By: Christine DeFelice
Customer journey mapping is a valuable tool for businesses to improve their customer interactions. Understanding and elevating the customer journey has become a game-changer in today’s competitive market. It extends beyond transactions and focuses in on touchpoints and experiences that shape meaningful relationships. This holistic approach empowers businesses to maximize satisfaction, loyalty and their bottom line
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map is a visual storyline of the experience from the first awareness to the purchase and post-purchase phase that a customer has with your brand, product or service.
Why map the customer’s journey?
Journey maps serve as a guide for businesses aiming to become more customer-centric. They reveal what customers think, feel and do while also capturing both issues and opportunities. These visual guides showcase the end-to-end customer experience and are an important resource to secure executive commitment for business transformation. Employees can actively contribute to elevating the overall experience when they understand their role in the customer journey.
How to get started:
The first step is to define the scope of your customer journey map. The two types of customer journey maps are a high-level journey map that takes a broad view of the beginning to end of the experience and there are also detailed journey maps that allows you to focus on one step of the higher-level journey. When picking a journey to capture keep this in mind:
- What are the customers pain points?
- What are the businesses pain points? (losing customers, abandoned carts, etc.)
- Identify where the brand falls short in the customer journey.
The next step is to identify a customer persona. This is a fictional profile that represents a group of your customers. This information can be collected through insights from real customers, observations and interviews.
The customer persona profile will describe their wants and needs. The customer persona generally has a persona photo, first and last name, education and job position. It can also include their background story, personality and interests. The main purpose is to help your business better understand and empathize with your target audience.
Sample Customer Persona
Angela is single, 35-year-old Marketing Specialist with a teenage daughter. She’s educated and uses online resources in most parts of her life. Angela is looking for a budget – friendly Individual Health plan for her and her teenage daughter. There are quite a few providers to choose from and there are so many plans. It can be overwhelming.
Let’s kickstart charting the customer journey by gathering valuable customer insights. Customer feedback, surveys, analytics, and market research will assist us in uncovering behaviors, pain points and customer motivations. Diving into this research will paint a realistic picture of who our customers truly are.
| Status | Key Desires / Motivations |
|---|---|
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| Key Pain Points | Influencers / Sources of Information |
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Create the Customer Journey Map
For a fitting touch, invite six customers that embody your customer persona and involve key stakeholders who will add depth to your customer journey map. Recruit a note-taker to record valuable comments, questions, and conversations. This is key to easy recall and seamless knowledge sharing with the group.
Craft your customer journey map with pen, paper and post-it notes for lively in-person workshops. When in-person workshops aren’t possible, opt for the convenience of online platforms like Mirro, Smaply, Mural, etc. Tap into creativity with flexibility.
Clarity is key in formatting your customer journey map. Assign each step its own column and rows for optimal elements that enrich the journey. (This could include research, wait-time, and travel time to the store.) Increase your clarity by staging your timeline into phases: pre-service, service and post-service for an in-depth perspective.
Text and Descriptions
Add your customer’s struggles and sentiments into the text rows. Highlight their pain points, share direct quotes from their experiences, and ideas for improvements.
Channels of Communication
Notice your customers communication preferences – online, offline, different devices, and media. Plan for a communication channels row to visualize how they engage with your brand. Compare these experiences for ideal outcomes.
Emotional Journey
Pinpoint satisfaction moments and gaps on the map using color-coding, a zero-to-five-point scale or emoticons. It’s a visual guide to your customers delight and areas that needs more attention.
Sample Condensed Customer Journey Map
| Journey Steps | Pre-Purchase Phase | Purchase Phase | Post Purchase Phase |
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| Actions: What does the customer do? |
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Needs and Pains What does the customer want to achieve or avoid? |
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Touchpoint What part of the service do they interact with? |
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| Customer Feeling |  |  |  |
In Summary
Crafting a thorough customer journey map removes the guesswork about customer wants and behaviors. According to Forrester, “77% of marketers agree that buyers expect experiences personalized to their needs and preferences.” By pinpointing areas for improvement and taking prompt action, your brand shows understanding, creating a personalized connection and trust with customers.