Latest / Customer Journey with Fexingo: Touchpoints, Mapping, and Multi-Channel Marketing / The One Touchpoint Journey Maps Almost Always Ignore the Employee
Transcript
- Lucas: Last week we talked about how journey maps tend to ignore the B2B procurement portal — that walled-off digital corridor where corporate buyers spend hours. But I want to pivot to a blind spot that’s even more human, and arguably more consequential. Luna: Okay, I’m curious. What’s the blind spot? Lucas: The employee. Not the customer — the person on the other side of the counter, the service rep in the chat window, the warehouse worker picking the order. Most journey maps are written from the customer’s point of view only. They completely ignore the fact that the employee is a touchpoint. Luna: That’s such a good point. We map what the customer sees, clicks, feels — but we don’t map what the employee experiences when delivering that moment. Lucas: Right. And if these marketing conversations have sparked something you’ve actually used — a framework, a new way of thinking about touchpoints — we’d love for you to keep this going. We deliberately don’t run ads on these shows. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, knowing that people find real value here is what keeps us going. And it lets us stay independent. Lucas: So back to the employee blind spot. There’s a 2019 Temkin Group study I keep coming back to — it found that companies with high employee engagement score about 1.5 times higher on customer experience benchmarks compared to companies with low engagement. Luna: That’s a massive gap. But it’s not just about engagement surveys, right? It’s about mapping the actual moments. Lucas: Exactly. Let me give you a concrete example. A mid-sized retailer — I’m not going to name them, but they had about 80 stores — realized their journey map showed a smooth online checkout followed by a friendly delivery. But the actual delivery was handled by a third-party courier, and the employee at the store level had no idea what the customer had ordered online. So when a customer walked in to return something, the store associate had no context. Luna: That friction is real. I’ve been that customer — you bring in a return and the associate looks at you like you’re from another planet. Lucas: Right. That’s an employee journey gap. The associate’s system didn’t show the online order history. Their training didn’t cover how to handle an omnichannel return. So the emotional experience for the customer — which your journey map probably labeled 'friendly return' — was actually a moment of confusion. Luna: So what did that retailer do? Lucas: They mapped the employee’s day alongside the customer’s journey. For every customer touchpoint, they asked: what is the employee doing at this moment? What tools do they have? What information do they need? What’s their emotional state? Luna: That must have been eye-opening. Did they find anything surprising? Lucas: They found that the employee’s biggest pain point was the shift from online to in-store. The associate at the register had to log into three different systems just to process a single return. That wasn’t on the customer journey map — the map just showed a return step with a smiley face. Luna: And I bet the associate was not smiling after the third system login. Lucas: No. They fixed it by giving store associates a single tablet interface that pulled in online order data. Within six months, their Net Promoter Score went up 12 percent. Luna: That’s a direct line from employee experience to customer loyalty. And it’s not just retail — it’s any industry where the employee is a visible part of the journey. Lucas: Think about Zappos. Their entire culture is built around empowering call center reps to spend as long as needed on a call, even sending flowers if a customer has a bad day. But Zappos also maps the employee journey — they track things like 'time to proficiency' for new hires and 'satisfaction with tools' as a leading indicator of customer satisfaction. Luna: So the employee journey map becomes a diagnostic tool. If your customer satisfaction scores dip, you can look at the employee map to see if there’s a training gap or a system failure. Lucas: Exactly. REI does something similar. They have a concept called 'co-op culture' — employees are members, they get outdoor gear discounts, they’re encouraged to use the products. But they also map the employee’s path from hiring to onboarding to daily work. They track things like 'knowledge confidence' — does the associate feel confident answering technical questions about tents or climbing gear? Luna: And that directly affects the customer. If I’m buying a tent and the associate can’t tell me the difference between three-season and four-season, I’m not confident in my purchase. Lucas: Right. REI invests heavily in product training. They actually have a 'product school' for employees. That’s a touchpoint on the employee journey that never shows up on the customer journey map, but