A customer journey strategy is a decision about where in the journey you will compete, and where you will deliberately do only the minimum. A 60-person firm cannot be the fastest, the cheapest, the most thorough and the most personal at every stage. This article answers how to choose the one or two stages where your journey will be clearly better than a competitor's, what you give up to get there, and how to put that choice into practice in the levelpartner.ai platform.
Strategy means choosing
Most journey work tries to improve everything a little. That spreads effort thinly and leaves you indistinguishable from the next firm. A strategy picks a stage to win.
Typical choices include speed of first response, quality of the proposal, ease of onboarding, or how well you stay in touch after the sale. Each suits a different kind of buyer. A buyer comparing three mortgage brokers in one evening rewards speed. A buyer choosing a consultancy for a year-long programme rewards a thorough proposal.
How to pick your stage
Look at three things side by side. Where you lose most buyers today. Where competitors are weakest, based on what lost prospects and new clients tell you. And where your team already has a natural strength.
The best choice usually sits where two of the three overlap. A stage where you leak buyers and competitors are also poor is a strong candidate, because a modest improvement makes you stand out.
Before you start
- Stage conversion figures from your dashboard for at least two quarters.
- Notes from conversations with five recent clients and three lost prospects.
- An honest view from leadership of what the firm does better than anyone.
- Agreement that the chosen stage gets extra resource for at least two quarters.
How to set it up
- Rank your stages by how many buyers you lose at each one.
- Note beside each stage what clients and lost prospects said about competitors there.
- Mark the stage where heavy losses meet weak competitors.
- Write a one-line promise for that stage, such as every enquiry answered within ten minutes.
- Decide which other stage will receive less effort to free up time.
- Configure the platform to deliver the promise, for example an AI agent replying to every new enquiry.
- Add a dashboard widget that measures the promise directly.
- Tell the team the promise, the measure and what is being deprioritised.
- Review the measure monthly and the choice of stage every six months.
Imagine the agency loses most buyers between enquiry and viewing, and lost prospects say rival agencies take a day or more to reply. It could commit to replying within five minutes, day and night, with an AI agent for the first reply and a negotiator for the follow-up call. To fund the time, it might stop producing a monthly printed market report. If viewings booked per 100 enquiries rose from 22 to 34, that would be 12 more viewings for every 100 enquiries. These figures are illustrative.
The trade-off you have to name
Every strategy costs something. If you choose speed, your first reply will sometimes be shorter or more automated than a buyer expects. If you choose a thorough proposal, you will take longer to respond and lose impatient buyers. Write the trade-off down so nobody quietly undoes it.
In the illustration above, the cost would be the printed market report, which some long-standing clients might miss. The point is to make that choice knowingly.
Making the promise visible to buyers
A strategy only differentiates you if buyers notice it. State the promise where they will see it: on the enquiry form, in the first reply, in the proposal. Then keep it every time, because one broken promise undoes many kept ones.
What it replaces
A journey strategy replaces the improvement list with no priority and the brand promise that applies to every stage and therefore to none. It replaces the habit of copying whatever a competitor launched last month.
Time it takes each week
Choosing the stage takes one leadership meeting with the right numbers in front of you. Delivering the promise takes whatever the change needs, often a few days of platform work. The ongoing cost is a monthly look at one measure.
The mistake most people make
Choosing a strength nobody values. A firm proud of its detailed onboarding manual may find buyers never read it. Check with clients that the stage you want to win is one they notice.
When strategy is premature
If your stages are not defined and your pipeline is not kept up to date, start there. You cannot compete on a stage you cannot measure. The customer journey framework guide covers the basics, and the customer journey roadmap guide covers sequencing the changes that follow.
Troubleshooting
The promise is missed regularly
It was set above what current staffing can deliver. Either automate more of it or soften it to what you can keep every time.
The deprioritised stage collapses
You cut too far. Restore a minimum standard, and protect it with a simple workflow so it does not depend on spare time.
The measure improves but revenue does not
You chose a stage buyers do not weigh heavily. Go back to the client conversations and pick again.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as a marketing strategy?
No. Marketing strategy covers who you target and what you say. Journey strategy covers the experience after they respond. The customer journey marketing guide covers stage-based messages.
Can we compete on two stages?
A larger firm can. Most companies under 100 people do better choosing one and doing it visibly well.
How long before we know it worked?
Two quarters, usually. One quarter of data is often too noisy to read.