You’ll be more effective. Making a u-turn when you know where you’re going solves a problem. But making a u-turn when you’re hopelessly lost is an exercise in frustration. My point simply being: if you know where you are headed, it is much easier to adjust your course, but making incremental changes without the end in sight is a waste of resources.
You could miss unmet needs if you don’t. A common theme we see in companies lacking a customer experience map is that they instead use an ad hoc approach – fixing the pain point of the moment, but not addressing the underlying issues. But by using this approach, you could be missing an opportunity to “leap frog” forward.
As Henry Ford is reputed to have said, “if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Is your company’s ad hoc response to customer experience pain points keeping you from finding a bigger solution? The customer may think they know what they want, but without a customer experience map, your company is at the mercy of the customer, as opposed to providing a great customer experience along with the product they never knew they wanted.
Stand out from the crowd. Do you want to be a company that customers choose because you’re their only option? Or would you rather that your customers keep coming back because they want to? Many companies exist in a somewhat saturated market. Through a differentiated – and better – customer experience, you can gain market share above your competitors.
Has your company found that visualizing a map toward the ideal customer experience is effective? Share what benefits you’ve seen in the comments.