Gaining a clear understanding of the customer's mind can be an overwhelming process. You think you have everything for their needs and wants, and then new preferences, technology, and buying trends emerge. This is where a customer journey map comes into the picture.
A customer journey map deeply illustrates all touchpoints that customers have with a brand as they slowly and steadily weave their way through the marketing funnel across all of the brand channels. It is important to note here that a customer journey map is to be viewed as a way to help visualise a product or service from the customer's point of view. The emphasis is here on the customers and their point of view, and not actually the product or service, to boost customer experience. It leads to improved customer retention and higher conversion rates.
The customer journey can be simply classified as a process by which customers start interacting with a brand to attain a goal. From gaining awareness of a brand through social media or promotional emails to receiving emails after successful transactions, there are countless and different steps in between. Customer journeys are highly specific to the physical experiences your customers have.
Importance Of A Customer Journey Map
In an imaginary world, companies offer products and services and the customers buy them instantly. However, the journey is much more complex than that. In fact, the majority of customers consider their experiences with a brand to be as vital as its products and services.
On this journey, customers may across some advertisements, promotional emails, speak to a customer service representative, visit the social media pages, or attempt to check out. These all are nothing but stops along the journey that have an impact on the final decision of the customer. A success-driven business can encourage a customer towards a sale by understanding the process behind the customer journey and its consequences on customer interactions.
One of the first things to remember is that the customer journey is not linear from point A to point B. Buyers usually take a back and forth, multi-channel, and cyclical journey that makes customer journey mapping difficult to accurately visualise.
Let us now proceed with how to create your customer journey map.
The Buying Process: You need to start by drafting the ideal path for a customer to take so he or she can reach a goal. All stages should be listed horizontally using the typical buying process stages.
User Actions: This element will detail what customers should do at every stage of the buying process. They may have a word with family and friends about their requirements and potential ways to fulfil their needs in the awareness stage. From that point, they may take a demo to understand your products and services and how they eliminate their pain points. Finally, they will use a specific mode of payment to make their purchase.
Emotions: Whether the goal is small or big, you should always remember that your customers are interacting with your brand to find an effective solution for their pain points. That means they may be experiencing some emotion - whether it's happiness, worry, or relief. If your process is complicated, long, or overwhelming, they may experience a different kind of emotion at every stage. By adding emotions to the journey map, you can easily mitigate negative emotions about the customer journey so they don't end up becoming negative opinions about your brand.
Solutions: As the final element in the customer journey map, solutions are where you and your teams will sit down to brainstorm the ideal and possible ways to enhance your buying process so that customers have positive moods and encounter fewer pain points.
Discover how you can fully understand your customer’s experience with your business and delight them at every stage in their buying journey. Start mapping the future of customer success in your business by giving us a call or sending us an email now.