WHITE PAPER – CUSTOMER JOURNEYUSP MARKETING CONSULTANCY

ABOUT CUSTOMER JOURNEY

A seamless customer journey helps create long-term retention.

How does your customer respond to your company, product,

service or concept? How to take your customer on a delightful

journey across all touchpoints?

A customer journey is a customer’s personal experience with your

company. How your customers orientate, who they speak to, what

events they attend, and what magazines they read – all this shapes

their purchasing journey. Together, the accumulated experiences

across these touchpoints can be perceived as delightful, or

extremely poor, or anything in between.

An evaluation of this accumulated journey allows marketers to

continuously improve their strengths and weaknesses. These

continuous ‘road works’ help to pave out a seamless journey

path. The end goal is an ever better experience with your brand,

leading to recurring business. The best way to investigate the

journey is by drawing up a customer journey map.

Any marketer needs to know where and when to converse with

his customer.

Until not too long ago, customer engagement strategies in the

construction, installation, and home improvement industries were

pretty traditional and straightforward; (1.) the manufacturer is

supplying the wholesaler and (2.) the wholesaler is supplying the

professional applicator. A rather easy journey map to draw up.

Nowadays, however, global digitalisation is shaking up the

foundation of customer interaction in these industries.

Marketers are increasingly confronted with changing online

customer interaction moments. Building an ‘omnichannel’ strategy is

the new standard for seamless experiences, and knowing how to

investigate these dynamics is therefore crucial.

An example is the rise of Building Information Modelling (BIM). To

developers, architects, and contractors, this tool has quickly

transformed from a nice-to-have project backlog to a need-to-have

calculation and communication platform; something a marketer

would want to build a strategy around.

Being on top of these changing dynamics helps to create a

better personalised, consistent and seamless experience for

your customer. USP is there to assist you with this.

SHAPING A JOURNEYIN INSTALLATION, CONSTRUCTION & DIY

When mapping out a customer journey, the first step is always to

identify who is actually ‘the customer’ . Understanding the full

decision-making process (key decision makers and other

influencers) is something our customers often struggle with, as it is

often not very obvious.

Construction and installation projects are often subjected to brand

and product specifications , meaning that various stakeholders

(like contractors, architects, engineers and principals) are involved

in this complex decision-making process. The decision-making

dynamics are likely to differ between renovation and new-build, big

and small projects, residential and non-residential, and furthermore

between countries, segments and products.

Being the market specialist for the B2B and B2C construction,

installation and home improvement industries, USP knows best

who and how to target. This ensures that the journey maps out the

most relevant audiences.

WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER?A DEEP DIVE INTO THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Having conducted numerous B2B and B2C customer journey

studies in our core focus industries, USP Marketing Consultancy

knows how to target professionals like architects, installers,

painters, building contractors and end consumers around the world.

Our goal is to guide you in creating a seamless journey, which

inevitably results in happier users, who are much more likely to

return and spend more.

USP Marketing Consultancy has closely monitored the shift from

fully offline journeys to omnichannel journeys . This experience

is crucial for pinpointing opportunities addressing pain points and

delights. Our projects have helped both those who serve as

frontrunners in updating and optimising their journey strategies and

those who struggle with converting their traditional strategies.

Some of our recent customers include:

WHY USP FOR YOUR

JOURNEY STUDIES?

When researching the customer journey, both quantitative and

qualitative methods are commonly applied. First, qualitative

research to get detailed insight into what your customers are doing,

thinking and feeling during the journey. Second, quantitative

research to validate and support the findings. Whether opting for

qualitative and/ or quantitative, the following research steps are

always relevant:

HOW DO WE DO THIS?

1

2

3

4

5

Orientation• Specify your business needs• Determine methodology/ personas

Kick-off• Verify final research details• Personal meeting with project teams

Research set-up• Decide on measurement tools • Templating the map

Results• Exploratory (statistical) analysis to unveil storyboard

and ‘so what’s

Consultancy• Workshop/ presentation• Consultancy on action plan • Advise on follow-up

USP Marketing Consultancy’s approach to customer journey

mapping is closely linked to the ‘The Customer Journey

Sketchboard ’ developed by service designer Mel Edwards. This map

is an essential tool, as it effectively helps to visualise the full

experience of being a customer.

