Describing customer functions with storytelling anatomy

Telling customer stories using story elements

This is a 2x2 I came up with. I drew it to help slice a typical growth model in another way.

The two axes are pinching structural elements from a classic Freytag story triangle:

So you could then tell a generic customer journey with the Freytag triangle:

And in terms of customer functions:

Marketing and Product make the bottom half of the 2x2. They create the setting of the customer’s story. Sales and Customer Success make the top half of the 2x2. They create and destroy entropy in the actual story part of the story.

Everything pre-climax is pre-point-of-purchase. The left half of the triangle and the 2x2 are defined by a struggle a customer has and their conflict with that struggle. The climax of the story is a finite event. Functions like Marketing and Sales are appropriate for the left half since they both end with achieving finite goals; incite awareness and close a deal.

Customer Success and Product have an unending goal: resolution. Those functions aid a customer in resolving conflict, preferably for as long as possible. Hence, Customer Success and Product are on the right-hand side of the 2x2.

So that’s the customer 2x2 told with storytelling elements. Afaic, this picks out significant patterns instead of conventional ones like self-serve vs assisted. What I’m also betting is that this 2x2 will help generate new tactics rather than describing existing ones.