My Client Has No Market – What Can I Do?

My biggest marketing problem is that by the time I have written ‘Intentional Customer Experience Management’ it has become long and complex, and so I will write ICXM instead. The key words here are ‘intentional’ and ‘management’ as customers will experience your clients’ products, services and touchpoints whether they manage them or not. And your customers will build a perception of your clients’ business that influences their future actions – such as whether to continue buying and how they speak about you to their friends and colleagues.

Understanding the Essentials of ICXM

Intentional Customer Experience Management has been proven to deliver higher revenues and lower costs. But many business leaders risk leaving their customers’ perceptions to chance. It’s a bit like driving, we all think we are above average-level drivers. Yet whenever I tell people what I do, they relate  a dreadful experience and suggest a business that could use my help. There is a cognitive bias at play here, but I don’t know which one!

ICXM employs a wide range of tools to better understand customers, and design or improve products, services and touchpoints to create a perception that drives genuine loyalty - and results in more sales. As a discipline it works closely with Marketing, Customer Success, Sales and Customer Service. And as organisations build their ICXM capabilities, the link with product and service design becomes stronger and adds increasing value.

While some founders really ‘get’ ICXM, many businesses leave their investment until they have run out of other growth options. This is a false economy. Every decision made without considering the customer has the potential to build costs and culture, both of which are expensive to remedy. As fractionals, introducing ICXM early can boost your credibility while ensuring your clients are around to pay those nice retainers.

Follow Ups to Your Questions

This series explores the warning signs that accidental CXM may be damaging your clients’ business, and what you can do to help. I will also use this platform to take questions from our community, so please don’t hesitate to contact me via Infraction to share your observations and concerns. I will anonymize and even combine questions, so your privacy and that of your clients are safe.

Today’s question comes from Karl. His client is a founder with a strong engineering background. They are adamant that they have a world-beating product. But Karl is concerned that there is no market for it.

Any marketing member of our community will stress the need for market research. But let’s put a CX lens on this: humans are not wired to feel empathy for large groups of people, and without encouragement, we imagine individuals to be the same as us. Karl’s client needs help stepping into the hearts and minds of his prospects, and to do this, I would start by suggesting they build an empathy map.

Empathy mapping has a long history of value. Being a staple of both UX and Service Design, the process is simple and doesn’t take long to get started. By creating a simple persona and asking questions about what Karl’s client thinks, feels, sees and hears, we build an entirely new narrative. I would run through the map with the client and their team, then leave them to ponder it for a while. After they’ve had the chance to ingest and review the empathy map, then we would test with some research and ask what the team needs to do differently.

Empathy Mapping to Understand your Customers

There are two ways of introducing empathy maps to your clients. I can help or you can go it alone. If you want to go it alone, you can find lots of resources online with templates and some questions. But if you engage my help, I will bring years of insight and experience and save you work.

Taking a gentle, indirect approach allows the client to identify the problems with their product for themselves. It has added benefits in raising customer awareness across all touchpoints. Very few people forget the empathy they build as part of this exercise.

Empathy mapping does far more than just identify areas for improvement. It creates a foundation for genuine understanding for customers that grows over time. By working with clients to recognize their customers’ perspectives, this process creates a more intentional approach to their decision-making. It’s an easy way to build lasting relationships with customers based on what they value. And that helps drive success.

Empathy mapping isn’t just a tool—it’s a game-changer for businesses lacking a clear market. Let us show you how to guide your clients toward actionable insights and customer-centric growth. Visit infraction.io and start making a lasting impact!