it shapes every interaction. Luna: So how do you start mapping the employee journey? I mean, most marketers don’t have a background in HR. Lucas: You don’t need HR. Start with a simple exercise: take your existing customer journey map and for each step, write down what the employee is doing — or needs to do — to make that step happen. Then ask: what’s the employee’s emotional state at that moment? Are they stressed? Bored? Confident? Luna: That’s like a parallel map. So you’d have the customer’s journey on top and the employee’s journey on the bottom. Lucas: Exactly. Some people call it a 'service blueprint' — it adds the backstage elements. But you don’t need fancy terminology. Just put the employee back into the picture. Luna: I think the reason most journey maps ignore the employee is because they’re created by marketing or UX teams who sit in an office and don’t interact with frontline staff. Lucas: That’s a huge part of it. The maps are built from customer surveys and analytics, not from shadowing a store associate or listening to call center recordings. But if you want to improve the customer experience, you have to improve the employee experience first. Luna: There’s a great example from a hotel chain — I think it was Marriott — where they mapped the housekeeper’s journey. They found that housekeepers were running out of clean towels mid-morning and had to walk all the way back to the laundry room. That delay meant guests were waiting longer for room service. Lucas: And a simple fix — restocking the housekeeping carts more frequently — improved both employee satisfaction and guest satisfaction. But that fix only happens if you’re looking at the employee’s steps. Luna: So the next time I see a journey map, I’m going to ask: where are the employees? Are they even on this map? Lucas: That’s the question. And I think the most advanced companies are starting to create what they call 'employee experience tracks' that run parallel to the customer journey. They’re not just a one-time fix — they’re a continuous feedback loop. Luna: What does that look operationally? Lucas: You set up regular check-ins where employees can flag friction points. Maybe it’s a weekly stand-up where the store team says 'the return process still requires three screens' — and that gets fed back to the product team. It’s almost like a journey map for the employee’s feedback itself. Luna: I love that. It turns the employee into a sensor for customer experience issues. Lucas: Exactly. And it’s not just retail or hospitality — think about software companies. The customer success manager who handles renewals is a touchpoint. If their CRM is clunky, they can’t have a natural conversation. That affects renewal rates. Luna: So the employee’s tool experience becomes a customer experience issue. Lucas: Right. There’s a company called Gainsight that does customer success software — they actually map the 'success manager journey' to identify where their own employees get bogged down. They found that writing custom reports was taking three hours a week per person. They automated it, and customer response times improved. Luna: Three hours a week per person — that scales to a huge productivity gain. And it’s a win-win for employee and customer. Lucas: That’s the core insight. The employee is not a cost center to be optimized. They are a touchpoint to be designed for. If we treat the employee experience as part of the customer journey, we stop seeing them as separate silos. Luna: I’d love to see more journey maps that have a second row for employee actions. Maybe even a third row for systems and tools. Lucas: That’s exactly what service blueprints do — they layer customer actions, frontstage employee actions, backstage employee actions, and support processes. But most companies don’t take the time to build them. They just draw a customer journey map and call it done. Luna: So for a marketer listening, what’s one thing they could do tomorrow? Lucas: Pick one customer touchpoint that involves a human interaction — say, a customer calling support or visiting a store. Go observe that interaction for an hour. Watch what the employee does before, during, and after. Ask them what’s frustrating. You’ll find at least three things that aren’t on your journey map. Luna: That sounds simple but I bet most teams have never done it. Lucas: I’d wager they haven’t. And that’s the opportunity. By bringing the employee into the map, you not only improve the customer experience — you also build a more engaged workforce. And as the Temkin data shows, that engagement pays off in loyalty, revenue, and reputation. Luna: Alright, I’m going to try that observation exercise. Maybe I’ll sit in on a customer support shift. Lucas: Do it. And let us know what you find. For now, I think the takeaway is clear: the next time you draw a journey map, draw another one right below it for the people who make it happen. Luna: Couldn’t agree more. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. See you next time.