Customer Experience: The Hero’s Journey
There is always a moment in a customer’s journey that determines whether to buy or pass your service. As a retailer, I am sure you might get dozens of diverse responses. This happens because every journey is divided in Marketing, Sales and Service. The more channels, innovation and platforms, the more challenges you’ll face with creating a coherent brandstory and experience. Try to see it like a Chinese whispers, because of this there are silos within the workplace and a seamless communication within the employee and customer experience becomes more difficult. In order to deliver that consistent experience, your brand and all the members of staff across these touchpoints need to understand and empathize at what point of the journey the customer is on. How we can bring this back into learning of theater and acting is; The Heroes Journey.
There are numerous frameworks for mapping your brand story in order to deliver a compelling customer experience. However, to get an authentic customer experience that truly resonates with your audience, you might prefer a tried and tested formula by Joseph Campbell called The Hero’s Journey or The Monomyth, which will ensure you achieve a human centric approach via an empathetic understanding of the customer’s journey. Many retailers and business people consistently use this formula to effectively drive messages that resonate with their customers. Let’s take a closer look at the monomyth and see how it works for the OMNI channel, an immersive experience for retail.
The Hero’s Journey:
The Hero’s Journey is an effective formula that circulates the main character, the Hero-who goes on an adventure, is facing tests and trials, is victorious in a decisive crisis and comes home changed or transformed. Many successful films like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Matrix have used this template. But it’s all based on psychological theories from Sigmund Freud, Otto Runk and Carl Jung. This framework allows us to read individual heroes as symbolic of the psychological journey that we all go through. The monomyth.
Used in business, this formula develops an intersection between the customer Journey and Hero’s Journey. While using this framework, it is vital to understand this is not your Journey. You are not the hero, the consumer is. Business owners and retailers only play the role of Yoda, Gandalf, or Dumbledore, the wise mentors. These mentors equip the heroes with the right tools, a journey map, a mission, and means to accomplish their goals. Our character plays a supporting role in their Journey.
The Hero’s journey is set up around 12 steps that we all keep going through in life. Within the sphere of these steps, our role as the business is of a wise mentor that guides them through these steps in the physical and digital experience. We can use this framework to act as a guardian of the brand experience touchpoints. Hit that follow button to see my upcoming post about the twelve steps!
Three ways to victory:
What is conventionally perceived as a customer journey, we are going to add a layer of depth to it and call our consumers, our Heroes.
The Hero’s Journey a.k.a The monomyth is an analyzed theory by Joseph Campbell who set up a journey that we all go through in our lives. His research shows that literally every story and experience is built on 12 steps of which can be divided in three phases;
- Initiation (Marketing):
Every Journey begins with an adventure. Make sure your ‘Call to Adventure’ or initial engagement with the client is an exciting and seamless experience. Do you notice a strong call to adventure in the market? Take Amazon, for example. It offers Dash buttons to order via Alexa.
2. Departure (Sales):
When they eventually decide to come into the store or web-shop, your Hero requires a mentor to guide him throughout his trek. Think about your brand from an alternative perspective. If your brand can be Dumbledore to a hero like Harry Potter, you will establish an excellent engagement cycle with your customers.
3. Return (Service):
After a successful quest in the unknown world, the Hero finally returns home freed from their problems, fulfilled by their challenges. Becoming the Hero with a capital H. In terms of consumer experience, they still need to install, incorporate or use your product before they eventually become: referrals.
Call to action:
There are numerous heroes’ journeys happening around you all the time. Identifying these journeys is fascinating, especially if you want to build genuine and meaningful relationships with your customers. You can begin your journey with Omni channel communication to help your heroes find the path that leads them to an immersive shopping and in-store experience.
Are you curious about how the hero’s journey applies to your business? Let’s walk through the 12 steps of the heroes journey together. Feel free to reach out!
