Unclassified

35 — Customer Journey

Status: CANONICAL · Commercial OS
Owner: Product Marketing + CS
Last verified: 2026-07-21

Purpose

The 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) and CS plays (44) are segments of this one journey; this document keeps them one story.

Target audience: Everyone customer-facing; the map the functional playbooks zoom into.

The Journey at a Glance

UNAWARE → PROBLEM-AWARE → SOLUTION-AWARE → EVALUATING → PROVING → BUYING → ONBOARDING → ADOPTING → EXPANDING → RENEWING → ADVOCATING
   marketing ————————————→|←———————— sales ————————→|←—————————— customer success ——————————————→

Stage by Stage

1. Unaware → Problem-Aware

Their state: lives the eight-tab morning; assumes it's just the job. AI disappointment internalized silently.
Our job: name the pain better than they can. The Human API, the Empty Context Tax, the Quiet Demotion — recognition, not persuasion.
Assets: founder LinkedIn narrative (59), manifesto + essays (56), demotion-story content.
Exit: they'd say "that's literally my morning" — and follow/subscribe.

2. Problem-Aware → Solution-Aware

Their state: pain named; skeptical of remedies ("we tried AI").
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.
Assets: category page (54), newsletter (60), webinar (61).
Exit: website visit with ≥ 2 pillar pages viewed; demo request or Starter signup.

3. Evaluating (sales: Discover + Align)

Their state: hopeful, guarded; comparing against status quo, Gainsight, copilots.
Our job: discovery that quantifies their numbers (38); the Day demo with their tool names (40); landmines planted (09).
Exit: ICP ≥ 9, personas 1–3 engaged, POV scoped with success criteria + decision date.

4. Proving (sales: POV, 30 days)

Their state: the make-or-break window; users watching for "another tool" smell.
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).
Exit: success criteria met in writing; economic buyer sees the realized-mini-ROI; commercial proposal requested.

5. Buying (sales: Commit)

Their state: convinced champions navigating internal friction (budget, security, legal).
Our job: make the internal sale easy — champion deck with their POV numbers, proactive security packet, clean paper (32, 43).
Exit: signature; kickoff scheduled within 5 business days.

6. Onboarding (days 0–30 — 45)

Their state: optimism window; judging whether promises were sales fiction.
Our job: first value same-day (hydration before the kickoff ends); every seat's first morning in week 1; baseline metrics locked (28 §4).
Exit: activation — ≥ 70% of seats with ≥ 5 approved Twin actions/week by day 30.

7. Adopting (days 30–120)

Their state: habits forming or failing; skeptics deciding.
Our job: cadence reviews on outcomes (not usage); rescue lagging seats via their peers' wins; first realized-value review at day 90.
Exit: north-star healthy (Approved Twin Actions/seat/week at target); P2 quoting outcomes internally unprompted.

8. Expanding (46)

Their state: wedge team advocating; adjacent departments curious ("what's that morning brief?").
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.
Exit: second department live; tier upgrades where trust matured (31 §4).

9. Renewing (47)

Their state: rational check: did it pay?
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).
Exit: renewal ≥ flat, target expansion; multi-year where fit.

10. Advocating

Their state: the outcome story is theirs now — the CSM who catches churn early, the VP with the board slide.
Our job: make advocacy effortless: case study built from their realized-value reviews (64), reference calls rationed and reciprocated, community roles (62).
Exit (perpetual): referenceable logo; referral pipeline; speaker at our events (63).

Journey Design Rules

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.
Emotional continuity: the journey's through-line is trust restoration (the Quiet Demotion undone). Every stage must demonstrate governance, never just claim it.
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.

KPIs: stage conversion rates (73, 74); time-in-stage; moment-of-truth completion rates; end-to-end: first-touch → activated-seat velocity.