Customer journey mapping can give powerful insights and make a measurable difference to your customer experience, and you don’t need expensive tools to get there.
If you're convinced by the benefits of customer journey mapping, and our blog post on our 6 favourite customer journey mapping resources gave you some inspiration and helped you understand how CJM works, you might now be ready to start the process for yourself. So we’d like to suggest some great tools to help you through the journey mapping process itself.
The Apps
A Free Collaborative project tool
A Free Collaborative project toolFree online tools such as Trello, Asana, Wrike, and Symphonical can be a great help in keeping your journey mapping team organised, sharing ideas, and keeping up with deadlines.
These apps allow you to create boards for your projects and organise them with lists, cards, or notes then add comments, tag coworkers, set responsibilities and deadlines. They can usually be integrated with email and other tools if anyone needs reminding to check in.
Since customer journey mapping is an ongoing process, you may also find that this is a useful way for key colleagues to continue to add further thoughts, ideas and input once you have “finished” your initial map.
Mind-mapping software
Mind-mapping softwareSoftware such as Lucidchart can make the process of creating mind maps and flowcharts incredibly quick and simple, leaving you free to concentrate on the content. It’s very user friendly, with clear tutorials and plenty of templates.
Lucidchart offers a free version, which may well be all that you need for your customer journey mapping process. The full version begins at $4.95 a month.
Such tools may also be useful in helping you to ensure you have a concise and user-friendly end product and that it is presented in a tidy and visually pleasing way. Such an approach will be particularly appropriate if you do not have ready access to the skills of a graphic designer.
Similar tools can be found from Creately, xmind (particularly suited to mind mapping), and yEd.
The Old School Tools
Sticky Notes
Sticky NotesSticky notes are a minimal outlay tool, especially if you avoid the big brand version, and can make the journey mapping process much easier. They can play a key part in the workshop phase, as it’s easy to jot down ideas on them, stick them on the whiteboard or wall and then move them around as needed.
Voice Recorders
Voice RecordersYou will find the research phase much easier and more enjoyable if you are able to concentrate on the conversation when conducting customer interviews, rather than hastily scribbling down notes. You may well already have voice recorders in your office, otherwise you will only need a very basic model, which can be picked up very cheaply.
If you are conducting research and interviews over the phone, you may benefit from a service like Record Your Call – just make sure you have permission from the people you are talking to. There are free apps available for both Android and iOS, whereas Record Your Call does charge, but we have found it to be reliable, easy to use and with good support should you run into any difficulty.
Whiteboards/Big paper
Whiteboards/Big paperCustomer journey mapping is a visual process and you’ll want as big a space as possible to sketch out your initial ideas and drafts. These simple office staples often prove invaluable when discussing your customer journey map, and you may well already have them available.
You will probably find that the bigger whiteboard you can get, the better. Alternatively if you have a large wall going spare, you can cover it with sticky notes, or pin up paper to write on.
Making your customer journey map doesn’t need to be an expensive endeavour – the most important things are buy-in, space and time. And there’s really no set way to develop and present your map – it’s a case of seeing what works for your organisation and your customers. However, these multi-use tools should help make the process much simpler and for very little expense.
Our step by step guide to customer journey mapping will take you through the process, and we would also recommend referring to the Periodic Table of Customer Experience to keep you on track along the way.
