With the spurt in the options available in the market, why should a customer choose your brand? As we know, there is no business without customers. They are the backbone of the profit any brand incurs. Customer journey mapping (CJM) is an exercise that results in gaining in-depth knowledge about their experience to answer the above question.
A customer weighs out many factors between selecting a product and purchasing it. Their expectations are tremendously changing with the expansion of the market. Hence, treating a customer with a pleasant experience is as necessary as rendering a quality product.
Customer journey mapping is a strategic process for visually laying out the entire experience of a customer with all the touchpoints in the form of a story. While the raw data can give a constructive measure for analysing trends, it doesn’t narrate the needs, hesitations and concerns of a customer.
A survey suggests that 69% of the customers prefer a real-time experience instead of being just another sales lead. Customer journey mapping can enhance a brand to provide that real-time experience to its customers.
The primary reason for customer journey mapping is to improve the quality of the products based on their experience. It is highly beneficial because of the reasons stated below.
- Increased conversion rates because of low negative customer experiences.
- Builds a better relationship with clients
- Cohesive functioning of various departments on a particular consumer journey can result in a lucrative work environment.
- Recognising pain points of a particular service or product.
- Bridge the gaps between different departments.
- Crystal clear perspective on the overall consumer journey
An ultimate guide of customer journey mapping
The main objective of making a customer journey map is to provide a better experience to your customers. While there are many methods of doing it, the following are the major steps that curate an effective customer journey map.
1) Create your Customer Persona
The first step of building a customer relationship is to have a deep understanding of who they are and what they want. A persona is a set of information pertinent to all the important details of your users. Make sure intricacies like their goals, motivation, pain points, and end goal from the product are clearly mentioned.
Every customer has a distinct expectation and experience from a brand. Having multiple personas can help you make changes in your functioning and delivery based on the objective of your customer journey map.
2) Record the Customer Phase
No customer walks into a brand new store and becomes a regular shopper. Each customer is on a different stage. A customer life cycle has seven phases – starting from the discovery of a product and ending to referring it to others.
The inclusion of each user’s phase in your customer journey map can help you fragment your target. It is advisable to mention the goal-oriented journey of your customer than your internal functioning.
3) Touchpoints of your business
Any form of interaction between your consumer and your product becomes a touchpoint. It is a crucial part of the customer mapping journey, and optimising it can help a brand gather extensive reach.
Visibility of your brand to a customer through an ad, website, referral, retail stores are all examples of customer touchpoints. Mapping this can give insights into where the customers spend most of their time. You can then optimise those arenas and find the opportune methods of retrieving maximised consumer satisfaction.
4) Understanding friction points
After curating an insightful persona and determining the touchpoints, the next step of customer journey mapping is to identify the friction points. The questions you should ask to identify them are –
- In totality, what are the primary inconveniences the customers are facing?
- What is the reason the customer has a roadblock at this particular touchpoint?
- Is there any method of improving the customer experience at this particular touchpoint?
- What is the reason the potential customers are not converting into clients?
Answering these creates a path for rendering better services from your end.
5) Resolve
The main objective of customer journey mapping is to use it for practical application. Upon learning the pain points of the users, the step that exhibits usage out of mapping their entire journey is resolving it. Planning the breakthrough measures of the friction points leads to broader customer experiences. This results in improved ROI and the reputation of the brand.
Conclusion
Customer journey mapping is a systematic approach that has one end goal; a better customer experience. At the end of the journey, the answers to the following questions should be affirmative.
- Are my customers engaging with the products?
- Is my brand providing a smooth user experience?
- Are the customer issues being timely resolved?
- Are the brand touchpoints convenient and optimal?
Customer journey mapping is not complex after understanding the fundamentals. Numerous customer mapping tools and software can help you illustrate an advantageous CJM. Don’t miss out on the opportunity of visualising an interactive customer mapping journey that makes your brand stand out.
