Learnings from being customer of a competitor

I was designing a business model for a new service, we knew there was an opportunity of including this services as part of our offerings, but we weren't sure on the business model, as well as the customer journey map and its touch points. We weren't confident enough to launch it.

Surprisingly one of my colleagues suggested a simple idea, "why don't we place a legitimate order for the similar service at the competitor?". It was one of the mind-blowing ideas i ever encountered. All this time, my approach in the understanding competition included: searching and reading about competition company news, watch their founder interviews, refer their website and understand UX, pricing and signing up with fake identity so that I understand their business model without revealing my information.

Becoming a customer of competitor gave me an understanding of customer journey, and mapping before and after moments of pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages.

Yes, becoming the customer of competitor process can be fairly intensive, but it is worth it. Make sure to include competitive customer journey mapping at least once a year. You might learn what are things that are working and what needs to be revisited.