An OSS Buyer’s Experience Journey – An Emotional Roller-coaster

I really liked this article from Guy Brunsdon called, “Using the Buyer’s Journey Model for Internal Alignment.” It’s certainly not written for the world of telco / OSS specifically, but it certainly resonated with some of the challenges we face.

In Guy’s article, he states:

I’ve always liked the “Buyer’s Journey” model, which describes a customer’s journey from the “Unaware” (oblivious to your product/service) to “Advocacy” (championing your product/service). I’ve found it helps align stakeholders (marketing, sales, product, engineering, and leadership) to understand the steps a customer takes that lead up to a sale and, then hopefully (with great product-market fit), advocate for your product. It orients you around your customer and where you should focus your efforts. If I have 50,000 trial downloads but only 100 proceeding to a sale, then you have an idea what needs solving.

If you’re building a standalone product, service, or solution or as part of a transformation, your strategy will likely revolve around customers—attracting them and/or reducing churn. In a B2B scenario, buyers and users are usually different people/groups with correspondingly different needs. And it’s not limited to two groups. Those who install and maintain a product (the lifecycle) often differ from those who use it, and those who pay for it (procurement team). Continuous discovery of the needs of all stakeholders is super-important, and in my observation, the part that is most often misunderstood, neglected, and cocked up.

Interesting.

Guy goes on to describe a 7 stage baseline Buyer Journey. I’ve adapted Guy’s model to the world of OSS below:

There are so many customer off-ramps as part of the journey. So many places where a deal / customer might be lost. So many places where “The confused mind says no!”

I’d never heard of the Buyer Journey Model before. However, I do find it interesting how it compares with our 13 OSS Friction Continuums below, which are also effectively off-ramps for customers if not done right.

Taking Guy’s model a step further, I thought I’d model the stories, actions and feelings a typical OSS buyer might experience as they traverse the Buyer’s Journey. I call it the OSS Buyer’s Experience Journey Map.

There are a lot of emotions tied up with making such a big purchasing decision as undertaking an OSS transformation. This tries to plot the emotional roller-coaster to show some empathy for the stakeholders involved in making a purchasing decision. It doesn’t adequately cover the many fears and trepidations though (eg. I hope I don’t let my team down by choosing the wrong solution, I hope we can actually implement this project because it’s a bit of a beast, If I get this decision wrong my colleagues will crush me, etc, etc, etc, etc).

However, it does help show why there are many places in the buyer’s journey where there can be hold-ups. Sometimes the hold-ups are for process and probity reasons. Sometimes it’s just procrastination arising from fear.

If you’re embarking on an OSS Buyer’s Journey, we’d love to be able to help you – whether that’s via a formal or informal engagement. We help clients on these journeys all the time, yet we still know how hard these transformations can be. We’d love to cheer you on or guide you in any way we can.

We’d also be delighted to show you how our Multi-Filter Approach helps to efficiently guide you through the most challenging parts of the rollercoaster.

Since most of you reading this article will have been involved in at least one of these journeys, from the Buyer’s or Seller’s side, we’d also love to hear your thoughts. Are these sentiments reflective of your experiences through the different decision stages, or do we need to make changes?