The Broken Customer Journey

Have "point solutions" gone too far?

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sup y’all!

I’ve been spending a lot of time the last few weeks, thinking about the customer journey.

More specifically, what are all the ways that a prospect/customer hears from a software provider? (This gets particularly complex in a PLG/product-led sales go-to-market motion.)

I started by writing out every customer interaction that happens in a Notion table (over 200 rows).
This was not digestible.

Then, I looked at all of those in a visual.
But, 200 ‘plays’ were equally as overwhelming in an image.

Finally, I put something together that I think makes sense. It’s comprehensive enough to show every customer interaction ‘category,’ while not explicitly spelling out every single ‘play.’

Here is what I put together:

Take a minute to click on this image. Zoom in. Scroll around. It’s a lot to digest.

Customer Journey (aka “The Happy Path”)

First of all, just laying out the Customer Journey—what I call, “The Happy Path” (the top yellow section)—is not as straightforward as you’d think.

This should be a bit nuanced for every customer, depending on your specific go-to-market motion.

Have “point solutions” gone too far?

All of business is bundling and unbundling.
-Jim Barksdale

We’re at a point in time where we have a ton of amazing point solutions. Truly, I love that there’s a market for software that serves very specific use cases.

But, using these “best-in-class” tools introduces another problem: disparate data sources, making it hard to have all the different tools talk to each other.

This means there are gaps and redundancies in the customer journey.

In this particular example, seven different email-sending tools are being used.

1. Qualified.com (website visitors)

2. HubSpot (demand gen)

3. Apollo.io (sales development, sales)

4. DIY in-app messaging (there are many purpose-built tools for this use case)

5. Intercom (in-app chat)

6. Customer.io (onboarding emails)

7. Vitally.io (customer success)

What’s the solution?

To me, it’s obvious that someone will (should!) create a true end-to-end platform for customer interactions.

It was always odd to me that Sales Engagement (Outreach, SalesLoft, Apollo, etc.) never went into Marketing Automation. Instead, they went further ‘down’ the sales cycle into AE-land.

HubSpot is probably the closest. With their sales product (Sales Hub) doing over half a billion in revenue. When will they launch chat? Why haven’t they? (They should, imho).

Someone will be in all seven of these “categories” over the next ~5 years. And that’ll unlock really interesting workflows that are only possible by owning the entire customer journey.

What’s the point of this post?

I think it’s important to map out your customer’s “Happy Path” if you haven’t already done so.

Once you have the guardrails in place, you can set up systems (using technologies) to ensure the customer stays on that happy path. And if/when they veer off the path, you have a way to support them to get back on the right path.

At the end of the day, I believe our job in GTM is to serve customers: removing friction, and being a “sherpa,” guiding them to succeed at their job.

And I’m not convinced the current tech stack is best serving the customer today. I’m excited to see the space evolve over the coming years, enabling a smoother customer journey.

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See you next week,
B.