Illuminate the decision-making path people take from initial awareness through advocacy, revealing the critical moments that drive behavior. Rather than viewing decision-making as a linear process, this approach captures the complex reality of how choices actually unfold – including the setbacks, influences, and key turning points that move people toward or away from a buying decision. By mapping both rational considerations and emotional responses at each stage, we uncover core friction points that need to be addressed and moments of delight that matter for maximum impact.
Our client, a historically dominant brand in the construction industry, faced increasing price pressures from competitors, leading to a loss in market share among their largest and most valuable accounts. To successfully defend their market position and secure upcoming business renewals, they needed to look beyond pricing. The goal was to conduct an exhaustive analysis of the entire plumbing product purchase and installation workflow with large production home builders to understand the complete process, identify critical inefficiencies and friction points and explore new, non-price opportunities to become the default first choice for new home installations.
Our client possessed several competitive advantages that could be leveraged to build a value proposition beyond cost. These included strong customer relationships, specialized factory sales representatives, dedication to supporting the entire supply chain ecosystem and an efficient, proprietary online system for ordering individual warranty parts which was a unique competitive advantage. The core opportunity was to leverage these relationship and efficiency advantages to address product and inventory-related bottlenecks identified in the installation process.
We employed journey mapping research to provide a granular view of the contractor workflow, from ordering to finish work, confirming specific friction points and clarifying decision-making dynamics. Specifically, we uncovered that the national builders held the primary decision-making power, driven by national-level agreements, pricing and rebates. Additionally, poor quality or negative experiences regarding product delivery or installation left lasting negative impressions on contractors, who influenced final decisions and provided brand feedback.
While our client’s foundational strengths (relationship-focused sales reps, superior warranty process, and proprietary technology) provided a strong base, activation required implementing targeted, problem specific solutions. By enhancing communication and collaboration on inventory forecasting with national builders to ensure timely product availability, implementing processes to enhance early-stage issue detection and reducing costly on-site delays and callbacks for contractors, our client was able to directly address productivity concerns and improve the end-to-end product experience. The strategic shift, powered by journey mapping, successfully reframed the value proposition from simple pricing to integrated productivity. Their resulting position as a continued trusted partner secured existing business and defended market share in a highly competitive industry.
