Customer journey mapping explains the act of graphically tracking all major and minor details of your customer’s experience with your business; it’s more of a holistic approach to understanding the experience your company provides customers. Customer journey mapping also uses images to represent the processes that can’t accurately be depicted with words.
While this might initially seem relatively straightforward, if you’re at all familiar with customer journey mapping, you already know that this process can get pretty complex. Even so, journey mapping is beneficial for any business.
So, if you’re new to journey mapping and want to get started on the right note, we’ve rounded up some useful and valuable tips to help you out.
Identify Touch Points
The first and most fundamental step of mapping the journey of a customer is identifying each touch point. A touch point is where customers interact with your business. It’s crucial to identify both major and minor touch points.
For example, suppose your company is an auto dealer. In that case, the major touch points are likely taking a test drive, sitting at the salesperson’s desk, negotiating with the salesperson, and closing the deal. At the same time, the minor touch points will be when a customer walks into the dealership and starts browsing vehicles. Moreover, another minor touch point is when the salesperson starts talking to the customer and when the car is delivered after the sale is complete.
Your journey map must cover each and every touch point from start to end.
Map Numerous Paths For A Single Point
Often, a single touch point will have multiple entry paths. For example, a customer could start the purchase process through your website, your customer care number, or your physical retail space.
These multiple paths of entry complicate the journey mapping process quite a bit because each customer might journey down a completely different path. Nevertheless, you must identify each path for every single point of entry.
Differentiate Between Onstage And Offstage
Onstage refers to the perspective received by the customer, while offstage refers to the perspective your business obtains.
With this, it’s crucial to identify both the onstage perspective of the customer and the offstage perspective your business has that showcases what goes on behind the scenes at each touch point.
Determine Touch Point Intensity
Even though every touch point is of vital importance, some are slightly more significant than others. The more critical touch points will have more of a substantial impact on the customer experience.
Request Feedback From All Levels Of The Business
Obtaining feedback from all levels of your business where touch points are relevant is a crucial step as well. Feedback will help you drive methods of improvement to enhance the customer experience and, ultimately, your organization’s bottom line.
With feedback, you can establish areas of error and work towards fostering improvement. Whether it’s a salesperson that’s a bit too pushy or the entire process seems to be taking too long.
There are several effective ways to grow a business. But before you can start looking at ways to achieve sustainable expansion, it’s crucial to prioritize the customer experience your business offers.
