Steve Jobs once said: you have to start with the customer experience, and then look for technology to do development, absolutely can not be reversed, which is very different from our understanding of the funnel-type concept, and the customer journey map thinking non-linear concept, more reflect the user’s real behavior.
what is a customer journey map
the customer journey map is a visualization of the customer experience process, depicting the stages that customers experience when interacting with the company, from online shopping to the service of a wire call to expressing dissatisfaction on social media.
visually representing different stages of the customer experience, including customer emotions, goals, and touchpoints, through a variety of metrics, can also help us understand common customer pain points and better optimize the customer experience.
what are the advantages of a customer journey map?
customer journey maps can provide useful information for groups in each department, including understanding the path and channels through which customers get products, as well as predicting the path of future customers and identifying the best ways to interact with leads.
understanding the customer experience is especially important for marketing because it is a strategic way to better understand customer expectations. customer journey maps are as important to small and medium-sized businesses as to large companies, and customer expectations are changing regardless of size.
one of the most important aspects of the customer experience is personalization, and according to salesforce research, 84% of consumers want to be treated as human beings, not just digital reporting, which is critical to business success. mapping a customer’s journey has many benefits, such as:
- Optimize your customers’ Onboarding Process
- compare customer expectations with real-world experiences
- create a logical buyer journey
the biggest benefit, however, is that you can get to know your customers well. the more we understand our customers’ expectations, the more we can tailor the experience to their needs.
how to map a customer’s journey
here are no guidelines for mapping customer journeys, just as making decisions requires positioning goals and roles and thinking about which journeys and stages are most meaningful to our business, and here are six recommended steps to help us map our journeys.
1.where is the destination of the journey map?
it is important to set goals before you start. for example, how customers use our products to achieve what goals. we can create multiple customer journey maps, each of which is specific to the specific interactions that customers have with us, and focus on a single aspect of the customer’s journey to avoid confusion.
2.who is the target role?
this step helps us better understand potential customers, their sources, their needs and values, and how they see themselves. when we have the data, we can find the contradictions more clearly. for example, when we assume that the role is a busy manager conducting market research, and when we know this information and then look at the journey map, we need to make sure that the current process is simplified and does not take too much time.
3.what contact points?
investigate all channels that potential customers may take action on, including online advertising, social media posts, natural searches, or emails, and add emotional factors that induce customers to take action and, more importantly, remove any barriers to further action. for example, asking a customer to fill out a lengthy form can discourage potential customers.
4.what do you want the map to show?
this step is based entirely on the needs of the goal, and there are many open templates available for us to match, such as a journey map showing the current state, detailing how customers interact with our business, and a journey map for future blueprints that shows current or future status but adds roles, responsibilities, and possible timelines.
v. experience the customer journey for yourself.
if we want to confirm that a potential customer will get lost during the journey? what could happen to the process? go through it and document every step of the journey in your test, including our insights, the pain points we find, and any unnecessary steps in the process, such as what steps an ebook must go through to download a free trial.
sixth, adjust the content in due course.
once we’ve mapped our customers’ journeys and experienced them for themselves, we need to optimize the maps to translate these changes into action across the company.
depart to complete the journey with the customer
it’s recommended to dataize the map for easy updates and sharing, and perhaps using proprietary software or sophisticated templates can be tempting to add the map to your team’s existing workflow to prevent our initial enthusiasm from waning.
now that we’ve completed the entire customer journey map, remember to avoid in vain, instead of hanging the map on a wall or folding it up in a drawer and forgetting it, the most important step is to practice and improve the process and communicate the results to the team in need.