Many companies believe they understand their customers, but in reality, very few do. Customer journey mapping is the framework for truly becoming smart in terms of customer experience (CX).
Customer journey mapping is the visualisation of every moment across a customer experience. It provides you with a story of your interactions and relationships with customers, from their initial contact with you onwards. But why is this important?
Understand your customers
By researching and mapping individual customers’ journeys, from start to finish, or initial contact to long-term relationship, you become acutely aware of their needs, emotions and motivations. Back your findings up with analytical data from sources such as web, email and social, and you will gain a reliable understanding of your wider customer base.-
Better understanding your customers will help all areas of your organisation create better solutions to your customers’ problems, at each stage of their journey.
Become a better listener
A customer-driven approach is impossible if you don’t know how your customers’ respond to what you’re doing. Customer journey mapping will pinpoint where you’re not listening. If your findings come as a shock, you should review how you collect customer data; information gaps can be a sign of a poor IT infrastructure.
Improve CX
Maps of your customers’ experiences highlight where your CX shortfalls lie. ‘Pain-points’ are moments in the customer journey where leads go quiet, customers have doubts and ultimately where you lose revenue. They could originate from disjointed transitions from one department to another, one channel to another, or simply an ineffective communication at an ineffective time.
Identify these pain-points and you can address them with a solution that best serves the customer. This could be anything from a change in social media strategy, to better integration of your different software systems. By smoothing out the bumps in the road, you will increase your conversion and retention rates.
Prioritise your projects
Feature requests, product ideas, redesigns… how big is your company’s to do list? And how do you prioritise goals and projects? This can often be a point of contention between departments and managers. Customer journey mapping provides evidence based on actual customer information of what should be top of the list. By understanding your customers’ journeys through their eyes, the actions required to improve the CX will become clear.
In short, a good, data-supported map is a powerful tool for placing the customer at the centre of everything you do. It provides the blueprint for delivering superior CX, prioritising goals, and increasing revenue.
The key to customer journey mapping success is communication. Talk to your customers to understand, and talk to your people to implement. Should you need any advice about the mapping process, talk to a CX expert.
