The ideas for the following thoughts came out of a search project, not a customer journey mapping effort. But the ‘filter bubble‘ idea came up in conversation and it struck me how we often only find that which we’re capable of seeing based on our perspective. And even a subtle shift can make a difference in helping us reach our goals. So here you go…
In Marketing and Product Management we often refer to the Customer Journey. Maybe we should be thinking about a Customer Quest instead. And treat the process as a search problem.
This may seem to be a subtle difference; somewhat more about attitude than a significant departure of definition. But consider the value in just a small shift. Our outlook can impact how we think about and handle customer touch points. A journey is a trip or process of traveling from one place to another, whereas a quest is a purposeful pursuit. For our purposes, the quest is more about the motivation and goal, whereas the journey is just the path we’re following trying to solve a search problem. But we’re often not just following a path. We might be blazing this new trail. Yes, some enjoy the journey. Shopping is fun for some people, maybe a learning or social activity. More so if the category is fun; new skis, golf clubs, etc. For commercial goods and services, we might enjoy the journey as we learn useful things on our quest. Nevertheless, we didn’t choose a meandering cruise with the all-you-can-eat buffet. We’ve got a goal. The cliche for a variety of things in life may be “it’s not about the destination, it’s the journey.” That’s a nice thought. But not always true. Sometimes we just want to get things done. Just mapping a consumer path and trying to inject a marketing message here or there might not be enough.
If you’re still not sure about buying off on this concept, think about your own behavior over the past year or so. Have you started trying out Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc? Have you used them to solve any challenges you’ve had as a consumer of goods or services? If so, why did you try this new tool? What was traditional search or the company’s customer service not doing for you? If you’ve done this, then you’ve experienced exactly the kind of challenge we’re talking about here. There was a search/discovery need we all had that was not being met. (Or was being poorly handled.) And no one was really helping us adequately. We got lucky and the world gave us yet another tool. The lesson though, is that we had existing unrecognized needs. What else are we missing as product creators and marketers in terms of customer information seeking needs? Maybe… maybe just this subtle shift in thinking about this aspect of customer experience can help find out.
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