How to drive journey management adoption
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Ever feel like journey management just isn’t clicking in your organization? You’ve introduced the tools, explained the value, maybe even run a few workshops—but adoption still lags. TheyDo sits there underused, and collaboration feels like an uphill battle. Frustrating, right?
But have you stopped to ask: Is the way we’re introducing journey management actually making it easier for people? What if a few simple tactics could make journey management the obvious way to collaborate?
In a recent Coffee chat with TheyDo, Rosanne de Vos, Senior Journey Management Coach, shared key strategies to drive adoption by leveraging behavioral change principles. Her secret weapon? The EAST Framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely)—a proven model for integrating journey management seamlessly into organizations. Let’s break it down.
The EAST Framework: Driving behavioral change
Successful journey management isn’t about forcing change—it’s about making it the most natural way to work. The EAST framework helps organizations lower resistance and embed journey thinking into daily workflows.
Easy: Lowering both the cognitive and practical effort needed to engage with journey management makes adoption far more likely. If it feels like ‘just another tool’, people won’t use it. If it fits seamlessly into existing workflows and makes work easier, they will. Aligning it with familiar tools and processes helps lower the learning curve and removes barriers to adoption.
Attractive: Make participation engaging and rewarding. People are more likely to engage with journey management if they see immediate personal and business value. Make it visual, keep messaging simple, and show fast results.
Social: Adoption happens when journey management becomes part of company culture. Use leadership buy-in, regular touchpoints, and small incentives to make it the standard way of working.
Timely: Timing is everything. Instead of pushing for adoption at any time, introduce journey management when teams are most receptive, such as during organizational changes or new strategic initiatives.
Real-world use cases of successful adoption
Rosanne shared two compelling use cases demonstrating how journey management adoption can be successfully driven within different organizational contexts.
Use case 1: Securing leadership buy-in through strategic influence
A journey manager in a highly siloed, traditional company successfully embedded journey management by focusing on timing, strategic influence, and simplicity—driving leadership adoption without overwhelming stakeholders with methodology.
His approach:
Positioned himself as a trusted advisor: Instead of pushing journey management, he acted as a strategic partner, helping the director prioritize customer-centric issues and build a holistic, compelling narrative around business challenges.
Built trust with value-driven insights: He mapped customer journeys, pain points, and internal processes—introducing insights gradually to make them immediately relevant to leadership decisions.
Made journey insights part of decision-making: Supporting the director in key meetings, he shared insights at the right moments—without overwhelming him with methodology.
The result: Executive buy-in, leading to a dedicated journey pod driving cross-functional collaboration.
Use case 2: Driving business impact by tackling a key business challenge
A CX team at a large insurance company secured stakeholder engagement by focusing their efforts on a single business challenge—reducing call volume. Instead of broadly advocating for journey management, they framed their efforts around this issue, aligning with existing priorities.
Their approach:
Leveraged AI-driven insights: Used customer research and call transcripts to identify root causes of customer frustration.
Delivered actionable solutions: Translated journey insights into clear, data-backed recommendations for teams already working on the issue.
Built leadership buy-in: Let key stakeholders witness success firsthand, turning the project into a model for broader adoption.
Drove long-term momentum: As executive sponsors shared results, more teams embraced journey management as a critical business tool.
The result: By tying journey insights to measurable outcomes, the team transformed journey management from a theoretical concept into a tangible driver of business impact.
The role of AI in journey management
Rosanne also explored how AI is transforming journey management by streamlining research and surfacing insights faster.
AI helps analyze vast amounts of customer feedback and behavioral data, identifying pain points that need attention.
Automated journey mapping reduces manual effort, allowing teams to focus on decision-making and execution.
Despite its benefits, AI should complement—not replace—human judgment in prioritizing and implementing improvements.
Key takeaways: Embedding journey thinking into organizations
Don’t push methodology, demonstrate impact. Position journey management as a solution to real business challenges rather than an added layer of complexity.
Start small, win big. Focus on one high-impact journey to show measurable results before scaling across the organization.
Leverage social proof. Encourage both leadership and practitioners to champion journey management—whether in meetings, reports, or town halls. This builds credibility and drives traction.
Use AI to accelerate, not replace. AI can streamline research, surface insights, and even help define strategy, but humans are crucial for driving results—bringing people together, ensuring accountability, and maintaining persistence to get things done.
Final thoughts
Journey management is most effective when it becomes the default way of working—not an extra task. By making it Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely (EAST), organizations can overcome resistance and build a customer-centric culture that delivers real business impact.
Timestamps
0:00 Welcome and introduction
2:42 Understanding behavioral change
4:52 Introduction to the EAST Framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely)
7:15 Easy
8:31 Attractive
10:19 Social
12:15 Timely
17:38 Applying the EAST framework to Journey Management adoption
33:21 Use case: Strategic influence for adoption
40:48 Use case: Using journey insights to reduce call volume
46:47 The role of AI in journey management
44:04 Q&A and final thoughts
Looking to take your practice further?
Join our Journey Management Slack Community, where CX professionals and JM pioneers come together to connect, exchange experiences, ask questions, and learn from each other.
We host weekly coffee chats, offering a space for open discussions on trends and challenges in journey management. These sessions feature in-house experts from TheyDo, providing actionable insights and best practices.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out our Community Events Calendar for upcoming events.