As a highly visual learner, I have sought out visual representations of Customer Success. One that has resonated is this model created by Winning by Design. How well does this visual scaffolding support the CS practitioner’s experiences and help guide our future actions?
The focus today: examine the customer centric portion of the visual, offer an energizing question, and apply that approach to the Awareness stage.
The customer wants what?
This customer journey visual contains a wonderful customer-centric kernel: the thoughts of the customer, at points on the journey. Adding a human makes that visually obvious:
To prime us for curiosity, empathy, and problem solving, I’m going to turn each of the colored thought bubbles into the question that precedes them.
Let’s take the first thought bubble in yellow:
We now have a question-answer pairing. Or to use the journey metaphor, we have a “you are here” and “your destination is over there.”
How might we help the customer from here to there? What are we currently doing? Where are the opportunities to make it even better?
CS Practitioner -
We can point it out. “Hey, you have a flat tire,” is usually well received.
We can share our personal experience of how we made the journey from here to there. If people see themselves in our story, cue awareness.
We can create an Ideal Customer Profile, highlighting a group of people who previously had this question and what steps they took to find the answer.
Who (or what else) at our company is helping customers get from here to there?
Marketing — advertising and brand; traditionally the Awareness stage is nearly synonymous with Marketing.
Sales/SDR — especially if using the Challenger Sales Method.
Our Mission — join us on this journey if it matches your current or desired identity!
How might we team up internally to improve our ability to help the customer get from here to there? Have we had this conversation with our colleagues in Marketing, Sales/SDR, Leadership, etc?
I’m interested in helping customers become aware of big problems in their lives.
It feels like an area of overlap between us.
How is what I’m doing today helping you? What could I do to make it better?
How have you helped customers get from here to there? Subscribe and then leave a comment.
Great visual and great breakdown of the concepts. Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.