Services

Creating an effective framework from a broader perspective

An effective customer journey framework is designed by not just one perspective with a limited view of the entire customer journey but a broader approach involving inputs from multiple stakeholders. This includes, but is not limited to marketing heads, product heads, customer service heads, c-suite leadership and customers.

Getting Started with a Customer Journey Map

Step 1: Define your persona and goals

Before you can dive into creating your map, you need to define your goals and target persona. Persona is a fictitious customer with all their demographics, goals, and motivations of an average customer. The persona should be defined in real-time collaboration with your teammates and should include all customer data such as demographics, skills, touchpoints, goals, motivations, and pain points.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Step 2: Define stages in the journey map

Based on the persona, define how, when, and where customers discover your company, research your products or services, choose you over competitors, purchase from you, and maintain a relationship with you. Stages are the backbone of the customer journey. You can define steps by understanding customer goals.

Let's take a customer journey in a retail store. Put yourself in the customer's shoes and think of all the possible touchpoints and channels that are likely to go through in the store. Having a list of touchpoints and channels, you can quickly come up with the names for the customer journey stages.

Touchpoints and channels are essential elements when it comes to mapping the journey. A touchpoint is a moment in time when an interaction happens between a customer and your business such as product demonstrations, signing up for a newsletter, booking a flight, etc. while channels are the medium of communication between the company and the customers such as phone calls, social networks, website, live chat, etc.

Step 3: Conduct market research and stakeholder interviews

Data can be collected via interviews with users and customers, online surveys, team discussions, and observations. Typically, a customer journey map is created using data from primary research, such as personal interviews, focus group sessions, brainstorming and shadowing, and secondary research such as gathering and collaborating over information from databases within the organization, websites, social media, and so on. Techniques used are brainstorming, usability testing, business model canvas, experience mapping, mind mapping. The important thing here to consider is to reach out to the actual customer with the right questions to ask. Some of the questions can be:

• How did you hear about our company?
• On a scale of 1-10, how easy is it to navigate around the store?
• Did you ever require customer support? If so, how was your experience?
• How long do you typically spend in our store?
• Have you ever interacted with our website? If so. Did you purchase it on a website?

Step 4: Look for Moments of truth

Moment of truth (MoTs) is an essential element of the customer journey map. MoTs represent points in a customer journey when an event occurs, and that shapes the opinion about your company. These can be touchpoints where your customer either forms a positive or negative perspective about the company. These moments define whether the customer will retain or not.

Step 5: Visualize and draft the journey

Once you have all the information required, visualize, and add the information on the map. You now have an inventory of resources and highlight the points you'll need to add in the customer journey. Combining all the data into the map, you will have your first draft of the customer journey. Your map should be constant work in progress. Review it on and make necessary changes. This will help you identify the gaps and opportunities for improvement. Using a customer journey map can allow you to predict how these touchpoints impact your business and derive value.

How We See Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey might appear to be a combination of the journey mapping process and experience design, which isn’t entirely wrong, but definitely limited. When approaching the customer journey, we look at technical, human, and business processes to craft a robust and exciting experience

Best Practices

There is a lot to consider when you are creating a customer journey map, but the best way to map the customer journey is to take a walk in their shoes. Some of the tips to consider while mapping is:

• Customer journey mapping works best when done as a group workshop.
• Build a map on a wall or whiteboard that is easily visible to all the stakeholders during the interview.
• Be aware of your bias that could influence your customer's feedback.
• While brainstorming goals in customer persona, ask why the persona needs it; this will assist you to go deeper and find real high-level goals.
• Motivations in persona generation should not include product features, but what drives your persona to start or explore your product or service.
• Validate your journey map with customers, if possible.
• After identifying the gap areas, communicate it with your teams, and drive the strategy to provide a delightful experience. Make more than one customer journey map.

How [x]cube LABS delivers top-notch customer experience

As strategy consulting and execution experts combined, we understand end-to-end needs, challenges, and solutions of our clients and their customers. To that end, we provide a 3-steps approach that covers miniscule details comprehensively.