Christmas is here and with it comes the gifts. From Thinkers Co., we want to give you one extra learning to all your knowledge acquired. We have taken advantage of these holidays to expose a practical case of Customer Journey Map by the hand of an expert in Customer Experience: Santa Claus. This tool is a basic element in any innovation project since it allows us to analyze the entire user journey when using a product or service. This way we extract insights about pains, points to improve, or strength points that appear during the process of use.

First of all, we want to specify that this customer journey will analyze the process of obtaining Christmas Day gifts, also studying what happens before, when the children send their letter to Santa Claus, and after, with the enjoyment of these gifts. Therefore, the users will be all the children of the world who wait for the arrival of Santa Claus, and the service analyzed will be the preparation and delivery of the gifts. We will see that this “industry” is not only the act of a single person (Santa Claus) but that there is a whole team behind (assistants, elves, gnomes, reindeers, etc.). For this reason, despite the fact that Santa’s trip is a traditional trip, such a complex process necessarily incorporates innovations and new technologies, such as Big Data, CRM, drones, etc.

The letters’s arrival

This user journey begins when the children write the letter of gifts to Santa Claus since the service rules specify that to receive the gifts they must first make a list of what they want and send it to them. But with this technique, Santa Claus will not only keep the children’s wish list but also, together with his assistants, thoroughly analyze all the information and details that these letters provide. So you can see what your customer’s habits are, the channels they use, their language, etc. Because knowing well your user is the key to keep them happy. It is true that here Santa Claus is missing an update point, since, with the arrival of smartphones, tablets, and everything that comes with new technologies, it is necessary to add new communication channels such as social networks, apart from the traditional channels, to get the letters and wishes of the children.

Santa Claus is updated in the use of tools such as Big Data and CRM.

Sending the gifts to his users

As we all know, Santa knows if you have been good or bad, which means that he efficiently manages billions of data from his users. Handling all this information implies that he has been updated with the use of tools such as CRM and without forgetting to update its LOPD (Organic Law of Data Protection)!

When it comes the time to make the big delivery, Santa has to have everything tied up since he can not disappoint his customers in the greatest delivery service that exists in the whole world. For this purpose, he organizes his travel itinerary, optimized to travel around the houses of the world in a short space of time, while the children sleep. And in this, it does not fail. His customers are absolutely certain that when they get up on the morning of December 25, they will find their orders, without delays or incidents, under the Christmas tree, in front of their chimneys or in the shoes they prepared the night before. It is vital in the customer experience.

Another contribution of confidence that our cheerful Christmas character generates is when he shows that his presence in the house was real, as well as pleasant, eating at least one of the cookies and some milk that the children left there for him.

The gifts reception and returning products

And to meet the satisfactory journey of users, after discovering that the products they ordered came to a greater or lesser extent if it happened that there had been an error (wrong sizes in clothes, repeated toys, etc.) the service offers the possibility of Returns & Exchanges. This task is usually carried out by elves or assistants, who sometimes even use drones to take the wrong product and bring the right one as soon as possible. So children do not have to worry about doing any convoluted management and can spend their time just enjoying their new gifts.

In the end, the relationship that the children maintain with Santa Claus continues until they grow up, or sometimes, even a little more.

This type of long-term relationship gives children the determination to continue behaving well in the coming years. Thus Santa Claus forges an emotional bond with the children, who knows them well and reacts to their acts accordingly.

Conclusion: Santa knows how to focus on his users

Finally, it should be noted that the marketing work of this company is exceptional, since today, you do not need to carry out advertising campaigns because its prescribers, children, disseminate your brand and attract more customers of the younger generation for its. It has a powerful sharing process.

So the lesson here is that we have to always focus on our user, analyzing and understanding who he is, and what he feels, helping us with tools such as Persona or Empathy Map. And what is more important, make a map of your trips when they relate to the product or service offered. Measuring the actions will allow you to identify the areas where the experience is generating pain and to be able to improve and exceed expectations. Because, like Santa Claus and his team, you have to be always learning.