Being contextually relevant means delivering the information necessary to help a customer accomplish her or his goals relevant to your product or service appropriate to:

• Space/Time location
• Stage in the cycle(s)
• Behavioral patterns
• Channel
• Device

As customer understanding becomes the most powerful sustainable competitive advantage, the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development has become a core business competency. The ability to conduct qualitative ethnographic research, develop insights based on that research then translate those insights into business strategy is as important as the technology strategy the CTO is driving.

The primary tools for customer journey mapping are analog: whiteboards, butcher paper, post-it notes and markers are sufficient. The problem with these tools is that it is difficult to evolve the map that is created. For a customer journey map to grow with the organization it is necessary to transfer it to a digital medium so it can be built on over time. Unfortunately, there are not many purpose built solutions for moving your map beyond pen and paper.

Digital is a tremendous advantage for companies that understand their customers behavior and apply technologies that make interactions more effective and enjoyable within the context of the overall customer journey. 

But digital is not a shortcut to great experiences.

We start the design process by collecting information about who our clients customers are, what our clients customers are doing and why they are doing it.

A step by step guide for designing a flexible framework that enables sales and marketing to adapt to changes in customers buying behaviors.

Marketing and sales must evolve to become services that deliver value independent of a purchase. They must make the customer better at who they are attempting to be and what they are want to accomplish. Shifting to service based sales and marketing requires a disciplined program of customer research, journey analysis and insight development.

Recent studies by The Economist and Forrester found that great customer experience drives revenue, builds customer loyalty and creates meaningful differentiation. One powerful tool for understanding your customers experience and identifying areas needing improvement is the customer journey map.