Some of you may be wondering what is meant by a ‘customer journey’ and why it is relevant or important to you and your martial arts business. The customer journey is much more than the car ride from their home to your class, it’s something you create for them from the very beginning, before they have even stepped foot inside your class. So how do you go about understanding your customer journey and create an excellent experience for them?
Planning the Journey
The first thing you should do when thinking about your customer’s journey is to plan it out. Take into consideration different aspects of the process when doing this, such as when they contact you about a trial lesson and the length of time it takes you to respond.You should also try to think about what happens next after each step in the process and where you are trying to guide them.
When going through your plan, try to approach it from your customers perspective and ask yourself questions they might be asking, such as ‘is this class suitable for me?’. You could also ask existing students for feedback to help inform how you develop the customer journey plan.
Use the data you have
Collecting data is something you should hopefully being doing already, whether this is through myMA or from other tools such as Google Analytics. You can use elements of this information to help paint a clearer picture of who your main customers are, and how they are interacting with your business or services. Understanding this data can help highlight potential areas for improvement as well as what you are already doing that works.
If there is more specific data you may find useful, but feel you don’t currently have, consider doing a survey. This will give you the opportunity to collect specific information, but will also allow new and existing students to give feedback on how they feel, something which can be very useful for the development and improvement of your business.
Details make a difference
It’s important to understand that you can affect a customer’s opinion of your business very quickly and easily. This is something we are all subjected to with other businesses, such as if you buy a product that becomes faulty, how the shop deals with returning the item. If you have an easy and hassle free time, sure, you may be slightly annoyed it didn’t work to begin with, but you won’t be annoyed with the business. If they are rude to you and make it complicated; even if they replace the item, you won’t be tempted to return anytime soon.
Providing a positive experience for your customers is a good way of increasingly the likeliness of them becoming a student. You should also remember to extend this positive experience to your existing students, as they may speak to potential customers during a trial lesson. Having nothing but positive things to say about your business helps towards improving signup rates and lowering attrition, it’s always helpful to have someone advocating your classes and martial arts business.
Ask the experts
There are many small ways in which you can make a positive impact on both your customers journey and experience, so many in fact, I could write a whole separate blog about it. At our Client Conference in April, our keynote speaker Andrew McMillan who is the former Head of Customer Service at John Lewis, will share insight from his 28 years at John Lewis on creating a distinct customer experience. Following this, we’ll lead workshops where you will be mapping a customer journey to show you ways and give ideas on how each touchpoint of a customer’s journey can deliver a great experience.
It’s an informative and interesting subject, providing a great opportunity to learn and develop skills that could directly improve your customer’s journey. Book your place at the NEST Client Conference and take full advantage of this opportunity as spaces are limited!
If there is any more information you would like or need help planning your own customer journey, get in touch (marketing@nestmanagement.co.uk) and we can give you some additional tips and guidance.
