Unlocking Customer Experience Success with Journey Insight™ As the landscape of customer experience (CX) evolves, businesses are presented with both opportunities and challenges in meeting rising customer expectations. Recognizing this, Alterian and CX Network have once again partnered to publish The State of Customer Journey Success 2024-2025. This invaluable report delves into the latest trends, obstacles, and technological advancements reshaping journey management today, providing a roadmap for businesses seeking to stay competitive in an increasingly complex environment. Amidst these advancements, Alterian’s Journey Insight™ emerges as an essential tool, one that enables CX professionals to understand and improve customer journeys by turning behavioral and competitor data into actionable strategies. This article explores key findings from the report and highlights real-world examples from two industries, demonstrating how Journey Insight empowers businesses to transform customer and competitor data into measurable success. The growing complexities of customer journeys today Customer journeys have become increasingly complex as businesses navigate an ever-connected digital landscape. In the pursuit of delivering effective journeys, CX professionals face numerous challenges – from siloed data to disconnected channels and lack of real-time capabilities they need to meet the needs of their customers. According to The State of Customer Journey Success 2024-2025, siloed data and a lack of integrated systems is still a major roadblock, with 76% declaring it to be the biggest challenge they face. Additionally, 41% said they struggled with the lack of real-time capabilities required to respond to customer needs. A striking 73% of CX professionals cited poor cross-functional communication between departments as a major barrier to delivering consistent and connected customer experiences. In a world of growing complexity, overcoming these challenges requires more than just incremental improvements — it demands a transformational approach powered by real-time data and competitive insight. Customer journey priorities for 2024-2025 57% Maintaining customer satisfaction while reducing costs 66% Fostering long-term relationships with customers and increasing CLV 79% Ensuring seamless customer experience Leveraging data to overcome journey challenges One of the most critical issues highlighted in the 2024-25 report is businesses’ inability to benchmark journey-related KPIs against competitors. In fact, 93% of CX professionals identified this as one of their top three challenges. This highlights a significant gap and reveals just how many are navigating the competitive landscape without critical insights. Furthermore, 46% said they struggled to understand and act on actual customer behaviors. Alterian CEO Bob Hale says a lack of benchmarking creates several significant disadvantages: “Without benchmarking, organizations lack a clear understanding of how their customer experience measures up in the market, making it difficult to identify areas for improvement or differentiation. This can lead to missed opportunities for optimizing customer satisfaction, retention and overall competitiveness. Additionally, without comparative data, companies may struggle to set realistic targets or to innovate effectively, potentially falling behind competitors who are more attuned to industry standards and best practices.” Alterian’s Journey Insight™ was built specifically to address these issues. It offers a comprehensive view of customer journeys and the competitive landscape, helping businesses uncover new opportunities and optimize customer interactions. A leading Consumer Products Provider is a prime example of how Journey Insight can deliver transformative results. Seeking visibility into their competitive position and digital support performance, the Provider leveraged Journey Insight to gain the crucial data it needed. The powerful results allowed them to refine their priorities and optimize digital and self-serve resources, resulting in improved first-time fix rates and reduced call center costs. This case study underscores the power of data in overcoming key challenges identified in the 2024-2025 CX report. Real-world impact: The power of Journey Insight™ Consumer Products Reducing costs across the entire customer support experience A global Consumer Products leader wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the journeys its customers were taking when seeking product support. They were seeking to optimize the digital customer experience while reducing contact center costs and improving overall satisfaction. However, they were lacking the insights they needed to effectively strategize. Leveraging Alterian’s Journey Insight, they were able to gain a complete view of the market landscape and the customer support experience, viewing and analyzing journeys across their own brand touchpoints and that of their competitors. This not only gave them a richer understanding on what customers and competitors were doing, it also highlighted critical friction points and untapped opportunities. With Journey Insight, the Consumer Products Provider was able to: Quickly understand their customers’ journeys – all without the need for IT integration. Access industry benchmarks for support-related performance. Rapidly view actual customer behaviors without collecting self-reported survey data. Identify their known and unknown competitors and share of digital activity. Reveal a unique data pool of support events. Drill down into real customer journeys across their business, competitors and third-party influencers. The insights gained were transformative for the business. For example, Journey Insight