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Customer journeys from the outside probably seem simple, right? A business has a product, and the customer buys it - but nothing is ever that easy.
That’s why we’re here to explain what a customer journey map is, the importance of customer journey mapping and how you can use its invaluable data to boost customer experience, brand awareness and success.
Also referred to as the buyer/user journey, a customer journey map refers to a visual depiction of the journey customers take when interacting with your brand.
The point of the customer journey mapping process is to see your brand from the customers’ point of view. This process should bring to light any pain points they’re experiencing when dealing with your brand. By understanding these issues, you can start to resolve and improve on them, ensuring customers receive the same high-level experience, no matter which communication stream they choose to use.
When creating your customer journey map, it’s important to start by examining all customer touchpoints, including:
Website on laptop
A customer journey map needs to be created for each touchpoint, so you can see the flow of every communication stream. You’ll also want to count the number of actions customers need to take before getting to speak to someone or making a purchase. Once you have a number for each stream, have a look to see if there’s a way to reduce this number and make it quicker and easier for the customer to speak to someone/make a purchase.
Let’s pretend you’ve mapped out all communication streams and have highlighted that the mobile version of your website, email and social are channels that aren’t performing as well as the others. Let’s take a look at why in the examples below.
Example one: a customer saw your products on a social platform via their mobile phone, they then clicked through to your mobile website, had some problems creating an account, so they abandoned their basket and purchased via desktop instead.
Analysing example one, we can see that there’s opportunity for abandoned baskets on the mobile website and that the customer journey is then extended if they wish to carry on with their purchase. For mobile customer personas, this creates a longer journey for them - so it’s important to make sure your website is responsive, secure, loads quickly and free of things like 404 errors.
Example two: a customer emailed your brand asking if something is coming back into stock. Your customer service team responded early morning the next day with something along the lines of, “yes, it will be coming back soon.”
Analysing example two, it’s not only apparent that the response time isn’t quick enough, but information is lacking too. Either customer service needs to communicate exactly when something is coming back into stock or, even better, a feature should be added to the website so that the customer can be automatically notified when it is back in stock, making their purchases effortless.
Example three: looking at the business’ messaging feed on social platforms shows that there are questions in the comments that haven’t been responded to or there are messages left on read – this is a customer pain point.
Analysing example three, if a customer is trying to find out more about your brand but has been ignored, it’s likely they’ll go elsewhere as your brand isn’t making the customer feel valued. To combat this, you’ll want to put a strategy in place to make sure that these valuable customers are being responded to. This might come in the form of setting up a simple chat bot to deal with FAQs or more social managers who can respond quickly and provide a personalised service.
By checking all available avenues your customers use to interact with your business, you can pin-point problem areas and work towards improving them.
Understanding the expectations of a customer is the first step towards meeting and exceeding them and optimising customer experience. That’s why creating customer journey maps are important because they allow you to:
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If you’d like to discuss your customer journey map, contact our experts – we’d be more than happy to help.
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