MODULE 3

CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP

TIME ALLOTMENT: 2 WEEKS

I. Learning Outcomes:

 Appreciate the importance of creating BMC;

 Create a Business Model Canvass; and
 Incorporate additional components of the BMC.

II. Learning Content

Improved customer service, customer loyalty, and increased ROI; 3 things

that every organization wishes they could achieve overnight. It’s possible,
although not overnight, but with the right tool and the effort.

One such tool is the customer journey map and it’s there at the top with the
other powerful tools that help drive customer-focused change effectively.

In this guide, we’ll explain the steps you need to take to create a customer
journey map that drives the expected results while avoiding the common
mistakes others make.

What is a Customer Journey Map?

Customer expectations are on the rise and it will continue to grow, forcing
companies to reinvent themselves constantly in order to survive. Reason?
The availability of multiple products and services under different brands and
offers. Furthermore, the presence of online platforms, especially social
media, has given greater control over to the customer in decision-making.

It’s in such a situation that the customer journey map has become so
popular. This tool, which is also known as the customer experience map,
visualizes the experience of the customer of an organization.

It chronologically represents each step of interaction the customer takes with

your business. A customer journey map usually starts with the initial step of
when the customer discovers your product/ service and depending on your
goal it can extend as long as you want to.
It reveals customer actions, emotions, pain points and expectations along
the customer journey. And it helps the business see things from the
customer’s perspective which in turn helps the business gain a deep
understanding of the needs of the customer.

There are many benefits to customer journey mapping. It helps,

 Identify the areas the business should prioritize

investing in and spending effort on
 Get valuable insight on what the customer is
expecting from your brand, their internal
motivations, and needs which will, in turn, help you
improve your customer experience
 Discover the gaps between customer expectations
and current customer experience
 Identify serious issues in your customer experience
and eliminate them proactively

How to Create a Customer Journey Map in 6 Steps

At a glance, a customer journey map may look easy to make. But there are
many details you need to pay attention to when creating one. In the
following steps, we have simplified the process of creating a customer
journey map.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that customer journey maps may
differ from company to company based on the product/ service they offer
and audience behavior.

It’s also important to have the right kind of people who know about your
customer’s experience in the room when you are mapping the journey.

Step 1: Build Your Buyer Persona

Creating a customer journey map begins with defining your buyer persona,
which profiles your target customer based on extensive research.

The buyer persona usually consists of demographic data such as age,

gender, career, etc. in addition to other behavioral and psychographic details
like customer goals, interests, lifestyle, challenges, etc.

Your business can have one or many buyer personas depending on how
many audience segments you are targeting. And to avoid creating a
customer journey map that is too generic, you need to create separate
customer journey maps for each of the segments you identify.

You need to also be careful to rely on real data rather than assumptions to
avoid creating an erroneous customer profile that won’t do much for you.

You can gather as much data as you want from online research,
questionnaires, surveys, direct customer feedback, interviews and with tools
like Google Analytics.

Here’s our guide on creating a buyer persona. Refer to it to create your own
buyer persona in 4 simple steps. Start with a template to save time.

B
uyer Persona (Click on the template to edit it online)
Creating the buyer persona will also shed light on the goals of the buyer,
which is another thing you need to pay attention to when mapping your
customer’s journey.

Step 2: Map Out the Customer Lifecycle Stages and Touch points
What are the stages your customer goes through to come into contact with
your product/ service? Breaking down your customer journey map into
various stages will make it easier to understand and refer to.

Now, these stages may vary depending on your business situation, sales
funnel design, marketing strategies, etc. but usually, it would contain –
Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Retention.

Map out the touch points to clarify the customer lifecycle stages even better.
A touch point refers to any moment in their journey when a customer comes
into contact with your brand (i.e. website, social media, testimonials,
advertisements, point of sale, billing, etc.).

The data you collected during your buyer persona research will give you a
pretty good idea about the customer touch points along the lifecycle stages;
these include the steps they take when they first discover your brand to
purchasing your product and subsequent interactions.

Identifying all potential touch points may sound overwhelming, but you can
always rely on tools like Google Analytics which will generate behavioral
reports (which show the user path throughout your website) and goal flow
reports (display the path a user takes to complete a goal conversion) for you
to work with.

Or you can follow the traditional method and put yourself in the shoes of
your customers and take yourself through the journey to identify the actions.

At the same time try to determine the emotional state (delighted/ frustrated)
of the customer as they take each action. Knowing how they feel will help
you understand whether they would go from one stage to the other in the
journey.

Step 3: Understand the Goals of the Customers

This is where you need to focus your attention on understanding the goals
your customers are trying to achieve at each stage. When it comes
to optimizing your customer’s journey, it will help immensely if you know
what your customers are trying to achieve.

Some methods you can use here include survey answers, interview
transcripts, customer support emails, user testing, etc.
Once you know the goals your customers are trying to gain at each phase of
the journey, you can align them with the touch points.

Step 4: Identify Obstacles and Customer Pain Points

By now you know what your customer is trying to achieve at each stage of
the customer lifecycle, and each of the steps they take to get it done.

If your customer journey is perfect, then you won’t have your customers
abandoning their purchases, leaving your landing pages without filling the
forms, clicking the CTA only to close the tab, etc. If your journey didn’t have
any roadblocks at all, then you wouldn’t be needing this customer journey
map in the first place.

But that’s not the case here, is it?

There might be many things that you are doing right to make your customer
experience a smooth one, but there can still be many roadblocks that
frustrate your users. In this step, you need to work on identifying what these
roadblocks and pain points of customers are.

Maybe the product price is too high, or the shipping rates are unreasonable,
or maybe the registration form is a few pages too long. Identifying such
roadblocks will help you apply the suitable solutions to improve your
customer experience.

You can rely on the research data you gathered to create your buyer
personas here as well.

Step 5: Identify the Elements You Want to Focus on

There are several types of customer journey maps and each focuses on a
variety of elements. Based on your purpose, you can select one of them.

Current state: These maps show how your customers are interacting with
your brand currently.

Future state: This type of map visualizes the actions that you assume or
believe will be taken by your customers.

Day in the life: This type of map tries to capture what your current
customers or prospects do in a day in their life. They will reveal more
information about your customers, including pain points in real life.
Step 6: Fix the roadblocks

Now that you know the issues/ roadblocks your customers come across as
they interact with your brand, focus on prioritizing and fixing them to
improve each touch point to retain customers at all stages of the journey.

Customers are constantly changing, so should your customer journey maps.

Test and update your customer journey maps as often as necessary to reflect
the changes in your customers as well as in your products/ services.

Here are some templates you can start with right away.
Ready to Map Your Customer’s Journey?

Customer journey maps are a great way to gain deeper insight into your
customers and their experience with your organization. Taking the time to
understand how your customers interact with you, what they feel and what
they want to achieve can go a long way toward retaining them.