Customer Journey Mapping is fundamentally designed to address that – to give companies the ability to get a customer’s eye view of the user experience and to heed off problems as a result. According to Forbes, there is a critical disconnect in the use of Customer Journey Map, as 63% of marketers believe them to be important, but only 55% of senior marketers do not think their company fully understands their customers’ journey. The most important part of creating a Customer Journey Map is thinking like your customers, not like someone who works in the business. See what’s different, what’s the same, what works, what’s easy to find. Be holistic When you’re creating a Customer Journey Map it can be easy to ‘segment’ the process. This Customer Journey Map shows how detailed and segmented it may be, still holistic. Remember, you are using a macro view to identify micro problems. Think like the customer. Market research is the first step in a Customer Journey Map. Find the areas you can improve.
One of the biggest problems faced by businesses and brands is that they see their product from their own perspective; they’re too obsessed with the bells-and-whistles of the backend, and neglect to consider customer experience.
Customer Journey Mapping is fundamentally designed to address that – to give companies the ability to get a customer’s eye view of the user experience and to heed off problems as a result. This has two main benefits for business:
- Tailoring your UX more for the consumer, giving them a better all-around experience.
- Losing fewer customers as they engage with your brand (and therefore increasing profit).
Building a physical Customer Journey Map is important for knowing how your business works, spotting potential weaknesses and allocating resources effectively. It will help you to constantly improve and streamline your customer service, as well as identifying (and removing) weak links.
According to Forbes, there is a critical disconnect in the use of Customer Journey Map, as 63% of marketers believe them to be important, but only 55% of senior marketers do not think their company fully understands their customers’ journey.
Things like bounce rates provide important metrics to quantify a Customer Journey Map, although a true map is broader than just that. It’s important to also consider all channels for your brand. Therefore, a journey map should take into account social media accounts, the function of your website, your app, as well as any email/phone communication you undertake with customers.
Identifying and integrating each of these will streamline your customer service (potentially saving money, but certainly improving customer experience).
Building a Customer Journey Map doesn’t need to be a complex process, involving external consultants, or multi-page documents. Instead, you need to truly engage and empathize with the customer’s experience through all five stages of engagement with your business:
- Discover
- Research
- Purchase
- Delivery
- Aftercare
In creating a Customer Journey Map for your business, there will be some variance on what specifics to include (for example, a service company will require different information than a B2B software company). However, there are five key rules to follow if you are to produce a meaningful and useful template for assessing, then improving your UX.
1. Look from the outside in
As stated above, the danger with any assessment of a business is that those who work in the business are often too close to the ‘coal face’ to see the true nature of a user’s experience. The most important part of creating a Customer Journey Map is thinking like your customers, not like someone who works in the business. This is one of the most obvious, yet the most difficult aspects.
Here is one example of goal setting from a customer’s point of view:
It’s extremely difficult to forget aspects of your business (such as that new easy order feature on your website) and to approach your brand with fresh eyes. However, this is critical if you are to anticipate a customer’s needs and potential areas of weakness. As this article states, you need to build your customer map for your ideal customer, which may not be the customer type you have at the moment (or may only be one segment of your market).
What this means in practice:
- Research websites similar to your own. See what they do. You will engage with a customer’s eye view. Then, revisit your own website. See what’s different, what’s the same, what works, what’s easy to find. Count how many clicks it takes you to find a particular piece of…
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