The First Step to Creating an Intentional Client Experience
Why Should You Map the Client Journey?
To be truly customer-centric, you need more than just a focus on customer service or experience—you must clearly define, measure, and actively focus on client success. Success begins with a full understanding of your client journey, including both the experience you’re currently delivering and the one you aim to create. The end result is a visual representation of how you want clients to experience their interactions with your business, which often starts much earlier than you likely realize.
Mapping the client journey won’t automatically result in a more intentional client experience, but it will provide clarity on where you’re excelling and where improvements are needed. It’s a powerful tool you can use to pinpoint key areas to focus on both now and in the future, allowing your team to serve clients with greater intentionality. The process also results in a document that can be shared with the team, ensuring clear communication and that everyone understands their role in shaping the client journey.
The Importance of Intentionality in the Client Journey
When mapping the client journey, intentionality is crucial. Many entrepreneurs and business leaders leave key aspects of the client experience up to team members without fully communicating their vision first. This can lead to inconsistencies, unclear expectations and lack of realization in what is being created with your clients until it is too late and they are ready to leave.
The client journey begins well before they sign a contract or even have direct communication with you—it starts with their very first interaction, perhaps through your marketing or website, and continues until they’ve offboarded or unsubscribed from your emails. When mapping the client journey, it is important that you not only understand all of these touchpoints, but each is developed with the end result and overall experience in mind so that you are not realizing any unintended consequences from any touchpoint left underserved.
How to Map the Client Journey
There are many templates and examples of client journey maps available online and through platforms like Canva. These can help you visualize your map and understand relevant touchpoints in different industries. It’s a great idea to sit down and take a look at these to get some ideas for how the end document will look and better understand different touchpoints in different industries.
1. Start with an Honest Assessment
Begin with mapping the current client journey and ensure you are doing such from an honest stand point of your customer’s view of the interaction with you and your company. By having conversations with your team, a few select clients and reviewing what happened with clients that churned, you should be able to assess the current client experience being created. Does this match what you want your clients to experience? It is also useful to consider that you may want to create different experiences for different types of customers as well. Where is your CX lacking and needing improvement? Where are you excelling?
2. Identify Key Touchpoints
The next step is to actually go through the exercise and identify all of the critical touch points a client or potential customer has with your company. These touchpoints start with their initial interaction, long before you have a conversation or exchange emails with them. It could be through a social media marketing campaign or a google search that leads to your website. All of these points are important and should be included as part of the journey. Someone on your team should be accountable and own every part of the journey you map out, so it might be useful to include this in your first iteration of the client journey map.
3. Assess Current vs. Desired Experiences
Once you have identified all of the touch points and interactions that your client has with you or your team, the next step is to jot down the experience that you want the customer to have and the one that is currently being had by the client. Where are you performing and where are there short-comings? Where can you see there has been focus and intentionality and where do you need to create this? Are there any areas that are and should be different based on the type of client segment? For example, at OYE we have a limited engagement that has a very different client experience than any of our tiered services. Make notes on each of the touch points and have key members of your team review for accuracy, or better yet, go through the exercise with them.
4. Collaborate and Finalize
Now that you have completed these steps, you should be able to more clearly map the client journey you are wanting to create for each of the different types of customers you serve. Be intentional with naming each step and stating who or what team is responsible for this part of the journey, as well as how you envision the overall experience of that step. By the end, you should have a clear understanding of the client journey you want to create, with each step named and responsibilities assigned.
5. Create the Visual Map
The final step is to create a visual representation of the journey that can be shared with current and new team members. This document should be revisited regularly to keep the client experience top of mind and ensure everyone remains aligned on the intended outcome.
Remember, you cannot create a client focused experience without actually defining and focusing on success in this area. One and done will not ensure it stays top of mind for the team. You must continually revisit. It is possible as your company grows and develops, the experience you want to create for your clients may also change. This is completely normal and you can revisit the process to create a client journey map at any time to update this part of your CX Framework at any time.
Financial Focus
Churn often occurs when the value promised doesn’t match the client’s actual experience. The cost of churn goes beyond lost revenue—it includes the significant expense of replacing a customer. While marketing to acquire new clients is costly, the real financial impact is felt because higher margins are realized after onboarding, especially in service-based and SaaS businesses.
Satisfied clients are also more likely to invest in additional services, courses, or content, and reducing churn frees up resources for payroll increases, R&D, and other investments. Moreover, word-of-mouth advertising—the most cost-effective and successful form of marketing—thrives when clients consistently receive the experience you’ve promised. The money saved on marketing can even be used to reward your team for creating an intentional, high-quality client journey.
To create long-term sustainable partnerships and true advocates for your company, you must begin with creating an intentional client experience which involves mapping the client journey and ensuring each touchpoint aligns with the cumulative vision. When the value created matches what is promised, you will reduce the likelihood for churn and increase the potential for long-term sustainable partnerships and true champions of your products or services. The financial impact is significant, but the impact to team morale and fulfillment is even greater.
Beyond the Numbers
Although it may not seem obvious, mapping the client journey directly impacts team morale and the work culture you’re building. Sustainable partnerships with satisfied clients foster a more positive environment for employees, leading to a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment. Culture is essential to building a great company, and this exercise helps ensure that employees are forming meaningful, engaging relationships with clients.
While intrinsic motivation and a strong culture are invaluable, it’s also important to note the financial impact. Reduced employee turnover saves significant costs, further benefiting the business. But, I’ve placed this in ‘beyond the numbers’ because it’s more important than the financial gains.
Conclusion
Mapping the client journey is a vital exercise for any business that wants to create a consistent, high-quality, and intentional customer experience. By understanding each touchpoint and aligning them with the desired outcomes, you can not only improve client satisfaction but also reduce churn and increase profitability. A well-mapped journey ensures that your team is aligned, intentional, and equipped to deliver on the promises made to clients. This process also strengthens your ability to adapt and iterate as customer needs evolve, driving long-term success and fostering valuable client relationships. Ultimately, a thoughtful client journey is an investment in your business’s reputation, growth, and financial health.