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1174 : STEP TWO – GENERATING NEW IDEAS

mapping the customer journey A final valuable technique in

this checklist section involves mapping all stages of the customer
journey with the product or service, from the first stages of pre-
purchase right through to disposal.

As with all these idea-generation techniques, the customer journey
technique builds on the in-depth information about actual, rather than
presumed, customer usage which you will have developed during the fact-
finding phase of Step One of the idea development process. The
technique’s strength lies in making you consider the product or service
from the customer perspective and in relation to every stage of the
customer’s contact with that product or service. It widens the focus away
from the product or service itself, particularly at time of consumption.

the customer journey technique builds on
the in-depth information about actual,
rather than presumed, customer usage

As with so many creativity techniques, it is best used in combination
with other tools such as the ‘5 Ws plus H’ (discussed in Chapter 3), the
Osborn product and service development list (outlined above) and
brainstorming (described in a later section in this chapter). And in
common with the best creativity techniques, it involves a combination
of convergent and divergent thinking.

The first stage is to identify every single phase in the customer’s total
experience of a product or service, the so-called customer journey.
Having identified the various phases, the next stage is to use one or a
permutation of the three techniques listed above – ‘5 Ws plus H’,
brainstorming or Osborn’s list – to develop ideas for innovation and
differentiation.

While every product or service will lay different emphasis on particular
phases, the underlying phases are likely to be broadly similar. Table 4.5
lists the typical phases of a customer journey and offers examples of
innovations achieved at each phase across a variety of sectors.