Painting the Path to Customer Delight With Customer Journey Map

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.”  – Steve Jobs

For any business, it is crucial to understand how your customers interact with you. This allows business owners to design a customer-centric strategy that will ultimately lead to increased sales and customer loyalty.

A clear vision and a customer interaction strategy are no longer a “nice-to-have” option — it’s essential. And to help you refine your customer experience, a customer journey map is your best tool.

After that, you may wonder, “What is a customer journey map, exactly?” 

What is the procedure? 

Which advantages are there? 

How can I make one for my company?

The information in this blog post should assist you in doing so. In the following text, I shall define the terms “customer journey map” and “customer mapping,” elaborate on their significance, and detail the steps necessary to develop one.

So let’s get started!

What Is A Customer Journey Map?

In marketing terms, a customer journey map represents a customer’s interaction with your business (also called a buyer’s or user’s journey). It’s an effective method for gaining insight into how people feel and think about a company’s brand at any given time.

It uses storytelling and visuals to illustrate a customer’s relationship with a business over time. And since the journey is told from the customer’s point of view, it provides companies with valuable insights into the customer’s mind.

A typical customer journey map includes different stages of the customer’s interaction with the brand, such as awareness, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase. Customer actions, thoughts, and emotions accompany each stage.

This can help businesses lay the groundwork for essential changes to their product or service or overall customer experience, marketing, and business strategy.

What Is Customer Journey Mapping?

Customer journey mapping, also known as user journey mapping, produces such a diagram. With the use of customer journey mapping, businesses may better understand their customers’ requirements and want and create a plan that caters to them.

Initially, all possible customer touchpoints are laid out. Customer touchpoints may or may not be under a brand’s control. For e.g., a website, social channels, and interactions with the marketing and sales teams are all possible touchpoints.

Once the touchpoints are mapped, user journeys are created across each touchpoint for multiple buyer personas. For example, a Gen Z buyer persona may typically discover your product through social channels, research it using your site’s mobile version, or buy it on a mobile phone or desktop.

Here, each touchpoint experience should be included in the customer journey map. You can also include what action the customer can take and how your brand responds to it.

Why Is Customer Journey Mapping Important?

Customer journey mapping is crucial and should not be underestimated. According to a Hanover Research report, 94% of businesses said their customer journey maps helped them develop new products and services that match their customers’ needs. Another 91% revealed that the maps drove their sales.

But a customer journey map does more than just increase your revenue. It provides insights into how your business can be consistent when providing a positive customer experience and retaining customer loyalty.

This is crucial for SMEs because they frequently face up against larger firms in the same market. And thanks to customer journey mapping, now, they can provide personalized experiences across all touchpoints for every individual across all mediums.

When done right, customer journey mapping helps businesses:

• Improve customer engagement via channel optimization
• Eliminate inefficient touchpoints
• Shift to a more customer-focused perspective
• Understand instances of irregularities in existing quantitative data
• Determine the most important parts of the user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX), and improve those areas.
• Get rid of silos between departments and interdepartmental cooperation
• Target distinct customer personas with customized marketing campaigns
• Increase employee accountability by assigning ownership of several customer touchpoints
• Assess the ROI on future UX/CX investments

Despite its immense benefits, only 47% of companies, according to Hanover Research, have a process for mapping customer journeys. Investing in mapping customers’ journeys and solidifying the processes as an integral part of your company’s DNA will make you the go-to brand that customers love and buy from.

ALSO READ: 5 Sought-After Longitudinal Study Examples To Explore  

How To Create A Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map can be made however the designer sees fit. Despite its wide range of variety, the end goal of a customer journey map is always the same: To find and resolve the pain points of your customers.

While creating a customer journey map for your business, you must focus on the following:

• Emphasize On Customer Perspective. A journey map should always focus on a customer’s experience instead of how the business perceives those experiences

• Consider Customer Segments. Consider the fact that each customer segment will perceive the products, brands, and services differently

• Research Your Maps. Use tools such as customer analytics to tailor your maps to your audience and behavior

• Ensure Your Maps Reflects All Touchpoints. Ensure your maps cover all potential communication points customers want to connect with you. This includes email, text, websites, social media platforms, and so on. Your maps should also reflect multiple sequences where the customers take different paths.

While there are no set protocols for creating a customer journey map, there are specific guidelines you should follow. The map should be visually stimulating, all-inclusive, and easy to understand. 

Typical customer journey maps contain infographics, diagrams, and timelines. Whereas certain maps contain multimedia such as videos and storyboards. In any case, your customer journey maps should be brimming with priceless statistical and anecdotal insights and should be customer-centric.

Here’s a customer journey map example you can take inspiration from.

This map consists of 3 zones. The top zone showcases the persona and scenario. The middle zone showcases the customer’s thoughts, actions, and feelings, while the bottom zone provides insights and progress barriers to businesses.

You can also use this as a customer journey map template for your future needs.

ALSO READ: Mastering the Delphi Method for Effective Decision Making 

Conclusion

Creating a customer journey map is essential in designing a customer-centric strategy that meets your customers’ needs. You may better understand your customers’ wants and requirements and create products and services that appeal to them by drawing a map of their journey.

You can improve your service to clients and smooth out any hiccups by using a customer journey map. Customer loyalty and retention can be improved with the help of a customer journey map template, which allows you to create a clear visual depiction of the customer experience.