in this video we're gonna be walking
through the customer empathy map now if
you haven't already I would encourage
you to go back and watch a previous
video on design thinking where I kind of
lay out the design thinking process of
which the customer empathy map is a
component of that so that will give you
some really important backstory kind of
into this process the customer empathy
map really is almost the first stage of
that process along with a couple of
other things so it'll give you a little
bit wider context to kind of what we're
talking about here ultimately we're
engaged in this process of empathy which
we know is critically important because
the better that we understand our
customers and their needs and
frustrations the better we are equipped
to be able to deliver a product or
service that is going to satisfy and
meet those needs and satisfy those
frustrations so the customer empathy map
is a simple tool that we use all the
time in business that is meant to help
us develop a customer profile and so a
lot of times when you think of profiles
we think of social media profiles and on
those social media profiles contain a
lot of information about us right and
most of which we freely divulge and so
if you think about a facebook profile
you divulge obviously your age is the
condition for using the service but we
also put in education and work history
and interests and likes and those types
of things
that's essentially what we want to do
for our customers in a really less
creepy way but the reason we want to do
this and develop this profile is so that
we have an accurate picture in our minds
on who we're creating our product for
because if we do that then we're
probably gonna make a better product
right versus if we only have a very
vague and general understanding of who
were selling to like everyone or men or
women or people between the ages of 25
and 44 so this is really kind of the end
result of that empathy process so up to
this point what we should have done is
we should have engaged in the process of
customer discovery right interacting
with customers and learning more about
them
the output of that is the customer
empathy map where we're going to
literally throw the information here on
on a page and then we're gonna be able
to view our customer in in some way or
another so the way you want to tackle
the empathy map and again I encourage
you to do that work ahead of time it'll
make this a lot more fruitful of course
you can fill in anything you want on the
on the map and it's not going to be
helpful unless it's based upon and a
fundamental understanding of your
customer so long intro just to get to
the map here but let's get into it so as
you can see here there's a number of
different kind of sections of the map so
I want to start here at the top and the
first thing here is the customer
perspective which is in this box over
here so this is where you actually
describe the customer now what I love
about these tools is there's not a lot
of space and that is by design because
if we need a lot of words to communicate
something if we can't boil it down to a
couple of words usually it means that we
need to think through it and refine it
in some greater detail so that's why
there's not a lot of space here and
that's again by design so here you're
gonna put who is our customer who's the
person that you are kind of mapping out
if you will who's the person that you
are trying to walk in their shoes so to
speak and write as much information
about them as you possibly can so that's
where you're gonna put in this box here
the customer perspective you don't need
to include a long list of different
details and things but you do want to
have a short phrase or sentence that
describes this particular customer
whether it's single moms or college
students that live at home or something
that kind of represents that particular
group over here you can keep track of
design by the day and the iteration I
actually really do like this particular
piece here on iteration because a lot of
times you're doing this multiple times
especially if you're constantly
interacting with customers and so
because you can have multiple different
customer empathy Maps out there it's
always helpful to know which one's the
most recent one right so if you name
this well this is iteration one
and then you have two and three and four
it's helpful to keep track of them for
that reason now on the map itself you'll
notice that there are four quadrants and
there are also a couple of boxes at the
very bottom so the way that you fill
this out in order is we start on the
right hand side here and then we jump to
the left hand side then we go to the top
and then the bottom and then we go over
here lastly to the pain and the gain
which I will of course kind of explain
so that you know what to do so now that
we know kind of the order that we fill
this out and it will make sense as we go
through it let's talk about the
individual quadrants so the first
section is what does she see now she she
is just a female pronoun obviously so
you can insert anybody into that
obviously if you're a particular
customer was is male then you know that
will apply so don't let that throw you
up so what does she see so this is
getting at what we call the environment
so we want to know in what environment
is your customer commonly involved in
right what are the things that are
around them that potentially might
influence them in some way right so if
you were if your customer was single
moms and I would encourage you to be
specific so you could say my customer is
a single mom who is 27 years old and has
two kids and well blood and you can be
as specific as you want but being
specific helps you imagine the person
right if you give an age range it's
really hard to come up with what this
person looks like and how they interact
and those types of things because it's a
general range and it's not very specific
so think about the environment that they
operate in what are the things that what
do they see what's around the
environment who are their friends and
you don't know exactly who they are but
describe them and all these other
different things you want to get a look
at you know what is there what does
their world look like now you could
think about this in a very general sense
and you know obviously think about
everything and that could make this
exercise very challenging you can also
look at this in a very narrow sense
which means you're looking at them
specifically like in their house or in
the context to which they're trying to
buy your particular product those are
two different approaches really it's up
to you I always find that it's pretty
helpful to have maybe a little bit
broader view of it because if we just
look at it from the context of if
they're gonna buy our products or not
