West Resources

The Connected Customer

Dan Gordon, SVP of strategy and development at West Interactive Services, talks about the value of prioritizing a connected customer experience and outlines five manageable steps brands can take to make it a reality.


Our definition of the customer journey ranges from the very beginning of an interaction or an attraction from a brand all the way through the purchase service and support, all the way to the end of advocacy. We think it's important that brands care about the customer journey because it creates advocacy and loyalty amongst the customer base, and repeat purchase, and ultimately grows your revenue.

So we look at the customer journey in five pretty simple steps, right? First, identify what your desired customer journey looks like. So identify that and define it. Second, map the customer journey as it is today. Actually take your business and go through it as your consumer, your customer would. Third is identify those gaps between what you desire and what the actual experience is. The fourth would be to prioritize those gaps. Find the gaps that are valuable, not just to your business, but to your consumer, and not just to your consumer, but to your business as well. And then the last is start small. The fifth step is start small, start somewhere. And there is that saying that "Imperfect progress is much better than delayed perfection." So it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to do anything at once. But start small in a place that is prioritized and is valuable.

We often get asked, "Where do we start? What can we do? Where can West help us?" And we can help in a couple of places. One, customer journey mapping and helping you define what that customer experience looks like. And then we can provide some insight as to some of the other brands that we've worked with and what they've done and how they've done it and the success they've had. So we can do a little bit of comparative benchmarking and help you get started in a small way, but in a meaningful way. If you'd like to learn more about where we can help, please visit our website at

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