# Customer Truth

> The fourth ecommerce readiness foundation. Acting as your own customer, serving all four journey types, recognising the homepage is no longer the front door; five checks that catch customer blindness.

Source: https://barkingcat.ai/the-cats-whiskers/customer-truth/

## The Cat’s Whiskers · Foundation 04 of 7

A current understanding of who is being served.

## Has anyone walked the journey the customer actually takes?

Customer Truth is the fourth foundation. It asks whether the business holds a current understanding of who it serves, or an assumed one. Customers will not change how they buy to suit how a business sells; this foundation checks whether the business has noticed. The failure cluster is Customer Blindness.

## The five checks
- **Does the business act as its own customer?**
- **Does it avoid assuming customers know what they want?**
- **Does it avoid assuming customers know how to find it?**
- **Does it serve all four journey types, not just the browser?**
- **Does it recognise that the homepage is no longer the front door?**

## The three readiness ratings

### Foundation Ready

Strong foundations. External investment in platforms, acquisition and channel expansion is likely to generate returns, and the focus shifts to optimisation and scale.

### At Risk

Meaningful gaps in one or more foundations. Continued investment generates diminishing returns until they are addressed, so a prioritised fix programme comes before scaling.

### Foundations First

Critical gaps across multiple foundations, with external spend destroying value. Stop, rebuild the base, then grow.

## Terms of Trade reads through this foundation
- [LTV](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/ltv/)
- [Personalisation](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/personalisation/)
- [Conversion rate](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/conversion-rate/)
- [Marketplace](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/marketplace/)
- [CDP](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/cdp/)
- [Single customer view](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/single-customer-view/)
- [Site search](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/site-search/)
- [Chatbot](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/chatbot/)

## Check it yourself, or have it checked

[The self-assessment](https://barkingcat.ai/the-cats-whiskers/assessment/) runs all thirty-six checks in thirty minutes and nothing you enter leaves your browser. [The Barking Cat Review](https://barkingcat.ai/review/) applies them to your business by walking it as a customer does, measuring what it finds against your numbers, and naming the constraint that is actually binding.

[RUN THE SELF-ASSESSMENT](https://barkingcat.ai/the-cats-whiskers/assessment/)

## Contact

steve@barkingcat.ai

Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003.