The Global Leaders Institute takes a deep dive into the “Customer Journey” concept under the Brand Management for the Arts module led by Renaud Legoux of HEC Montréal Business School.
One of the “Customer Journey” concept’s central themes is engagement. Through case studies focused on the arts, class reading shows how creative organizations can improve engagement by creating a flowchart of the “drivers” that motivate their stakeholders and audiences. These drivers might include understanding how someone first decides to interact with their organization, how this stakeholder evaluates the experience after the fact, and what decisions determine whether or not the stakeholder returns to interact in the future.
By mapping the Customer Journey, arts organizations can discover how many seemingly mundane pieces are critical to ensuring repeat interactions. In the case of a concert hall, for example, these often overlooked factors might range from ease of ticketing to physical access to the warmth of front-of-house greeters — among countless other steps in the audience journey, all critical to the overall experience.
For this reason, arts leaders must constantly “walk in the shoes” of their audiences, searching for ways to improve every step in the process. This holistic attention to the customer journey helps build positive experiences that lead to repeat interactions. ▣
