Customer journey map
What is a customer journey map?
Customer journey map or customer experience map is a design thinking tool that visually allows you to analyze each of the phases or stages that a customer goes through to achieve the desired objective of the company (generally the purchase of goods or services).
In other words, it is a tool to keep track of each of the stages, actions, channels and elements that a customer goes through until they have purchased a product or signed up for a service. It follows the process from the first to the last point of contact with the customer, to check whether we are meeting their objectives and, if not, how we can meet them.
1. Design a customer journey map
The design of a customer journey map will vary depending on each project, and there is no master formula for it, but there is a series of essential basic steps to design one:
– Map objectives. You need to define the purpose of creating the experience map. The motivation can vary widely, from identifying possible purchase barriers to finding out whether an email marketing campaign will be effective or the best way to launch a new product.
– Identify our buyer persona. It is essential to know what our target audience is really like, so that the customer journey map will provide us with valid data.
– Know the touchpoints. Determine the moments when the customer interacts with our brand. Before they know us (finding out how they discovered us), the contact while they stay with us (finding out what attracts them to our business) and the contact after the purchase (finding out what their shopping experience was like).
– Creating the map. Based on the specifics of the business, the focus is placed on the aspects that have been identified as needing correction, making the customer journey as satisfying as possible.
– Analyze and test. The best way to analyze the customer journey map is to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and start testing whether everything is going according to plan and thus have a “real picture” of the different processes involved.
– Make changes and start again. Once the critical points have been isolated, you need to make the changes that resolve them and review the customer journey map periodically, since new problems may arise.
2. Benefits of the customer journey map
Since it is a valuable tool for working on our customers’ experience and the foundation on which to build their loyalty, it is very useful to know what creating customer experience maps can help us with:
- It increases the brand experience we offer to customers.
- It detects and identifies the stages of the purchase process and allows us to improve them.
- It allows us to understand our customers’ needs and emotions.
- It helps carry out effective cross selling and up selling actions.
- It improves customer retention and loyalty.
- It identifies interaction points and allows us to enhance them independently.