we're ignoring quite a bit in their
environment so pick one thing maybe the
environment is home and we want to have
a little bit of a description of what
life is like at home right as much as
possible again we don't want to assume
we want to interact so the customer
discovery piece is really important here
because we're gonna develop and identify
a couple of trends that we see across
multiple interactions that's going to
help us answer this question you can
start by guessing if you want but then
we have to go out and talk to customers
to see if our assumptions actually hold
now in this section here what we see in
here so the environment of course
influences what we actually hear in this
section which is why we start on the
right-hand side and make our way over to
the left so here we want to think about
what are the things that influence my
customer what are the messages that they
hear right who are the people that are
influential that they seek out
information from maybe it's a certain
type of blog maybe it's you know social
media maybe it's a variety of different
things so once we know what the
environment is like well then we can
look at well what are the things that
this this person hears what's the
message like that becomes very important
once we finish that section then we know
that what we our environment influences
what we hear what we hear obviously
influences what we think and feel and so
in this third section here we're trying
to get inside the psyche of the person
right what are the things that they
think about on a regular basis not only
generally speaking but also in the
context of the problem that you think
exists right and so if the problem that
you think is somewhat of safety what are
the what are the thoughts and the
feelings of a single mom of regarding
safety it could
be the bad parent or you know some of
those other types of things so we're
trying to get a little bit more detailed
again the only way we're gonna get here
is if we go back to the customer
discovery pieces and we interact with
customers on a regular basis right what
are their worries what are their
preoccupations what are their concerns
what are their aspirations right trying
to get inside the psyche of your
customer is really important because
what people think and feel influences
what they say and do influences their
behavior so what are their general
attitudes possibly appearance maybe
behavior towards others those are the
questions that are the the
characteristics that we're trying to try
to figure out and again this all stems
from what the environment is and that
influences every step of the way here
now this is very very conceptual as you
can imagine and so most people have a
very big problem with this because
unlike a lot of things there's not
really a right and wrong answer there's
more in right and wrong process so again
customers covery is very important here
otherwise you're just going through the
motions of filling stuff out and you
know as you're doing this that's
complete garbage but if you have an
understanding of your customer it makes
it easier to fill this stuff out now the
bottom section here is what you fill out
last these are the pains and the gains
here so this is ultimately kind of a
sort of a blend of thinking and feeling
but it's really in the context of kind
of the problem or the frustration that
you think people have so the first thing
is in the pain section what are the
fears frustrations and obstacles that
people experience associated with this
this problem that you think people have
right trying to make it as as vivid as
you possibly can and then in the gain
section what does it look like if this
problem was was solved
for the person right what does what a
success look like or the measure of
success
what would the person how would they
feel if they were able to extinguish the
issue that was causing this pain here if
this went away and we solved it what
would that look like for them what would
that what would that be now you're
probably thinking like who cares does
this really matter well this is really
important because the pains and the
frustrations we see a lot of that in
marketing right so when you're looking
at an advertisement whether it's on
social media whether it's on TV or on
the radio marketers are very good at
identifying what are the problems right
the things that they're talking about
and they're also really good at
developing how much better your life is
gonna be once you use this particular
product right what are the gains how
does this feel and it's not necessarily
always you know obvious at first but by
thinking through some of these things
that on the surface don't seem all that
important we can set ourselves up to win
later on because we're gonna have such
an easier time developing a message and
branding and doing all of these things
because we know exactly the couple of
points that we're trying to address as a
frustration that our customer has and we
also know very clearly the one or two
things that if you use my product or
service this is how your life is going
to be better and ultimately people
purchase products because of the
benefits that they get from them at the
end of the day we buy something because
it provides us with some kind of benefit
whether that benefit is you know pretty
simple right so you think food obviously
the benefit is not being hungry not
being hangry right all those different
things but maybe the benefit is peace of
mind right safety security maybe the
benefit is positive self-esteem right
these are all things that are important
with marketing and we're only going to
uncover if we have a good understanding
of our customer so I would encourage you
try to take a stab at filling out your
empathy map I would encourage you to use
sticky notes if at all possible
sticky notes are great because if
something you put on there you don't
like you don't have to scribble it out
or erase it you can simply throw away
the sticky note and it had more on there
so it works really good even works
better if they're all different
multicolored it just kind of makes it
look fun doesn't really matter all that
much but it could be a fun part of the
process and again this process is all
about creativity so feel free to make it
your own but I again I can't emphasize
enough the starting point to this needs
to be some kind of customer interaction
as a basis for filling this out your
empathy map is an output of that kind of
that kind of process it is not the
starting point and so it's meant to be a
reflection of what you know about your
customer that you can refine over time
as opposed to one thing that you create
that is static and never evolving which
of course is completely impractical so I
hope that helps with your understanding
of the empathy map good luck
you