THE JOURNEY AUDIT

The audit doesn’t ask whether you have a journey map. It asks whether you could answer, today, three questions: where customers leave, how long they wait before they do, and who is responsible for each stretch. If you can answer the first only up to the checkout, that’s where the audit starts.

Score each check 0 to 2: 0 if it failed or nobody can answer it, 1 if partly true, 2 if clean. “It’s in the dashboard somewhere” isn’t an answer.

A journey you can’t count is a journey you can’t manage. Start by counting it.

The twelve checks

1. Stages are written as events · 5 minLook at: Your list of journey stages, or the map on the wall.
   Good: Six to nine stages, each starting with an event in your data that has a timestamp: order placed, delivered scan, second order.
   Cost if wrong: Nobody can count a stage called “consideration”, so nobody can tell whether it’s improving.
   Read next: Stages Are Events
2. Stage conversion is read by first-order cohort · 5 minLook at: Whether you can show, for customers who first ordered in a given month, the share who reached each later stage.
   Good: A table by cohort month, refreshed monthly.
   Cost if wrong: Calendar-month numbers mix new and old customers, and a growing brand looks better than it is.
   Read next: Where the Cohort Leaks
3. You can name the stall · 3 minLook at: Ask the team which stage loses the most customers each month, and how many.
   Good: One answer, with a number, that matches the cohort table.
   Cost if wrong: Effort goes to the touchpoint people complain about, not the stage that loses the most customers.
   Read next: Where the Cohort Leaks
4. Time in stage is known · 4 minLook at: Median and 75th-percentile days customers spend in each stage before moving on.
   Good: Both numbers for every stage, and a target window for each.
   Cost if wrong: Flows fire on guesses, too early for some customers and too late for most.
   Read next: Where Customers Wait
5. You have a first-use signal · 4 minLook at: Any event that shows a customer started using the product: a how-to page view, a login, a refill scan, a review, a support question about using it.
   Good: One agreed signal, tracked per customer, even if it’s imperfect.
   Cost if wrong: The stretch between delivery and the second order is a black box, and it’s usually the longest one.
   Read next: Stages Are Events
6. Every message you send is on one calendar · 5 minLook at: Transactional emails, flows, campaigns, SMS, shipping notices from your carrier or tracking app, and review requests.
   Good: One list, by stage and day since first order, with the system that sends each one.
   Cost if wrong: Four tools each send “just one” message on the same day.
   Read next: Every Touch, in Order
7. Customer-started touches are on the map · 4 minLook at: Whether tickets, returns and reviews are tagged with the stage the customer was in.
   Good: Contacts per 100 orders by reason and by stage, reviewed monthly.
   Cost if wrong: The loudest signal of a broken stage goes to a helpdesk queue and stays there.
   Read next: Every Touch, in Order
8. No collision days · 4 minLook at: The full message log for ten customers who first ordered last month.
   Good: No day with more than two marketing messages, and no marketing message on the same day as a delay or problem notice.
   Cost if wrong: A promotion lands an hour after a delay notice, and the customer reads both.
   Read next: Every Touch, in Order
9. The backstage is drawn for your worst stretch · 5 minLook at: Whether anyone has drawn who and what system is behind each touch in the stall stage.
   Good: A one-page service blueprint with fail points marked, less than a year old.
   Cost if wrong: Fixes land on the email copy when the failure is a warehouse cutoff.
   Read next: The Backstage
10. Measured and inferred are marked · 3 minLook at: Your map, and whether it says which parts come from data and which from belief.
    Good: Every stage labeled measured or inferred, with a plan to measure the inferred ones.
    Cost if wrong: A guess made in a workshop becomes a fact in a budget meeting.
    Read next: What the Data Can’t See
11. Each stage has one owner and one number · 3 minLook at: Ask who owns first use, and what number they report.
    Good: A name and a number for every stage, reviewed in a monthly meeting.
    Cost if wrong: The stages between teams belong to nobody, and that’s where customers leave.
    Read next: One Owner, One Number
12. Fixes are ranked and measured with a holdout · 5 minLook at: The last three journey changes you shipped, and how you judged them.
    Good: Each was chosen from a ranked list and read against a random holdout.
    Cost if wrong: You ship five changes at once and credit the one you liked.
    Read next: Fix One Stretch at a Time

Score as you go; your band appears when all twelve are in.

Read your score

If you sell on subscription, score check 5 on the first shipment after sign-up and treat the first renewal as your second order.