The Excellent Customer Journey Experience

Hoogveld clearly has a long time experience in channel management and has – as a consultant – probably seen a lot of different companies from the inside that are struggling with coordinated channel management. The focus of the book "The Excellent Customer Journey" is mostly on the organizational movement to omnichannel and the integration of those multiple channels for a company. Hoogveld doesn't lose sight of the ultimate goal that these efforts will need to bring for your organization: that of an excellent customer journey experience, resulting in more sales, less retention, better brand awareness and recognition.

In my humble opinion as a professional reader, the book doesn't 'appeal' that much. It lacks some 'attractiveness' on evoking the reader's emotion, a thing that I find in other more memorable books that really grab my attention. Perhaps Hoogveld has purposefully used a more serious and logical consulting tone throughout the pages. He delivered a very professional and complete work on the matter of omnichannel integration. Background info, charts, expert quotes, references to research, question boxes, fact lists, case studies… it's all there and easily accessible in a reference handbook manner.

Allow me to use the book cover as a symbol for clarification. It depicts a town map with a travel route, displayed on a mobile phone, put on top of a printed world map. Now the book covers everything you need for your organization to get the map right, plot out a best route, facilitate the traveler along his or her route with driving directions, up to the finish line where the traveler will be happy and your organization (as a hypothetical omnichannel travel agent guide) has succeeded. What's missing his are the points of interest along the route and at the finish, that will create a memorable experience other than just getting the traveler from A to B.

But I have to confess. In my own experience of implementing omni-channel customer journey experience analytics and business insights into organizations, this area of study can become quite complex and the relevant knowledge needed is vast. You need tough cookie management division that adopts Hoogveld's vision and advice. A management that steadily iterates the teams and departments through the plan-do-check-act cycles mentioned in the book. And a management that knows how to inspire the team members to really feel the urgency and necessity of doing the thing that will deliver an excellent customer journey experience.

Concluding, I can guarantee you that this book covers most if not all things you need to know and take into account when you want to successfully integrate and manage multiple channels for your organization. I find "The Excellent Customer Journey Experience" one of those hidden gem reference handbooks that I happily consult from time to time to check if we're still working towards the right end and on the important tasks to get the organization's channels integrated for a seamless customer experience. You won't say 'wow, what an amazing work' at first. That 'wow this is very valuable content' experience will come later, when you and your company have gone through a few omnichannel cycles yourself. I promise that!