In the age of customer-centric business, the key to success is understanding customer needs, expectations and behavior at every stage of brand interaction.
Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) is a powerful visualization tool that enhances the customer experience and increases the effectiveness of marketing strategies. We’ll explain in more detail what CJM is for, how to create a CJM and how to improve your business based on CJM.
What is a Customer Journey Map (CJM)?
The customer journey map is a visualization of the relationship between the company and the customer, reflecting their needs, motivation and emotional perception of the brand.
Creating a map is relevant at any stage of business development. Newcomers to the market can use it to get to know their potential audience and identify key points of interaction. For companies with a long history, this tool will enable in-depth study of their target audience and stimulate repeat sales.
Generally speaking, a customer journey map is a table or infographic showing the points of contact between a consumer, a product or a service, and their path to purchase.
Creating a customer journey map enables you to optimize business processes more precisely to meet real customer needs, resulting in improved performance.
How do you create an effective customer journey map?
Let’s move on to the appropriate compilation of CJM. For the map to be accurate and effective, you need to use different sources of information. As sources, you can use CRM systems, Google Analytics data, information from marketers and sales managers, findings from analysts and sales managers, focus group results, and so on.
The more versatile the information collected, the more accurate the customer journey map. To create a CJM, follow this algorithm of actions.
Set yourself clear objectives
Before getting into the details of customer journey mapping, start by defining specific objectives. Gather feedback directly from your customers through surveys or interviews. Discuss these results with your team and focus on both the weak points and the objectives.
Don’t overlook the information provided by your customer service team: they interact closely with your customers and can provide valuable first-hand observations.
Create a buyer persona
The second step is to create a detailed portrait of a typical representative of the target audience. The key elements of customer personas are generally as follows:
- Demographics ;
- Expectations and preferences ;
- Problems and hot spots ;
- Behavior models, etc.
The CJM can be compiled either for each individual character, or for a group. In the latter case, the target audience is divided according to interests, behavior and other criteria.
Choose the right type of customer journey map
There are several types of customer journey maps:
- Current status. It illustrates customers’ current interactions with your company.
- Future state. It focuses on how customers should experience your company after the improvements.
- A day in the life. It highlights customers’ daily interactions with your brand and other services.
- Service plan. It provides a behind-the-scenes view of the systems, processes and people who support customer interactions.
By selecting the right type of customer journey map, you gain the clarity you need to improve the current experience, design a future state or analyze the wider context of customer interactions.
Map all contact points and channels
It’s important toidentify all customercommunication channels. The customer journey can include a website, social networks or direct communication during a personal appointment. You can track the actions of your target audience by identifying contact points and channels.
Make a list of keywords
SEO remains one of the most cost-effective ways of attracting traffic. Analyzing website traffic and the keywords that drive it helps you understand how the public finds your business. Use a website traffic checker from SE Ranking to create a list of the keywords users are using to find your website, and find out where they rank on search engine results pages. A comprehensive list of keywords can also help you attract customers via other channels, such as PPC campaigns. Using the tools mentioned above, compare your results with those of your competitors and identify gaps and opportunities to attract more traffic.
Add steps for preferred keywords
Once you’ve got your keywords, map them out, prioritizing the terms that generate the most relevant traffic. Adding steps ensures that these high-impact keywords match your business objectives. In this way, you can create the most complete SEO customer journey.
Group your terms by search intent and topic
Organize keywords into groups according to search intent (informational, navigational or transactional) and thematic relevance. Grouping these keywords will help you optimize your website structure and align your content strategy with the customer journey.
Identify weaknesses, problems and opportunities
By analyzing customer feelings at different stages of brand interaction, you can understand the causes of negative reactions and eliminate this problem. At the same time, understanding positive emotional triggers will help build customer loyalty and create a stronger bond between customer and brand.
In addition, understanding emotions can be used to personalize offers. By knowing what difficulties a customer is experiencing at any given moment, a company can offer exactly what they need.
Map and analyze
Once all the elements are in place, analyze the entire customer journey. Are there gaps between customer contact points? Are customers experiencing delays or confusion? Adjust your customer journey map, refine your keywords and improve interactions at touch points to ensure a smoother, more successful customer experience.
How can you improve your business based on customer journey mapping?
Here are 5 ways to improve your business with CJM.
Convert more potential prospects into customers
The customer journey mapping process reveals exactly where your customers are at key stages in their respective customer journeys. These different moments, during which a customer leaves without placing an order or making a purchase, enable us toidentify opportunities for improvement.
Once you’ve discovered what these problems are, you’ll be able to streamline your website or service so that customers can move smoothly through each step. These improved points will directly increase the chances of directing prospects to buyers.
A customer-focused business
A customer journey map is an effective tool for establishing a truly customer-centric approach, enabling you to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and understand theexperience from their point of view.
This will enable you to make strategic decisions to ensure a better customer experience at every touchpoint, whether it’s launching an after-hours call center, redesigning product packaging or improving customer response times; all business activities will be justified by added value for the customer.
Proactive customer service
Customer journey mapping not only identifies weak points where the customer needs assistance. It also reveals weak points. With this knowledge, companies can move from purely reactive customer service to proactive customer service, where the company waits for customers to encounter a problem and then complains.
Some ideas for proactive customer service :
- Live chat function at critical contact points.
- The after-hours call center solves critical problems.
- Chatbots that help customers throughout the checkout process.
- Recorded video tutorials that answer common questions.
- Set up automated follow-up e-mails to check customer satisfaction.
Target new customers
As your business grows, you may need to extend your reach to target new customer segments. A customer journey map helps refine existing customer experiences, but can also offer new opportunities to target new audiences.
Knowing your customers’ current data enables you to find new demographic groups or sectors with similar challenges or needs. You’ll then be able to tailor your marketing to attract more customers. This can be done by developing new products or simply by rephrasing messages. A customer journey map gives you the information you need to do this.
Offer a personalized customer experience
Today’s consumers demand a personalized approach. General approaches no longer speak to a world where data can delve deeper into individual tastes and preferences. A customer journey map can help a company offer relevant experiences, taking into account each customer’s unique journey and needs.
You can launch an after-hours call center or personalize your messaging, product recommendations and offers to show the different stages of your customers’ behavior. For example, sending a personalized discount or delivering customized content related to the topics the customer was interacting with will significantly improve engagement and overall satisfaction.
Summary
By integrating a business transformation framework into your business practices, you can improve the customer experience and gain an edge in a competitive environment.
CJM is an investment in the future that helps companies become more customer-centric and successful. Of course, it requires investment and time, but it leads to better budget utilization and increased profitability in the long term.