Customer Journey Map Assignment 1

1. Choose a product and/or a service (from a high involvement category) that you purchased.

2. Use the Simplified Customer Journey Map template to create a Customer Journey Map for the purchase. In your Customer Journey Map:

• Briefly elaborate on goals, actions, thoughts and feeling corresponding with your experiences during the pre-sale (touching on awareness and consideration), sale (touching on selection and purchase) and post-purchase stages (touching on satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy).
• Assess your experiences at each stage ranging from great to negative. Note your reasons.

3. Next, create a Consumer Diary by chronicling the purchase. Address these points in your Consumer Diary:

• Note your perception of the retailer and of the service and/or product offered. Use the theory on perception to frame your discussion.
• What influenced your decision-making process? Consider your needs, motivation, and personality coupled with the theoretical model on decision-making.
• Did any external factors (i.e. family, social pressure, culture, stimuli (advertising, etc.), word-of-mouth, country-of-origin) play a role in your decision-making?

4. Elaborate on the ‘Moments of Truth’ with accompanying emotions (i.e. WOW moments/Pleasure points, Pain Points, and Equity Points) occurring in your Customer Journey.

Required reading: Moving the customer experience field forward: Introducing the touchpoints, context, qualities (TCQ) nomenclature (De Keyser et al. 2020).

• Where does the retailer need to fix or remove touchpoints to improve the CX based on these ‘Moments of Truth’? Incorporate De Keyser et al.'s (2020) ideas on CX Audit, proposing specific actions to eliminate existing Pain Points (see Step 4 in CX Audit).
• Similarly, consider the CX Innovation and Design Steps outlined by De Keyser et al. (2020) and discuss which step/s may improve and elevate future CX to a new level, answering the following questions:
  • What qualities are customers like you looking for/expecting at the various touchpoints in the consumer journey?
  • What contextual data can and/or should be collected to enhance touchpoints so that they allow specific qualities to occur?
  • What are the most likely opportunities to innovate and differentiate CX?

5. Considering the above in relation to your purchase, make recommendations that you believe would increase consumer satisfaction, and loyalty. Base your recommendations on your analysis above, and on the consumer behaviour literature, and ensure that your recommendations are ethical.

Requirements

You will need to upload and submit two items as part of this assessment:

1. Completed Simplified Customer Journey Map for the purchase (submit as a PDF file). This is not included in the word count for this assessment.

2. Written report (submit as a Word .docx file). The required word length for this report is 3000 words (plus 10% tolerance). In terms of structure, presentation and style, you are normally required to use:

• AIB standard report format. For this assessment, an executive summary and conclusion section are not required.
• AIB-preferred Microsoft Word settings.
• Use author-date style referencing (which includes in-text citations and a reference list). These requirements are listed in the AIB Style Guide.
• Required number of relevant references from different sources: 6–12 (for MBA assessments).
• All references must be from credible sources such as books, industry-related journals, magazines, company documents and recent academic articles.
• Your grade will be adversely affected if your assessment contains no/poor citations and/or reference list and if your assessment word length is beyond the allowed tolerance level (see the Assessment Policy available on the AIB website).

Grading criteria

Your assessment will be marked according to the following grading criteria:

• Criterion 1: Demonstrated understanding of relevant theories and concepts through appropriate application. (30%)
• Criterion 2: Depth of reasoning as demonstrated through critical analysis, logically developed, supporting argument, and critical evaluation. (35%)
• Criterion 3: Depth of demonstrated critical alignment between recommendations provided and analysis conducted. Depth of support provided for recommendations. (25%)
• Criterion 4: Citing and referencing including paraphrasing. (5%)
• Criterion 5: Structure, presentation, communication style and language. (5%)