Check out this week’s Video Review with Ken:
In my role, I’m used to seeing a lot of emails. Sometimes I get hundreds of messages a day. I am part of many RACI matrices for initiatives within my organization and with our clients. Some of these are on the “Informational” side, with many on the “Responsible” side of the matrix. As a result, I generally do not allow rules to dictate what I read; instead, I have developed strategies to keep up to date and make certain I know what is happening without being buried by emails.
However, after spending a week on the road without much time to view my inbox, I expected to come home to a litany of emails needing my attention. I was partially correct. Knowing I was traveling, my team did a pretty good job of moderating what was sent and summarizing instead of pushing every note to me. Even those who may not have known that I was traveling read my out-of-office message and adjusted accordingly.
Yet, upon my return, I had more emails and LinkedIn messages than I ever expected. The difference is the volume of messages from people I don’t know. Hundreds of them. Almost all of them were sales pitches. I will not fault someone for trying to grab a little of my time to gauge my interest in whatever it was they were selling. However, after seeing my notification informing them that I was unavailable, I was surprised how many of these individuals pressed further, “bumping the email to the top of the inbox.” I was clear on my date of return, and in some of my LinkedIn messages, I also replied, stating that I was out of the office and that they could schedule time with me using my scheduling link. Yet a couple of days later, I would get a repeat message asking me to schedule with them so it would be using their preferred video conferencing tool.
In thinking about their approach to attempting to get time with me, it invites the question of how does a customer journey map differs from a buyer persona? I probably appear to be the ideal prospect for every .ai and .io software provider out there.
It is easy to gather sufficient information about me to understand my industry, my interests, and the prominent role I play in the organization. No doubt they have established a persona based on many of these public elements. In developing their ideal buyer persona, they undoubtedly envisioned me as a lead decision maker, a budget holder, and likely looking for innovative solutions. Even in a business-to-business environment offering similar products or services, there are many buyer personas to be considered.
Yet, with all that information in hand, they probably did not take the time to fully understand my customer journey toward the purchase. As much as anyone may understand about buyer personas which includes understanding their needs and purchasing authority, it is also vital to understand the path they will take towards the purchase – their buying journey.
The representation of a buyer persona like mine would give some insights into the process I take before and during a purchase (although it shows what I consider after the purchase, I would venture a guess that these sales representatives do not really care much for that). In general, a B2B customer journey is already a highly complex organism that often has multiple “buyers” involved. In my “simple” case, I would generally say that I am not the “starting point” for any sale.
In fact, I would be a bottleneck for most sellers that hinders the seller’s desired sales process. In an initial conversation, I would expect the seller to be able to articulate a viable use case for me even to consider that solution. Even then, knowing the effort to onboard or integrate anything brought to the table, a seller needs to understand that there are several “voices” to consider before any action is taken.
I also sit on the other side of that map as someone who provides businesses with Customer Experience software and services. Even of the CX program manager immediately exclaims the desire to procure what we have to offer, we still need to convince a CTO that our software will integrate seamlessly with their tools, a CIO that our security protocols will meet the confidentiality requirements promised to their customers and a COO that we can indeed provide tools that will allow them to take action on the insights our great tool provides. All that in addition to likely having to convince a purchasing department and to go through a formal procurement process that often takes months to complete.
A buyer that purchases our Research license may need only to get approval on the budget and one or two technical requirements. This could take as little as a month but generally would take a few months to go from awareness to purchase. Yet, even if it was the same buyer, for a Customer Experience license, the time could take up to a full year just to get the primary buyer on board with the purchase, then several more months to fulfill all the technical and security requirements. Even with the same buyer, the journey is vastly different.
It is a key reason to understand both the buyer personas along with the product purchase customer journey map and recognize the difference between them. Otherwise, you may just be sending more “bringing this to the top of your inbox” emails with very little chance of moving to the next stage in the customer journey. Maybe it will save a few emails from my inbox as well.
Is there something wrong with your customer experience?
When you complete an honest assessment, the outcome can be beneficial. Particularly when it comes to your Customer Experience program.
Take five minutes and complete an audit for your organization here.
You may discover a gap in measurement, an opportunity to improve a process, the place where an organizational shift needs to take place or an opportunity to win a greater share of your customers’ wallets.
We all want that bigger “return”. In this situation, the worst case scenario is that you’ll get some information that will help your organization since there is no cost or obligation in completing this audit.
