Crafting Your Customer Experience

July 25, 2022

19 min 58 sec

Your brand is built in the gap between what you promise and what you actually deliver. Every email, every package, every phone call, every invoice – they're all part of the customer experience, whether you've designed them or not.

In this episode Martin Sully shares two practical methods for mapping and improving your customer journey. One uses butcher's paper and Sharpies. The other is a cardboard card system a client developed herself – one card per touchpoint, work through the stack, bin each one when it's done.

And somewhere in the middle there's a Rollie shoes invoice that folds into a paper airplane. Completely useless. Martin still talks about it years later. That's the point.

Common branding misconceptions

What's Covered in This Episode

What a customer experience should comprise: surprise and delight, personalisation, value at every touchpoint, consistency, avoiding failed expectations, gratitude, continuousimprovement
Why you can never assume customer loyalty – a ten-year customer still wants to feel like they matter
Method one: the butcher's paper exercise – mapping every step from 'customer meets your brand' to 'customer leaves a review'
How to analyse each touchpoint: aligned with values, right feeling, right tone of voice
The unexpected touchpoints worth branding: 404 error pages, invoices, quotes, packaging, event signage, in-person meetings
The Rollie shoes invoice that folded into a paper airplane – utterly pointless, completely memorable
Method two: the cardboard card system – one card per touchpoint, tone of voice on the back, work through the stack and bin each one

Our Podcast evolved

This episode was originally recorded for an earlier version of the podcast. The audio intro references a previous name – the content is all still the good stuff.

Want to work through your own customer experience?

The customer experience blog post covers the strategy behind building one that actually sticks. Or start with Mini Martin for the brand foundations underneath.

Meet Mini Martin