Refining Qt’s customer journeys to drive smarter sales and smoother experiences

Qt Group, a leading global software company, sought to deepen its understanding of how customers progress from initial contact to purchase and renewal. With a wide and varied customer base and multi-product offering, Qt recognised the need to segment its customers more effectively and refine the way each group is supported throughout their journey.

Columbia Road partnered with Qt to map both high-touch and low-touch customer journeys. The goal was to identify key areas for improvement that would boost sales efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and strengthen internal alignment among teams.

STARTING POINT: GAINING CLARITY ON THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Qt Group had traditionally provided a consistent experience for all its customers, ensuring reliability across the board. As the business evolved and its customer base became more diverse, the company saw an opportunity to tailor its approach further and strengthen the experience for every customer. Different teams within the company were looking at customers from their own perspective, and there was room for a more cohesive way of working.

Recognising this, Qt set out to build a unified understanding of its customer journeys across touchpoints and functions. The company wanted to:

• Define cross-functional customer segments and service models for each.
• Identify pain points and bottlenecks across the current journeys.
• Align functions around shared insights.

Ultimately, the aim was to create a practical roadmap for improving both sales outcomes and the end-to-end customer experience and to use customer journeys as tools of continuous improvement in customer experience.

OUR APPROACH: COMBINING HUMAN INSIGHT WITH AI-ASSISTED ANALYSIS

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the current and target-state customer journeys, we combined qualitative and quantitative research methods.

We began with a series of internal interviews across Qt’s functions to capture different perspectives on how customers are currently served. These were followed by in-depth customer interviews to validate findings and surface additional insights.

At the same time, we created an insight agent for AI-assisted analysis. This allowed us to extract insights from a host of Qt’s quantitative first-party data sources and external discussions, such as online forums and user communities. The AI analysis helped to identify sentiment patterns and recurring themes, providing a broader context for the qualitative findings.

Using these insights, we defined high-level customer segments and mapped three prioritised journeys from self-service to strategic accounts. The AI agent enabled Qt to iterate data-based segmentation criteria and analyse the new segments as business figures more efficiently. Together with the Qt team, we co-created target-state journeys that detailed how each segment should ideally be served at every stage from first contact to renewal and beyond.

To ensure long-term progress, we created a prioritised backlog of development opportunities and a roadmap for incremental implementation. This roadmap gives Qt a clear, actionable path towards achieving its desired customer experience.

IMPACT: A UNIFIED FOUNDATION FOR CUSTOMER-CENTRIC GROWTH

The collaboration resulted in a clear view of Qt’s current and target-state customer journeys, backed by both data and shared understanding across teams. The tailored service models give Qt a foundation to refine its sales and customer experience strategies in a structured, scalable way.

The AI-assisted framework developed during the project also enables Qt to continue gathering customer insights in an ongoing, automated manner, ensuring the journeys evolve alongside the business.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS: FROM INSIGHTS TO ACTION

• Defined cross-functional customer segments based on business potential and account type.
• Mapped current-state customer journeys and identified key pain points.
• Developed target-state journeys for different segments.
• Built an AI-assisted research framework to support ongoing insight generation.
• Created a prioritised roadmap of development projects for continuous improvement.

WAY FORWARD: EMBEDDING CUSTOMER-CENTRIC PRACTICES ACROSS QT

Qt is now driving the change forward across the organisation, from unified customer service models to enhanced experiences in different touchpoints.

In parallel, Qt is adopting the AI-based insights framework into its daily operations, training its own insight agents to continue refining the customer experience. This marks an essential step in continuing Qt’s path towards a more insight-driven and customer-focused way of working.