We thought we’d share a fun example of learning big lessons from tiny details – and of real life yielding some neat metaphors to keep in mind when creating a customer journey.

Last week, we had an exciting meeting with a new client. It was a wide-ranging conversation, and one part really rang true for them. The conversation had turned to the sales and marketing process, and how digital has changed the role of different touch-points in the customer journey.

Physical thresholds

By way of illustration, we related an experience we had with a brand activation built on a truck. Unavoidably, it was a few feet off the ground, so participants needed to go up 4-5 steps in order to enter. This is something we refer to – both in literal and marketing terms – as a barrier to entry.

The real problem however was not really the staircase; it was the first step (literally). It was a big step (metaphorically) – the psychological threshold. Once people had put their foot on that first step, they had made the commitment to the others and onto other parts of the customer journey.

Of course, we simply addressed this by putting a welcome mat at the foot of the steps, lowering the threshold, down to the very ground they were walking and standing on. The foot of the steps was no longer a decision point, people weren’t on the outside looking in, but were already inside and being welcomed.

There is simple but powerful human behaviour underlying this. People don’t want to get into something unfamiliar. They don’t want feel intimidated, unprepared, or not in control of their situation. Worst of all, they don’t want to look silly or ignorant. They want to at least know what they don’t know before they decide to expose themselves (metaphorically!) to us as a potential customer.

These are certainly not new considerations when it comes to selling face-to-face, live experiences, retail, experiential and exhibition environments.

Digital thresholds

In the digital space, progressing through a user experience involves similar considerations. Consumers are acutely aware that digital marketing is very actively gathering every piece of data possible, trying to ‘know them better’, ‘create personalised experiences’ and ‘build a relationship’. Thresholds in the digital customer journey therefore, are points where new information is disclosed.

• Their decision to visit your website (giving you their time).
• Their decision to subscribe, register or trial (giving you their personal information).
• Their decision to purchase (giving you their money).
• Their decision about how to pay (giving you their financial information).
• Their decision to share their experience with others (giving you their seal of approval/disapproval).

A matter of trust

It’s obvious that each threshold requires an increasing level of trust. They are critical milestones in the customer journey, yet all too often people are pushed into the next phase before they’re ready, taking leaps of faith, only to be disappointed with what they discover.

Can you even count the number of web service subscriptions you’ve joined, based on a meaningless list of features, simply to get an idea of what the service is really like? You need to register before you can find out if it’s addressing your needs at all. Another example is requiring users to create an account before they can find out any indication of price.

Many discussions about UX actually encourage this behaviour as necessary ways to convert visitors to subscribers and subscribers to customers. All too often though it’s disappointing to discover what’s behind the curtain – and disappointment doesn’t really seem like something you really want to build into your customer experience – unless you’re really only focused on metrics that is.

We know it’s a challenge to get the smallest investment of time online. However, in an effort to maximise that time, customer journey creators need to be careful that they’re not wasting or abusing it for their guests. After all, the digital customer journey is fundamentally about building trust, which is the basis of any relationship.