Background
This post discusses journey mapping, a visual representation of the customer journey experience, including all their interactions and touchpoints with a product or service.
Journey Mapping
According to a 2022 study conducted by Hanover Research, around 94% of companies have found customer journey maps to be crucial in developing new products and services. Furthermore, these maps have increased sales in 91% of these companies.
About one-third of companies have relied on customer journey maps during the pandemic to navigate the ever-changing business landscape.
When done correctly, customer journey mapping can have several benefits, such as increasing engagement, dropping ineffective touchpoints, and breaking down silos between departments.
Additionally, it can help assign ownership of various customer touchpoints, increasing employee accountability.
How do we start?
The first step to create a journey map is gathering a list of user actions and arranging them chronologically.
Afterward, we expand this timeline by considering the user's thoughts and emotions, which helps us craft a more engaging and compelling story.
This story is further refined and condensed, creating a detailed journey map.
How to create a customer Journey Map
It's best to focus on one persona and customer scenario to avoid complications. To do this, follow these steps:
Set clear goals.
Conduct thorough persona research.
Define the touchpoints between your business and the customer.
Map out the current state of the customer experience.
Map out the future state of the customer experience.
Following these steps, you can create a clear and effective plan for improving the customer experience.
Setting Goals
Deciding if your map will have an impact without a clear goal is difficult. Cross-functional teamwork is critical, so gather stakeholders. Creating buyer personas can help focus your map.
Conduct Persona Research
To create a persona, gathering as much information as possible about your customers is essential. You can do this by conducting interviews, talking to employees who interact with customers regularly, surveying existing users, analyzing customer support and complaint logs, including recorded call center conversations, monitoring social media discussions about your company, leveraging web/app analytics, and gathering Net Promoter Score (NPS) data.
When gathering information, look for details such as how customers initially found your product or service, when they bought or canceled it, how user-friendly your website/app is, and what problems your product or service did or didn't solve.
This will help you create a comprehensive persona map that accurately represents your customers' needs, behaviors, and preferences.
Define Customer Touchpoints
Touchpoints refer to the various points in the customer journey where they interact with your product or service. These interactions can be physical, digital, or emotional. Considering all aspects of action, emotion, and potential challenges a customer might face during the interaction is essential.
The number and nature of touchpoints will vary depending on the type of business. Once you have defined the touchpoints, you can arrange them on your map to better understand the customer journey.
Here are some examples of touchpoints: social media posts, product demos, live chats, brick-and-mortar visits, website visits, online reviews, and online ads.
Map the Current State
Create a map of your customer journey as it currently exists, including all touchpoints, actions, channels, and owners (sales, customer service, marketing, etc.).
You can invite others to collaborate with you in building this map.
Remember to prioritize content over aesthetics and that mapping the current state can help you identify gaps or red flags.
Map the Future State
Once you have analyzed your current customer experience, you may see some areas where enhancements could or must be made.
These may include redundant information, insufficient transitions between stages, and customer problems or pain points.
Refusing dark patterns or unethical design techniques is vital, as they will upset and frustrate customers.
Buyer Journey Stages
Awareness: Buyers may not know they require your products or services.
Information: The buyer has recognized a need or desire and is actively seeking a solution.
Evaluation: The buyer compares various options and narrows down their choices.
Decision: The buyer makes a final decision and takes action.
Advocacy: They share their positive experience with others.
Conclusion
Creating journey maps is essential for improving the overall customer experience. However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Here are the necessary steps to create a Journey Map:
Clearly define the objectives of the map.
Define the personas along with their goals.
Identify all the touchpoints.
Decide on the elements that will be included in your map.
Determine the available and lacking resources.
Take the journey yourself to understand the experience better.
Iterate and refine the map until it accurately reflects the journey.
Make the necessary changes to improve the customer experience.