Customer Journey Mapping
In the style of The Amazing Race.
Context
The team is swamped. We can’t afford to waste a single hour, let alone a day. Heard of lunchtime? That’s cute. At this point (Cerrita 1.0) we are doing everything we can to handle all the leads coming in, its been a record day, week, month and the team … is the same, because we’re a lean mean startup machine.
Cerrita is all about making medical tourism as convenient, safe and affordable as possible, it’s an MVP platform connecting patients from all around the world to clinics and hospitals in South East Asia (for now). The team is comprised of two tech leads, a growth hacker (cringe), two full time patient-consultants and two part-time.
We’re exploring a new potential customer group, and the first step in that direction is talking to the customer. For this we had one day, seven people and a ton of data to collect.
All right, enough with the intro, here is the butter:
The Amazing Race
Concept: Teams of two compete to complete a series of challenges set at different locations outside the office. First team to complete all the challenges wins. simples.
The First Challenge: the team will depart at 10 am and head to the first location where they will meet and interview thirty people of a certain nationality, the first team to complete the task and come back to the office will receive an envelope with the instructions for the next challenge.
The first challenge was designed to gather large amount of initial data as fast as possible, with three teams doing 30 interviews each, that’s 90 data points in two hours. (Quick maths)
When the teams returned, we did a quick recap session, writing down what the teams have learned, and grouping them into relevant categories. we followed by asking ourselves the question “If we had to do it all over again, what would we do differently ?” An open discussion this time, sharing challenges in conducting the interviews, different reactions, techniques and what we thought would improve the process.
In just two hours we learned: Patients are mostly from two major cities, are frequent flyers, use the same airline most of the time, use the internet to book their flights, and hotels prior to coming, and are interested in some medical procedures, while not interested at all in others (Because valid reasons), also identified why they choose to do it here rather than there. This is just a sample.
The Second Challenge: the team will depart at 1 pm and head to the second location where they will meet and interview 5 people each, of the same nationality as the first challenge (sound familiar?). This time however, having longer conversations, and getting deeper insights, as well as clarifying the data from the morning session.
When the teams returned, we had quesadillas, Tacos, Fajitas, and enchiladas (so good), cracked open some beers and just talked about the day. We followed that with a one hour session, combining all the information we have gathered to map out the customer journey, pinpointing the pain points and taking it from there.
The end.
Comments:
- The team is familiar with customer journey mapping; if yours are not, consider conducting a session a couple of day’s prior and going through it.
- I considered wether it was important to go through interview techniques prior to sending the team out, but elected not to use the word “interview” entirely, and let the team just dive in, discussing it amongst themselves. It worked.
- I know what your thinking, where can I find 90 people from a certain nationality/traits ? Be creative! There is always a place, if not, then an event or something. Make it happen.
Final thoughts:
I would love to hear any comments, feedback, ideas related to understanding your customer in a practical manner, If you have any to share, please do not hesitate!
The Idea initially started out as a joke, but quickly turned into a design project that worked like a charm. Feel free to try it, modify it to suite you startup needs, and share your results.
