The customer journey is a critical component of any company. It is the ultimate verdict on how well the company has been performing over the years among its customers. Customer journey could be defined as the lifetime of the customer with the brand. Associated with the continuous engagement a customer has with a brand over a period, customer journey is an integral part of the company’s performance evaluation as this helps understand brand loyalty, attrition rate, competition, etc.
To thoroughly understand customer journey, a company often use what is called a customer journey map. This map is a visualization tool that shows the end-to-end customer experience with the company. This vision empowers businesses to understand the customer experience model and make value-driven performance-based decisions.
Owing to the complex nature of the map, several parameters need to be in the checklist. Some of the points that should be discussed before venturing into creating a customer journey map includes
- Will the map cover cyclical or linear customer experience?
- Is it applicable to all customers or specific customer personas?
- Will it be a simple spreadsheet or a diagram with visual flow of the journey?
The reason why many of these questions are asked is to ensure that the stakeholders of the company have an in-depth understanding of the customers. This map should be a gateway to understanding customer behavior, thoughts, and actions. With the increasing competition, customer journey map has proven to be of critical importance. Brands lose their customers to their competitors for various reasons including product quality, pricing, innovation. For companies to revamp their position in the market and grow, customer journey map lies at the heart of the market study.
Before a marketer prepares the customer journey map, research is critical. There are two types of research that can be conducted for customer journey map - analytical and anecdotal.
1. Analytical research
Using website analytics is one of the new-age methods of acquiring customer information. The data shows different aspects of the customer including demographics, geography, and website navigation. These points can help understand the usability of the site and the customer interest. Another critical area that can provide useful data is social media. Several social listening tools help track brand mentions. These data can ascertain brand recall and outreach.
2. Anecdotal research
User experience gives in-depth insight into customers’ mind. Acquiring user experience through interviews or leveraging social media to gather experience stories can help with anecdotal research. Although constrained by time and budget, this type of research is for companies with limited user groups. Another important method of acquiring anecdotal data is through interaction with front-line staff. Their insight into consumer behavior and buying pattern can help ascertain all the information necessary for creating customer journey map.
To create an effective customer journey map, it is essential for marketers to follow these parameters.
1. Create a map based on customers’ point of view, instead of internal business point of view
Using customer point of view will utilize customers’ experience as the foundation for the journey map. This method uses what the customer does with real-time data. This helps create a flow of journey with multiple touchpoints in the customer relationship with the company.
2. Understand customers’ perceptions related to their goals, needs, and expectations
Capturing customer emotions both positive and negative helps create an actionable journey map. This helps in creating a context for customer behaviors, goals, and expectations. Businesses can use this data to identify new business opportunity areas and assess the investment impact. To understand perception, analysts can use qualitative research data. Qualitative research includes ethnographic research and context inquiry that helps under customer emotions.
3. Use multiple touchpoints to illustrate customer journey
Each silo within the organization focus on a specific channel or touchpoint that is independent of other. However, it must be noted that customers consider all interactions with the company as one and connected. Hence, it is advanced to use multiple touchpoints to create single user journey for a holistic view. With an effective map, businesses can benefit in different ways including
- Explore potential gaps in customer expectations
- Analyse the impact of the gaps
- Create a strategy that helps optimise the business value
4. Incorporate performance indicators
Performance indicators are evaluation framework that helps these journey maps turn into actionable inputs. Visual indicators show the emotions of customers that can help ascertain opportunity areas. Some of the useful metrics to help map customer journey include
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer satisfaction measures
- Measures of effort
- Measures of company-specific touchpoint
- Measure of emotions
5. Illustrate a customer journey to optimize stakeholders’ understanding, engagement, and decision-making based on the journey map story
Different stakeholders have different needs within the organization. To best utilize their time and make it easy for them to understand the customer, it is advisable to create multiple versions of the customer journey map that suits their needs and expectations. This approach help covers different domains of a single user journey which covering various touchpoints at the same time.
While customer journey map seems reasonably linear, the complexities of the map lie in creating a map that gives a 360-degree view of the customer experience. The beauty of customer journey map lies in its versatility. A journey map can be created for a user experience designer and also the production head of the company to understand the sales funnel. The secret lies in using different parameters and tools of measurement to create a map that suits their needs. With the ability to adapt itself to meet the needs of different people within the same organization, customer journey map is both science and art in its own form.
