Before the purchase happens, there is a complex customer journey that brings them to that point. A lot of business owners and the c-suite use customer journey mapping to figure out the quality of their customer experience. According to Salesforce, 80% of consumers consider their experience with a business to be as significant as its products or service. Also, 69% of customers want to be able to interact with a company in real-time.
Customer journey maps are a great way to explain customer experience. However, you have to first identify the purpose for creating a customer journey map and know how to analyze and apply the information you learn from it.
What Is A Customer Journey Map?
At its core, a customer journey map is a reflection of the customer journey. It enables you to identify your customer’s experiences with your business through all touchpoints. It is best to use a visual illustration to map out the customer journey and ensure you cover all your bases. Visual representation also ensures that you can easily spot things that need optimization to augment the customer experience.
Customer journey mapping is a process that involves creating a visual representation of your customer’s interaction with your business. This enables the company’s c-suite to place themselves in the customer’s shoes and have the business’s perspective. Customer mapping provides unique insight, particularly around pain points within the customer experience.
It works by first mapping out all potential customer touchpoints such as social media, website visits, and dealings with marketing or sales teams. Then, customer journey pathways are created from these touchpoints for each individual customer.
For instance, an ad pops up on your browser while you surf the net. You click on the ad and go to the website and check it out because it interests you. Then you head over to social media to see what others say about the product and/or service. In this case, your touchpoints will include a visit to the website and social media. Every touchpoint should be adequately captured in the customer journey map. Here is an example of a customer journey map. Keep in mind, this map is from the customer point of view. But, you get the idea:
(Image Credit: Nielsen Norman Group)
Importance Of Customer Journey Mapping
The importance of customer journey mapping concerns the strategic approach to making sense of customer anticipation and helps optimize the customer experience. Customer journey mapping is even more crucial for a big corporation that employs an omnichannel approach to marketing, sales, and customer service.
One of the advantages of customer journey mapping is the knowledge gained from individual customer journeys, as it enables you to personalize the experience for each customer across all touchpoints. Some of the benefits of mapping a customer journey include;
- Enabling you to improve the onboarding process of customers
- Comparing and analyzing the expected customer experience by what they receive
- Identifying and understanding the variances in buyer personalities as they make purchasing decisions
- Making sense of your customer buyer journey
- Understanding your customers more
- Improving customer experience
Creating A Comprehensive Customer Map
There is no one way to create a customer map, and it will be heavily dependent on the product, service, or industry. It also means that you can get creative and have the freedom to explore as much as you want. But here are a few general things to consider.
Create A Buyer Persona
This is to know and understand who your customers are. Remember that no two customers are the same, and as such, you must create a persona for every kind of customer. You have to build the persona from the ground up, including likes, hobbies, and even occupation. These profiles will offer you some guidance and insight for journey mapping.
Understand The Objectives Of The Customer
After you have your buyer personas in place, you should understand the objectives of the customer. This will offer some insight into what the customer aims to achieve at each step of the journey. To make this easier, try to identify and follow the customer’s path when logging onto your website. Once you know the customer’s courses and track their activities, you should associate their objectives to each touchpoint.
(Image Credit: WooCommerce)
Map Out Buyer Touchpoints
Consider all potential touchpoints and identify the ones that have a more significant impact. Although identifying all touchpoints can seem challenging, you can place yourself in the customer’s shoes and follow their logical steps. It will also help to ask questions such as the following;
- What solutions does the company offer?
- What do I do now that I have a solution?
- Do I buy the product?
- Will I reencounter the business after my purchase?
Such questions should help you narrow down the touchpoints significantly.
Recognize Customer Pain Points
This is the stage where data is extremely vital. You should analyze the data gathered to understand better the things that present roadblocks to the customer journey. There are also more questions to ask at this stage to find ways to improve. It is imperative, at this point, that there is some introspection with yourself, your staff and information from customers. When you identify the roadblocks, note them on the customer journey map.
Deal With Roadblocks
Now that you have identified the roadblocks, it is time to deal with them. To do so, you have to take a step back and analyze the customer journey so far and notice areas you have to improve or optimize. Doing this will ensure that customers reach a purchasing decision much faster and easier.
Evaluate And Improve
Once your customer map is ready, you must continue analyzing, evaluating, and making improvements when necessary. This is because of market trends and customer purchasing behavior that changes quite often and can be drastic and swift in some cases. It pays to keep a close look at the customer map and continuously evolve. It is also advisable to test your customer map at least twice a year. This will give you a current representation and enable you to make the necessary changes.
Conclusion
Mapping customer journeys is a great way to improve customer experiences. They help understand the customer’s purchasing decisions, identify touchpoints, remove pain points, and create buyer personas to ensure that customer experiences offer satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment. Remember that customer journey mapping is a unique blend of information and insight.
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