Customer Journey Mapping: The Road to Better CX

How Much Do You Know About Your Customer Journey?

Typically, most customers won’t see a product or service advertised online and instantly decide to purchase it. There’s a path that each prospect follows, starting when they recognise the need for a solution, and ending when your customer stops investing in your product.

Customer journey mapping refers to the strategies companies use to understand the paths their customers take each day. With the right map, you can visualise what it takes to turn an interested lead into a loyal customer and even improve customer experience on a fundamental level.

For years, the customer journey remained shrouded in mystery. With minimal access to data, companies could only guess at what it might take to convert a one-time transactional customer into a loyal repeat customer.

Now, we’re living in a digitally enhanced world, where you can pinpoint every interaction with your customer and determine the impact it has on their relationship with your business.

Customer journey mapping is the key to not only improving customer experience, but determining where you need to train your employees and which metrics you need to track too.

It’s time to update your customer journey map.

What Is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is essentially just a representation of the steps your customers might take to interact with your business. For instance, if someone sees your product advertised online, they might reach out via email to arrange a call-back from one of your staff members.

That employee then connects with the customer via phone call and answers questions. Follow-up conversations might happen to help determine the needs of the customer before a purchase is arranged.

Even a customer journey that seems simple on the surface can include a variety of touchpoints. As a business, you need to be aware of every step in the customer journey, so you can effectively optimise experiences with your brand.

Crucially, customer journeys aren’t always linear. A customer might recognise an issue, arrange a call, then go back to researching solutions online.

Because of this, customer journey maps need to include tips for sales, service, and marketing teams which could reduce the friction between different points in the conversation.

Why Do We Use Customer Journey Maps?

So, why is customer journey mapping becoming such a vital part of the business process? Simply put, your customers expect more from you. Today’s customers know you have digital tools available to monitor remote workers and enhance business productivity.

They know you can update your software to connect with them on multiple channels, and they expect you to be constantly striving to update and improve the experience you offer.

With 32% of customers saying they would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience, the importance of delivering consistent excellent customer experience should not be underestimated.

Customer journey mapping essentially allows businesses to take a strategic approach to better understanding customer expectations.

Once you know what your customers want and need, you can train employees to deliver the right results, ensure you’re tracking the right metrics, and constantly optimise your CX strategy.

The Benefits of Mapping Customer Journeys

• See every touchpoint your company has with customers, and where they need to improve. For instance, if you notice that it’s taking several days to onboard each customer, you can look for ways to streamline the process with self-service tools and AI bots.
• Track the right metrics that matter most to your team. Real-time dashboards give your hybrid employees an insight into the metrics they need to be aware of, like time spent on a call or number of calls answered. A customer journey shows you which KPIs are really going to have an impact on your bottom line.
• Get deeper insights into your customer personas. A customer journey map can differ from one customer segment to another. Deeper insight into your audience will make it easier to determine how your customers differ, so you can provide more personalised experiences.
• Improve employee training. Customer journey maps show you where you’re missing out on opportunities to delight and retain customers. This information, combined with compliant call recording and in-depth metrics can show you how to enhance and empower your team with the correct training.
• Outshine the competition. When you know your customers and what they need, you can align every part of your service process to suit those customers. Now that customers are searching for personalised, relevant experiences more than ever, a customer journey map could be the key to beating the competition

Customer journey maps are the compasses that drive businesses towards the most meaningful process changes and transformations.