The Power of Outcome-Based Thinking
Instead of making minor tweaks and hoping for the best, I recommend starting with clearly defined business outcomes. What specific metrics do you want to improve? Is it revenue growth, increased profitability, or greater wallet share from existing customers?
For example, if your goal is to drive revenues by 45% within the next eighteen months, that becomes your north star. Every strategy, tactic, and customer interaction should align with this goal. This clarity creates focus and eliminates wasted effort on initiatives that don’t contribute to your primary objectives.
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Working Backward from Goals to Strategies
Once you’ve established your business outcomes, the next step is to work backward. Ask yourself:
- What strategies would directly impact these outcomes?
- How can we modify our customers’ behavior to achieve these goals?
- What experiences would drive these behavioral changes?
This backward-planning approach opens up creative possibilities that might never appear on your standard customer journey maps. It forces you to think beyond conventional solutions and consider game-changing innovations.
Beyond Customer Expectations
The most exciting aspect of this approach is that it can lead to innovations your customers haven’t even imagined yet. The best customer experiences aren’t just about meeting current expectations—they’re about creating new possibilities customers didn’t know to ask for.
Think about how Apple transformed the mobile phone industry with the iPhone. Customers weren’t asking for touchscreens and app stores—they didn’t know such things were possible. Apple started with the outcome (revolutionizing how people use mobile devices) and worked backward to create something truly innovative.
Similarly, when Amazon launched Prime, customers weren’t demanding two-day shipping as a subscription service. Amazon identified the business outcome (increasing purchase frequency and customer loyalty) and created a solution that changed consumer expectations forever.
Practical Steps to Implement This Approach
- Clearly define 2-3 key business outcomes with specific metrics and timeframes
- Gather cross-functional teams to brainstorm strategies that could achieve these outcomes
- Identify the customer behaviors that would drive these outcomes
- Design experiences that would encourage these behaviors
- Test and refine these experiences with real customers
This method requires discipline and sometimes means saying “no” to initiatives that don’t align with your primary outcomes. But this focus is exactly what separates companies that achieve dramatic growth from those that merely survive.
Breaking Free from Conventional Thinking
The traditional approach to customer experience often involves mapping current journeys and finding pain points to fix. While this has value, it limits you to incremental improvements within existing frameworks.
Starting with outcomes frees you from these constraints. It allows you to ask, “If we were building this experience from scratch to achieve our specific goals, what would it look like?” This question often leads to breakthrough ideas that wouldn’t emerge from conventional journey mapping.
I’ve seen companies transform their industries by applying this thinking. They don’t just solve problems—they create new possibilities that redefine what customers expect.
So next time you’re planning customer experience improvements, resist the urge to start with current processes. Instead, begin with your desired business outcomes and work backward. You might discover solutions that change the game not just for your company, but for your entire industry.
