When reading “Using Customer Journey Maps to Improve Customer Experience,” my mind immediately went to Ikea and the roller coaster customer journey that it provides. You walk in the store and everything looks fabulous, leading you to immediately forget the nightmare that will take place once you get the furniture home or possibly even sooner at the self-service station. You start at the couches and start immediately adding knick knacks to your cart that you don’t need, but might as well get because they are so cheap. Which leads to one of the best parts of the customer journey map that goes with Ikea, which is the prices. The prices are what separates Ikea from most furniture stores along with the trendy furniture.
Anyways, you wrap up your shopping at the register which is kind of a pain because they don’t provide you with bags unless you pay for them, and you have picked up a bunch of small items throughout your trip not because you needed them but because they were there. You load up your car and take your recently purchased items home. Now here’s the part where I think Ikea struggles – the out-of-box-experience. All it takes is misplacing one tiny nail, or misreading one direction, and you have a piece of furniture looking nothing like what you meant to purchase. Your next step is to try and call customer service to ask for help or explain that you are missing a piece. This is another rough spot in the customer journey. I actually found a graphic detailing the customer journey of Ikea from 2001-2008.
Do you agree with this graphic? Any thoughts or opinions?
Citation:
Richardson, Adam. “Using Customer Journey Maps to Improve Customer Experience.”Harvard Business Review, 1 Mar. 2017, hbr.org/2010/11/using-customer-journey-maps-to.
Hi Morgan, I’ll have to respectfully disagree with your thoughts on Ikea’s “Out of Box Experience.” I’m not a serial Ikea shopper but I have purchased a handful of products over the years. My experience assembling their products have been positive for the most part. When I compare Ikea’s products to furniture purchased at other retailers, it’s definitely a lot easier (for me at least). I do agree with the customer journey map you’ve shared. Walking into an Ikea can take less than an hour if you’re super focused and know exactly what you want (AKA a professional shopper) but I’d assume that the rest of us get distracted just by the sheer magnitude of the store and all the trendy products it holds. One could easily spend a few hours at Ikea without knowing. I’ve transitioned to Ikea’s e-commerce store and have to say that it’s much easier to make purchases without all the “extra” coming at you.
very good
good web site
thankyou
Nice post
i really like the legs on that table at about 39 sec.
haha
Tanks