{"slug":"strategy/business-strategy/35-customer-journey","title":"35 — Customer Journey","section":"strategy","sectionLabel":"Strategy","status":"unclassified","type":"document","path":"strategy/business-strategy/35-customer-journey.mdx","bytes":6649,"description":null,"updated":null,"source":"integratewise/Integratewise-docs-wiki","content":"\nStatus: CANONICAL · Commercial OS\nOwner: Product Marketing + CS\nLast verified: 2026-07-21\n\n---\n\n## Purpose\n\nThe end-to-end journey — first touch to advocacy — with the emotional state, our job, owned assets, and exit criteria at each stage. Sales stages ([36](../07-sales/36-sales-methodology.md)) and CS plays ([44](../08-customer-success/44-customer-success-playbook.md)) are segments of this one journey; this document keeps them one story.\n\n**Target audience:** Everyone customer-facing; the map the functional playbooks zoom into.\n\n---\n\n## The Journey at a Glance\n\n```\nUNAWARE → PROBLEM-AWARE → SOLUTION-AWARE → EVALUATING → PROVING → BUYING → ONBOARDING → ADOPTING → EXPANDING → RENEWING → ADVOCATING\n   marketing ————————————→|←———————— sales ————————→|←—————————— customer success ——————————————→\n```\n\n## Stage by Stage\n\n### 1. Unaware → Problem-Aware\n\n**Their state:** lives the eight-tab morning; assumes it's just the job. AI disappointment internalized silently.\n**Our job:** name the pain better than they can. The Human API, the Empty Context Tax, the Quiet Demotion — recognition, not persuasion.\n**Assets:** founder LinkedIn narrative ([59](../11-marketing/59-linkedin-strategy.md)), manifesto + essays ([56](../11-marketing/56-content-strategy.md)), demotion-story content.\n**Exit:** they'd say \"that's literally my morning\" — and follow/subscribe.\n\n### 2. Problem-Aware → Solution-Aware\n\n**Their state:** pain named; skeptical of remedies (\"we tried AI\").\n**Our job:** introduce the category as the _shape_ of the fix — one workspace, a Twin on the bench, truth you own — before any product tour.\n**Assets:** category page ([54](../10-website/54-landing-pages.md)), newsletter ([60](../11-marketing/60-newsletter-strategy.md)), webinar ([61](../11-marketing/61-webinar-strategy.md)).\n**Exit:** website visit with ≥ 2 pillar pages viewed; demo request or Starter signup.\n\n### 3. Evaluating (sales: Discover + Align)\n\n**Their state:** hopeful, guarded; comparing against status quo, Gainsight, copilots.\n**Our job:** discovery that quantifies _their_ numbers ([38](../07-sales/38-discovery-guide.md)); the Day demo with their tool names ([40](../07-sales/40-demo-script.md)); landmines planted ([09](../02-category-market/09-competitive-battle-cards.md)).\n**Exit:** ICP ≥ 9, personas 1–3 engaged, POV scoped with success criteria + decision date.\n\n### 4. Proving (sales: POV, 30 days)\n\n**Their state:** the make-or-break window; users watching for \"another tool\" smell.\n**Our job:** their tools connected day 1; the first real morning by day 2; one documented catch + measured prep-time delta by day 21; security review parallel ([42](../07-sales/42-security-faq.md)).\n**Exit:** success criteria met in writing; economic buyer sees the realized-mini-ROI; commercial proposal requested.\n\n### 5. Buying (sales: Commit)\n\n**Their state:** convinced champions navigating internal friction (budget, security, legal).\n**Our job:** make the internal sale easy — champion deck with their POV numbers, proactive security packet, clean paper ([32](../05-value-pricing/32-licensing-strategy.md), [43](../07-sales/43-procurement-faq.md)).\n**Exit:** signature; kickoff scheduled within 5 business days.\n\n### 6. Onboarding (days 0–30 — [45](../08-customer-success/45-onboarding-playbook.md))\n\n**Their state:** optimism window; judging whether promises were sales fiction.\n**Our job:** first value same-day (hydration before the kickoff ends); every seat's first morning in week 1; baseline metrics locked ([28 §4](../05-value-pricing/28-customer-outcomes.md)).\n**Exit:** activation — ≥ 70% of seats with ≥ 5 approved Twin actions/week by day 30.\n\n### 7. Adopting (days 30–120)\n\n**Their state:** habits forming or failing; skeptics deciding.\n**Our job:** cadence reviews on outcomes (not usage); rescue lagging seats via their peers' wins; first realized-value review at day 90.\n**Exit:** north-star healthy (Approved Twin Actions/seat/week at target); P2 quoting outcomes internally unprompted.\n\n### 8. Expanding ([46](../08-customer-success/46-expansion-strategy.md))\n\n**Their state:** wedge team advocating; adjacent departments curious (\"what's that morning brief?\").\n**Our job:** harvest internal pull — P3 champions the Sales/Ops workbench; same Spine, new benches makes expansion feel like turning on a light, not buying software.\n**Exit:** second department live; tier upgrades where trust matured ([31 §4](../05-value-pricing/31-packaging-strategy.md)).\n\n### 9. Renewing ([47](../08-customer-success/47-renewal-strategy.md))\n\n**Their state:** rational check: did it pay?\n**Our job:** no surprises — the renewal deck is the proposal ROI filled with realized numbers, plus the continuity argument (what the Spine now knows that nothing else does).\n**Exit:** renewal ≥ flat, target expansion; multi-year where fit.\n\n### 10. Advocating\n\n**Their state:** the outcome story is _theirs_ now — the CSM who catches churn early, the VP with the board slide.\n**Our job:** make advocacy effortless: case study built from their realized-value reviews ([64](../12-corporate/64-case-study-templates.md)), reference calls rationed and reciprocated, community roles ([62](../11-marketing/62-community-strategy.md)).\n**Exit (perpetual):** referenceable logo; referral pipeline; speaker at our events ([63](../11-marketing/63-events-strategy.md)).\n\n---\n\n## Journey Design Rules\n\n1. **One story, three owners.** Marketing hands sales a _problem-named, category-framed_ prospect; sales hands CS a _baseline-instrumented, expectation-true_ customer. Handoff artifacts are mandatory, not courtesy.\n2. **Emotional continuity:** the journey's through-line is trust restoration (the Quiet Demotion undone). Every stage must _demonstrate_ governance, never just claim it.\n3. **The moments of truth** (instrument these): first \"that's my morning\" · POV's first real catch · Day-1 hydrated workbench · day-90 realized-value review · renewal deck open.\n\n**KPIs:** stage conversion rates ([73](../13-operations/73-marketing-metrics.md), [74](../13-operations/74-sales-metrics.md)); time-in-stage; moment-of-truth completion rates; end-to-end: first-touch → activated-seat velocity.\n\n---\n\n**Related:** [36 Sales Methodology](../07-sales/36-sales-methodology.md) · [44 CS Playbook](../08-customer-success/44-customer-success-playbook.md) · [45 Onboarding](../08-customer-success/45-onboarding-playbook.md) · [50 GTM Strategy](../09-gtm/50-gtm-strategy.md)\n"}