WH Smith (SMWH) Customer / User Journey Design / MBA Resources

WH Smith Customer Journey Design Recommendations

Can WH Smith use Customer Journey Design Principles?

Yes, WH Smith can use Customer Journey Design principles in the Retail (Specialty) industry. WH Smith has to carefully evaluate the positioning and targeting strategy in the Services sector, to build a highly effective customer journey.

What is Customer Journey? What is Customer Journey Design?

Customer Journey is the compelling series of experiences that a brand or a product delivers to the customers that keep them coming back for more. It is a sequential design of not only the product purchase journey but also post sale usage experience and service experience. For example

Customer Journey Design is a deliberative act of putting in place touchpoints that can not only improve the customer experience but also reduce friction throughout the whole – pre purchase, purchase, and post purchase experience. For example

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Different types / examples of customer journey design

Some of the most prominent examples of customer journey types employed by the leading organizations are -

Cars

– As car purchase decisions require high value decision making, the customer journey is designed for reducing efforts through higher number of dealership and reducing unpredictability of the decision making process by providing extended car drives.

Coffee shops & Starbucks

– customer journey in Starbucks is optimized for routine behavior that is the process has to be effortless and predictable.

Grocery chains

– Retail stores such as Wal-Mart , Target, Amazon , Costco etc have designed their customer journey on predictability and effortless because majority of the products purchased by consumers are regular and routine products.

Steaming services

– Streaming services thrive on making the process effortless, but customers get bored with predictable journey so the algorithms provide recommendations to surprise the customers and keep them engaged.

Fitness and HIIT workouts

– Customer journey for them are often unpredictable as fitness outcomes are improved through diverse exercises. Secondly customers need diverse experience to remain motivated.

McDonalds

– In store eating and drive through customer journey is designed for same objectives – to reduce the friction points and provide an effortless and predictable experience.

Learning products

– Learning products require efforts on part of customers, so companies build customer journey where the outcomes are predictable especially in terms of stage wise delivery outcomes. For example in Duolingo language courses -stage 2 difficulty level is higher than stage 1, and customer reach stage 2 only when they complete stage 1.

Gastronomic restaurant

– High end restaurant customer journey design is built on effortless and unpredictable component. The restaurant goes a long way to provide high quality service in terms of comfort, but it likes to provide unique food experience each time compare to McDonalds .

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How WH Smith can use Customer Journey Design Principles to better improve its customer journey?

More often than not companies try to routinize the customer journey that is making it more effortless and predictable. For example Amazon one click shopping experience. Once the product is selected customers don’t have to fill in the address and other details, don’t have to fill financial data to pay, and don’t have to follow up the order as they receive constant notifications based on what stage the delivery process is.

But this constant drive to routinize the customer journey is not suitable for most products as the motivation behind the purchase varies.

What are the four archetypes of Customer Journey Design

Trek – requires effort and predictable

Products that help the customer to achieve their personal goals often qualify as Trek products. The customer journey requires both commitment and effort on the part of the customer. Customer wants the predictable outcomes because often personal goals require a stage wise progression.

Routine – effortless and predictable

The task of marketers is to streamline the user experience and ensure consistency across each touch point. For example online banking app can make banking effortless and provides predictable experience. Similarly drive-in allows users to get the same products without going in the restaurant.

Odyssey – requires efforts and are unpredictable

The odyssey products are challenging, thrilling, and unpredictable. These products fulfill the needs such as enthusiasm, determination, and sense of purpose. Some of the example of Odyssey products archetype are – Pokemon game, websites building services, HIIT workouts etc.

Joyride – effortless and unpredictable

In various products and services customers look for an effortless experience but unpredictable results. Some of the leading examples of this are – streaming services, shuffle option in the music player, sports media and video games. Customers like both the accessibility of Netflix and surprise recommendations of its algorithm.

None of the archetypes explained above are superior to one or another. All four types of customer journeys can help organizations to achieve long-term success in the marketplace. It all boils down to the type of the product and services of the company. In fact as WH Smith is a multinational company in Retail (Specialty) industry with diverse products and services offering – it can use all the four above archetypes for different products and services.

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What are the five steps of Customer Journey Design

The firve steps of Customer Journey Design for WH Smith in Retail (Specialty) are are – identify product service archetype Retail (Specialty) industry, applying archetype design principles to WH Smith products & services, cue purchase decisions based on Retail (Specialty) ecosystem, streamline touch points across WH Smith distribution & service channel, and build a post sales strategy based on product features and usage.

Identifying product archetype fit for WH Smith products in Retail (Specialty) industry

First step of designing the customer journey design for WH Smith products and services in Retail (Specialty) industry is to identify and categorize the products and services based on different types of archetype

Put the archetype’s design principles into action in Retail (Specialty) industry

As WH Smith is operating in multiple product categories in the Retail (Specialty) industry, the bigger challenge is how to categorize various products and services of different archetype and how to serve them using either existing backend operations.

Cue purchase decisions at the right time

Even though customer journey is not confined to streamline the purchase decision, but it is one of the most critical parts of the process. Providing right purchase cues at right time can enable WH Smith to increase its market share in Retail (Specialty) industry.

Streamline the customer journey design at every opportunity

By streamling customer journey at every opportunity is not confined to making it effortless and routine, but to optimize the touchpoints based on product and service archetype.

Consider different customer journey archetypes for different customer segments

Finally WH Smith can build different customer journey designs based on the expectations and behavioral aspects of various customer segments.

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Conclusion

To succeed in the hypercompetitive market, marketing managers must design a compelling customer journey that can make customer return for more. The customer journey design should consider – product and service archetype of WH Smith in Retail (Specialty) industry, positioning of various products, customer expectations and existing go to market strategy, and finally providing a streamline process in line with product features, usage, and customers’ expectations.

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SWOT Analysis / SWOT Matrix of WH Smith

PESTEL / PEST / STEP Analysis of WH Smith

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