allowed them to identify that 94% of their customers sought digital-first product support; however, many struggled to find relevant resources to resolve their issue. Users still required support from the contact center at a much higher cost to the business. Additionally, the number of support inquiries was significantly higher than their key competitors. Concerned about the high volume of support inquiries, the Consumer Products Provider analyzed their support journeys and identified the need for improved product onboarding for new customers. They also identified the need to improve digital support resources, including landing pages, community support and self-serve options. Acting on these insights, the Provider was able to significantly improve first-time fix rates and reduce call center costs. Key Results: Lower support costs through reduced call center volume and improved rates of self-service, digital resolution Reduced customer effort through improved first-contact resolution Enhanced self-serve support with digital resources such as video content and community integration Increased efficiency and customer satisfaction scores See Journey Insight in action. Regulated Subscription Service Data-backed ROI optimization The Regulated Subscription Service sector faces many complex challenges—multiple competitors, fragmented customer interactions, and constantly shifting market dynamics. For one UK Provider, they knew that real-time insights were the key to unlocking customer understanding and gaining a competitive edge. To gain the insights needed, they turned to Journey Insight, which gave them a comprehensive view of the diversity of customer journey paths as well as the competitor landscape. Key discoveries 40% of customers were influenced by third-party sites, including traditional, advice and comparison sites. These sites proved to hold significant sway in the decision-making process. The Regulated Subscription Service Provider uncovered several unknown influences. The fastest-growing, market-leading Provider stands out from competitors’ customer journeys with 3x more customer engagement on consumer advice platforms during the purchase decision process, ensuring stronger influence and visibility in key decision-making moments. Such insights enabled the Regulated Subscription Service Provider to adjust its acquisition, retention, and engagement strategies with data-driven precision. They also identified customer switching behaviors activity, highlighting areas to strengthen engagement and loyalty initiatives and refine marketing efforts. Journey Insight also allowed them to compare their performance against competitors and use this to their advantage. Key Results: Enhanced customer journey visibility: a holistic view of customer interactions across traditional and non-traditional channels. Competitor and market intelligence: uncovered key players influencing a share of all customer journeys. Improved conversion rates: Optimized customer touchpoints, taking efforts to improve quote engagement and conversions. See Journey Insight in action. The key takeaway Both these case studies highlight how leveraging real-time data-driven insights can address journey challenges and align CX strategies with broader business goals. Businesses that adopt interactive analytics tools built on actual customer behavior, like Journey Insight, are better positioned to lead in today’s competitive landscape. Strategic recommendations The value of customer journey management and the value it can bring is clear. Those that prioritize its success will be the ones that come out in front in 2025 and beyond. The State of Customer Journey Success 2024-2025 report along with the Journey Insight case studies featured in this article emphasize that there are actionable steps CX professionals can take to stay ahead. Invest in journey management tools: real-time visibility into customer behaviors is essential for identifying and addressing friction points. Leverage competitor data: gain a competitive edge by understanding not only your own customers but also the strategies employed by your competitors. Use data-driven insights: focus on improving digital-first contact strategies to reduce friction and boost ROI. Align CX and business goals: harness fully integrated and flexible tools that align customer experience strategies with organizational goals is crucial. Future Trends: The Role of AI in Journey Management Journey Insight is already utilizing AI to provide real-time, actionable insights that help organizations stay ahead of both customer expectations and market trends. The potential for AI to optimize customer journeys even further, improve customer loyalty, and drive revenue growth is vast. Looking ahead, the integration of AI-driven analytics will further revolutionize customer journey management. What areas can AI make the best impact on their customers’ journey experience? 76% Leveraging AI-driven analytics to understand customer behaviors and inform CX strategy 52% Creating personalized content and offers By providing the ability to benchmark against competitors, optimize customer interactions, and align CX efforts with business outcomes, Journey Insight is an indispensable tool for any business looking to thrive in today’s complex CX landscape. The State of Customer Journey Success 2024-2025 report, alongside the success stories from Consumer Products and Regulated Subscription Services sectors, highlights the transformative impact such innovation tools can have. To discover more insights, download your copy of The State of the Customer Journey Experience 2023-2024 Ready to harness Journey Insight™ and revolutionize your customer journey management? Get in touch with Alterian team today.