred (and with some products such as consumer electronics, brand devotees jump straight from awareness to intense desire). This is also the phase described by Google as the Zero Moment of Truth and can be the period when a multitude of inputs from all channels are considered.

Action:
This is the goal, the purchase, the sign-up, the commit phase. You get the picture…. (The First Moment of Truth)

Experience:
This phase is when the customer actually experiences their purchase and realises the value of what they have procured. (The Second Moment of Truth)

Advocacy:
Here is where a customer reviews your service and rates the service you have provided. They can do it on your site or on any number of review and feedback sites, or can use social media platforms to voice their satisfaction or disdain. It is therefore these comments and sentiment that in my opinion keep the customer journey cycling around.

Understanding the Third Moment of Truth

Last week I posted my thoughts on whether there was an extra  'Moment of Truth' in the online & multi-channel purchasing cycle. One where users get the product home and only then decide to return some or all of them.
This Third Moment of Truth is key to an eCommerce site's revenue and stock management, as returned inventory can significantly affect a product line's profitability and add a lot of effort to the entire back-end process.

In the diagram above I have also tried to tie together this Third Moment of Truth (TMOT) with the other moments and then to align them with my previously-used model of influence & action... AIDA.

Hopefully now, regardless of which model is used, there should now be some alignment of these different pivotal moments.