What’s the difference between theory and practice? In theory, there is no difference.

I’m sure you know this quote and see it a lot in product management. At Infinify, we made it a point to connect the two. Give you the theory but deal with reality and the real challenges that come with it in everything we do – our courses, the CPO Bootcamp, strategic consulting, and this blog.

But the difference between theory and practice isn’t limited to product management theory – mostly processes and methodologies. It appears in your product itself.

In theory, your customers would use it the way you intended them to. In practice, they often don’t.

In theory, your customers see the value of your product just the way you do. In practice, it’s often different.

In theory, your customers don’t get it! In practice, it’s often you that don’t get it.

Last week I wrote about the difference between a theoretical customer journey and what a real customer journey looks like. I also wrote about why the customer journey is so important and is part of your responsibility as a product leader, even if you can’t impact it directly as you do with features. Today I want to dive deeper into the principles that cause this difference. Here are four things to consider when you define your customer journey.

It’s in Their Heads, Not Their Actions

As product people we often tend to look at the tangible part of the product – the UX and what people can actually work with. It’s an important part of our work, and an important part of the customer journey – but only in the sense that that’s where the outcome is. 

But most of the customer journey doesn’t happen on your product. It happens in their heads. It’s in their thoughts and feelings until they understand what the next step is and decide to take it (or not). 

If you only define the customer journey through people’s actions, you are missing out on what drives the journey. You must understand at a very detailed level what people are thinking and feeling after each and every step, in order to see if it makes sense. You must be crystal clear on the value that people expect to get out of your product before you translate it to features and make sure you actually deliver this value.

When I work with companies on their customer journeys and we add that level of detail, suddenly they fully understand why their (potential) customers didn’t take the actions they expected them to take. It’s usually not because the button isn’t visible enough, it’s because the next step isn’t logical based on where the customer is in terms of their knowledge or motivation to use the product. 

It’s About Business, Not About Usage

As I wrote in my disambiguation guide for product-led growth, the product is a means to an end. It’s a business tool and not just software. As such, it’s important to treat the customer journey as a business journey and not as a product journey. 

How do they hear about your product? What do they think it is going to give them? Do they see it when they try it out? Is it consistent all along the way? What would make them buy – any product in your category, and specifically yours? How are decisions made? Who do they need to convince, and why would they do that? Where would they get the budget from? What do they need to go through in order to secure it?

There are all questions related to the business side of the product. I too often see product leaders who focus their attention on the tangible product but neglect to see the business side of it. It goes with the notion that this is someone else’s job. Unfortunately, that’s not how it usually works. 

If you have mediocre marketing and sales people, it wouldn’t work. If you have good marketing and sales people, they will be able to sell the product to some extent based on their network and talent. If you have great marketing and sales people, they will come to you and ask deep questions about the customer profile and the value that you are expecting to deliver to these customers. They will then build their entire strategy according to your answers so that all the departments work together to generate success. If you work in the product-led growth model, this is even more important since you no longer have people in the loop to cover for the holes in your story. I cover that deeply in our Unboxing PLG course.

But the bottom line is that as a product leader, you must think of the business side of your product no matter what. If for nothing else, do it in order to make sure you are building the right product. A great product that cannot be sold is not a great product anymore.

It’s Not Linear

When we focus on the customer journey, especially on the part that involves the actual product, that’s all we see. But it’s important to remember that the customer journey happens in a broader context – in the real world. In this world there are interruptions, so people might start and forget about it. In the real world, decisions are made not when you want them to be made, but when people are ready to decide. Sometimes, many times, they need to sleep on it. They would want other people’s opinions. All of these happen outside of the product, and a logical next step could take a long time to complete.

When you read this, you might be thinking that that’s why you are working so hard on improving your onboarding and removing friction. You’re right, but there’s more to it. The main takeaway here is that you need to work with how people do things, and accept and embrace the non-tangible part of the customer journey, in order to make it work. Not everything can be rushed through a better experience. If you understand how they think and what needs to happen in their world you will be much better prepared to actually help them take the next step that you want them to take – when they are ready for it.

They Don’t Work for You

So often I hear product leaders describing their customer journey as if all the customer wants is to complete it. They define a customer journey that makes perfect sense if all you have in mind is that you want this to succeed. But that’s rarely the case with real customers. They have their concerns, they haven’t made up their mind yet, and they have other things to do and worry about.

A good customer journey should work even when people don’t try to succeed. It needs to connect to their fundamental needs and desires so that they feel it serves them and not vice versa.

Defining a good customer journey requires that you fully understand what value people are expecting to get from your product and why it’s important for them. It’s much more than a UX exercise, it ties directly into your product strategy. In product-led growth, it is even more important, since the product is your actual marketing and sales tool. One simply cannot succeed with PLG without defining a great product strategy to lead the way. Our Unboxing PLG online course provides you with a step-by-step guide on how to navigate your PLG journey to success.

With our help or on your own, make sure you define a customer journey that can work in practice and not only in theory. Defining that journey is a journey in and of itself – it would take you multiple iterations to nail it. Make it your responsibility if (as it happens in most cases) no one told you explicitly that you own it. You shouldn’t treat this as a nice to have. Your product – and you – simply cannot succeed without it.