In the previous two articles, I have been telling you about new ways to use the customer journey. We believe that if you implement what we have written so far, you will be able to provide unprecedented value, but there is a strong possibility that this alone will not be enough to continue to provide value. This is because what I have described so far is focused on the static aspect. In other words, in order to derive the measures that should be taken in the situation of the company and its competitors at this moment, it is enough to practice what has been described so far, but the reality is that the same situation will not continue forever. However, the reality is that the situation will not remain the same forever. Even now, the impact of the new coronavirus has brought about major changes, and even if the coronavirus had not occurred, the situation of the company and its competitors would have changed.
Therefore, we must make decisions in an ever-changing environment. So, is what I have said so far a waste of time? No, it is not. They are useful in predicting as best we can how we and our competitors will change next in an ever-changing environment.
As a matter of course, to make predictions, you need information. What are they focusing on now, what kind of personnel do they have, and what indicators are they showing? And what kind of thinking are they basing their decisions on? Just as AI cannot create anything without information, we need information to predict what will happen next. In other words, forecasting is a practice based on the information we have.
What we have described so far is information for forecasting. By creating a customer journey for our own company, we can understand our strengths and weaknesses, and learn what we can do and what we cannot do. Then, by creating a customer journey for your competitors, you can learn about their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this information, what will the competition do? If that change occurs, we can see what we can do and what we can’t do. As a result, what should the company do next? What is lacking? This will help clarify what needs to be done.
As I have said many times before, we live in an environment that is constantly changing. So, if we can predict those changes more accurately than our competitors, we can dramatically change our current situation. Some say, “It is almost impossible to change the situation in a mature industry. It is impossible. This may be true. However, I believe that this is only because they are looking at the situation in a static way. Even if you feel that it is impossible to overturn a firm position if you only look at this moment, if you look at that position in the context of constantly changing circumstances, you cannot say that it is absolutely impossible to reverse the situation to that extent.
The customer journey is completed with this “anticipation of what is next. Create a customer journey and be done with it. Create a competitor’s customer journey and that’s it. You compare them and come up with a strategy, and that’s it. Such a half-hearted approach will never allow you to continue to win. At the end of the day, what will happen next? What should your company do then? Only then will you be able to see what you really need to do. Only then will you be able to see what you really need to do.
Most companies create a customer journey but do not practice it up to this point. That’s why people are gradually saying, “Even if we create a customer journey…” And you may have noticed that many of them do not even try to create a customer journey. As you may have noticed, this story is not limited to the customer journey. Personas and popular marketing theories all fail because they are approached half-heartedly. If you are going to do things halfway, it would be much better to do them the way you are doing them now. Completing the job is 100 times more important than the customer journey.
We hope that you will keep this in mind as you work on your customer journey.