Why an outside-in customer journey changes everything

An outside-in approach starts with people, their emotions, expectations, and frictions. When you start there, your entire perspective changes. You suddenly see where people get stuck, what makes them happy, and where they do or don’t understand your brand. This not only leads to more empathy, but also to concrete business opportunities.

At Beautiful Lives, we have been building customer journeys based on people’s real experiences for years. During that time, we have developed a number of building blocks that help to make journeys human, clear, and effective. Below, we share our 7 key learnings about CJ Mapping: lessons from projects in which we learned time and again what works when it comes to putting the user first.

Lesson 1: Pre – During – Post

Most organizations focus on the purchase phase (during), but the real opportunities often lie before or after that moment. Think about how you can help a customer with preparation or use after purchase.

Lesson 2: Feel – Think – Do

Each stage of the journey has its own emotional, rational, or action-oriented drivers. By knowing which of the three is dominant, you can choose the right message and channels.

Lesson 3: From transactional to relational

Customer journeys are not about individual transactions, but about building relationships. It’s not just about selling, but about connecting.

Lesson 4: Zoom out, for the bigger picture

Look beyond the individual steps. What do you want people to feel when they experience your brand? Take the Staatsloterij, for example, where the goal was not only to sell lottery tickets, but to keep people in a happy flow.

Lesson 5: Zoom in, in the moment

Details make all the difference. For Schiphol Airport, Beautiful Lives mapped out the entire journey of travelers, from arrival to departure. This allowed them to understand exactly where the highs and lows of the experience lay.

Lesson 6: Make it visual, use consumer language

Journeys must be visual, understandable, and recognizable. No technical diagrams, but human stories that everyone within the organization can work with.

Lesson 7: Focus on the Moments of Truth

Not every touchpoint is equally important. The trick is to find those few crucial moments when you can really make a difference. A good example comes from ABN AMRO, where research among young investors showed that people were afraid of losing money immediately after their initial investment. That insight led to the introduction of Proof Investing.

Data and empathy go hand in hand

Strong customer journeys are not just about data, but also about humanity. Data shows what people do; empathy reveals why they do it. Combining the two creates a complete picture of the user, allowing you to make choices that truly match their experience. In this way, data becomes not just information, but guiding input to make the journey more relevant, clearer, and more personal.

An outside-in customer journey is more than just a marketing tool: it is an organization-wide change process. It requires a shared understanding of the customer and the discipline to continually view things from the customer’s perspective.

Looking for more inspiration? 

On October 28, Maurice from Beautiful Lives gave an inspiring insight into how you can make a difference with an outside-in customer journey during a webinar organized by The Relevance Group (TRG). Together with Michael Petit (Head of Marketing at TRG), he showed how you can use a combination of data and empathy to build customer journeys that touch people, change behavior, and grow brands.

Are you curious about the webinar? Watch it again via this link. In addition, there is an interactive Mural tool available that allows you to get started with the seven learnings yourself: the Journey Relevance Check. This allows you and your team to determine, step by step, where your organization currently stands and where the opportunities lie to become more relevant to customers.

 

“A good journey map is not just a picture, it is the starting point for change.” – 

Maurice Palmen, Managing Partner Beautiful Lives