Lockdown, chapter five: Design your customer journey

Design your customer journey – meet with empathy, consider key touch points Your customer journey is the route your customers take from the moment they first hear of you, to building interest, to sold up – and beyond. It goes like this: Awareness – Desire – Action. Not everyone who hears of your business today will be ready to buy from you, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still interact with your business in some way. Perhaps they’ll sign up to your newsletter? Follow you on social media? Request a brochure? Every single interaction (‘touch point’, in marketing lingo) is an opportunity to impress, and a chance to build a meaningful relationship that gently, yet thoughtfully, leads to a sale.

I passionately believe that meeting your customer with empathy increases your chances of a sale tenfold. What I mean by this is putting yourself in their shoes, asking yourself at each point of the journey, ‘how is my customer feeling now? What do they need to know?’. This mindset pivots your message from a cold sell to something far more meaningful that’ll connect and resonate. More than that, it breeds trust – and trust is invaluable to any working relationship.

We find that clients are often a little anxious – albeit excited – when they first get in touch. They’re stepping into the realm of the unknown’; they’ve probably not worked with a creative business before and don’t know how it works. They want to be reassured that we are human, honest, capable and kind. We meet this worry by speaking with an authentic voice. We share our process really early on in our conversation so there’s complete transparency around the process, and we are incredibly open through all of our social media channels. Once clients have decided to book, we aim to match their excitement! We send all of our admin promptly, in our signature style – even our contract is written in plain, friendly language. From then on in, clients can expect to be treated as a friend at every point. We always ask how they’re feeling about the work we present, and acknowledge when clients are likely to feel nervous (that first look at their creative direction, for example!). Can you see how this helps to pave the way for an easy, connected journey that’s consistent throughout?

Action:

This is easy, but involved. Map out the journey your customers take from Awareness, through Desire to Action. What are their touch points? How are they likely to be feeling at each stage of the process, and how can you position your message to meet them with empathy? Having a thoughtfully structured journey to welcome new clients to your business will increase retention, referrals and all other very good things.