How to Use a Customer Journey and Personas

We want to focus on the concepts of personas, customer journeys, and product journeys. In this discussion, I'll primarily concentrate on personas and customer journeys and how we can help the judges understand these concepts from a customer’s perspective.

Starting with personas, it's essential to answer the key question: Who is the customer? This understanding allows you to connect with stakeholders and identify target markets effectively. It's important to remember that you can use multiple personas. There can be different customers and consumers, each representing various stakeholder groups.

When introducing a persona, be sure to give them a name and discuss their demographics, such as age, family status, interests, activities, and brand loyalty. Additionally, context is crucial; if the case study originates from a specific country—whether India, the Netherlands, Canada, or elsewhere—ensure that the persona's name reflects the cultural or ethnic background of that country. It can be quite disconcerting when teams use English names for personas in scenarios set in countries like India or China. Authenticity matters, as you want to portray a true representation of your target market, stakeholders, and employees.

Next, let's examine the customer’s product journey, focusing on how we reach that target persona. Once we have identified a target persona, we consider the steps they take. For instance, a persona may purchase a product and then take specific actions, prompting a response from the company. This process involves the persona learning about the company's actions as well.

This framework helps illustrate the steps involved for a persona leading up to a purchase. However, in this case, we can also consider the persona's journey of discovering and learning about a company rather than focusing solely on the purchase.

A vital aspect of this analysis is identifying takeaways—key insights that support your analysis and help communicate to the judges why your solution is effective. It's about demonstrating how your approach aligns with the product and customer journeys.

Furthermore, it can be useful to present your findings in two distinct areas: objectives versus personas. You might consider various elements, including goals, touchpoints, emotions, customer satisfaction, questions and quotes, pain points, and potential improvements.

Think about the steps that lead a customer from awareness to consideration, and ultimately to a purchase decision, and then through to customer retention. It's also worth examining this from a product-centric perspective, considering how the product itself might influence the customer's journey, as opposed to viewing it solely from the customer's actions.