Our maps are used to uncover gaps in the user experience, to

highlight the biggest threats and opportunities, and to define

actions for optimising customers’ experience with your brand.

Typical components of our journey maps include:

• Personas: Personalising your customer

• Scenario: Learning about a specific persona’s purchasing behaviour

• Expectations: A seamless process and great experience throughout the

entire journey.

• Journey phases: Which will be aligned with your business goal

• Touchpoints and actions: All relevant interactions (this is where brand

inconsistencies are usually identified)

• Thoughts and emotions: Accompanied by relevant quotes

• Pain points: Frustrations/ difficulties experienced throughout touchpoints

• Insights: To transform journey maps from a visualisation of a story into an

action plan, we highlight your threats and opportunities, and advise on

what actions need to be taken

IT IS ALL ABOUT MAPPING

TO

UC

HP

OIN

TS

FE

ELIN

GS

PA

IN P

OIN

TS

None. Free sample was not provided. None. None.

Specific information for ‘water-

borne’ is completely missing

from the can.

Sales representative showed

up after 4 days only.

INS

IGH

TS Promote product

innovations in off-line trade

magazines. This is the best

way to create exposure.

Always give them a ‘take

away’, as they are not

inclined to switch products

otherwise.

Doing very well here! Prices

agreements help your

recurring business.

Your distribution network

can be better in region East.

Other regions are doing well

already.

Inform them about every

detail of the product

application procedure.

Be available 24/7. Painters

rely on you to get the job

done on time.

Persona: John – Professional painter – United Kingdom

SCENARIO: Learning about the buying behaviour for water-borne interior wall paints.

GOALS & EXPECTATIONS: A seamless process and great experience throughout the entire journey.

Phase 1

Inspiration

Phase 2

Orientation

Phase 3

Selection

Phase 4

Buying

Phase 5

Applying

Phase 6

Aftercare

12

3

45

6

7 9

“My colleagues and I always

know what works best.”

“I do not want to loose time, so my

store should always be within 20

minutes driving.”

“The quality was not OK and

I want to be compensated for

that.”

EXAMPLE OF A CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP

1

2

3 4

5

6 7 9Talks to colleagues

Read trade magazines

Relies on shop staff

advice

Previous experience

Price agreements with

shop

Bought in the physical

store,

while driving to the job

Reads manual on

product package

Contacts sales

representative

“If they don’t give me free

samples then I will not try.”

We create separate (one point of view) journey maps for

different personas (or customer segments). For instance, for a

smart home purchase decision you might choose to map out

property developer, installer or end-user actions; each would result

in very different journeys.

These customer journey maps form the essence, but there is much

more you can expect. Across all journey maps, USP Marketing

Consultancy will unveil a storyboard and ‘so what’s ’.

This will then be reported in an actionable output (like PowerPoint),

focusing on the recommendations per channel, segment and/ or

country. We want to assist you in implementing the desired actions.

Personal presentations and/ or workshops, based on our 25+ years

of market experience, will enable this.

FROM INSIGHTS TO IMPACT

MORE INFORMATION

Maja Markovic

Project Manager Customer Journey

markovic@usp-mc.nl

+31 6 8283 4333

Dirk Hoogenboom

Research Consultant

hoogenboom@usp-mc.nl

+31 6 5209 8924

10

About USP

USP Marketing Consultancy

Total

70

Head office Subsidiary

Rotterdam Düsseldorf

Consultants

Research Analysts

Project managers

Market specialist installation, construction, home improvement and real estate

Dedicated and multi-client research

Active in the market for over 25 years

230+ dedicated market research projects annually

Revenue distribution

turnover coming from international projects

70%

turnover coming from dedicated market

research, 10% from multi client

90%

turnover coming from B2B, 30% B2C

70%

focus groups in-depth interviews

78 1,162

B2B CATI interviews

B2C online interviews

58,653 56,750

Research in

34countries annually

© 14 May 2020, USP Marketing Consultancy B.V.

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