Mapping the journey for a business with several services to sell

4 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

A business offering one thing has one journey. A business offering six has somewhere between one and six, and working out which is the first decision the exercise requires. Producing a single map that averages an emergency callout, a planned installation and an annual maintenance contract produces a document describing none of them.

Producing six is equally unhelpful, because nobody maintains six maps and the overlap between them is substantial. The useful answer is usually two or three, grouped by how the buyer behaves rather than by how your service list is organised, and the grouping is the analytical work.

1. Mapping the journey for a business with several services starts by grouping

The first decision.

Not one map and not one per service. Group services whose buyers behave the same way, and treat each group as a journey. The grouping is where the thinking happens; the drawing afterwards is straightforward.

2. Group by buyer behaviour, not by your service list

The criterion.

Urgency, price, how they find you, how long they take, who decides. Two services that differ technically but are bought identically share a journey. Equally, one service bought in two different ways is two journeys.

3. Separate urgent from planned

The most common split.

An emergency purchase collapses several stages into one call; a planned one runs for months. These are always two journeys and combining them is the commonest error. They also need entirely different marketing, which the split makes obvious.

4. Separate first purchases from repeat ones

The second split.

An existing customer skips discovery, comparison and most of the trust-building. Mapping them together makes your conversion rate look better than it is for new buyers. It also hides how much of your volume depends on people who already knew you.

5. Watch for services that are entry points

The structural insight.

Some services bring people in and others are only ever bought by existing customers. Knowing which is which changes where marketing effort belongs. Entry-point services deserve the acquisition spend; the others do not.

6. Map the movement between services

The extra layer worth adding.

How somebody who bought one thing comes to buy another. This is frequently the largest growth opportunity and it appears on no single-service map. Trace twenty existing customers to see which sequences actually occur.

7. Accept that the maps will overlap

The practical reality.

Two or three journeys will share stages and touchpoints. That is fine; the differences are what you are mapping and the shared parts can be described once. Duplicating the shared sections is not a problem worth solving.

8. Start with the group that matters most

The sequencing.

Whichever produces most of your revenue or most of your growth. A complete map of one group beats partial maps of three. The second becomes much faster once the first exists.

9. Check whether the differences justify the maps

The maintenance test.

If two maps have looked identical for a year, merge them. Every additional map is upkeep, and unused ones make the whole exercise feel heavier than it is. Review the set annually rather than adding to it indefinitely.

Be careful about grouping by what is convenient internally. Departments, price bands and product categories frequently do not correspond to differences in how people buy, and grouping by them produces maps that split where buyers do not. Group by the buyer and let the internal structure follow.

Conclusion

Group services by how buyers behave and expect to need two or three maps.

Separate urgent purchases from planned ones and first purchases from repeat ones, identify which services act as entry points, add a layer showing how customers move between services because that is where growth frequently sits, accept overlap between the maps, start with the group producing most of your revenue, and merge any maps that have looked identical for a year.