Customers are organizations’ biggest asset – without customers to buy products and services – there is no business at all. In recent years, customer experience has become a focal point for organizations, to encourage customers to spend more, pay a premium for that service, and recommend the supplier based on the experience it delivers. There is a strong correlation between poor customer experience and switching suppliers for better experience and service, and therefore understanding the journey that customers go through, and where improvements could be made – is now commonplace in many organizations.

What is Customer Journey Mapping?

To understand the current customer experience, it is essential to map the touchpoints that customers go through with the supplier. Through doing this, we can then build an understanding of where the customer might be facing points of delight or frustration, which can help organizations to drive improvement for customers.

A customer journey map is a visual representation of these customer interactions with an organization. To effectively build the map, it is crucial to step into the shoes of the customer to try and understand how our processes impact on the experience that the customer has with the supplier. That is – not only what might encourage the customer to make a purchase, but what emotions they are feeling at each stage of their journey with a supplier, as we know that emotions are a top driver of loyalty to a brand (even over aspects of the journey like ease of business).

It is a blueprint for the journey taken by the customer, marking all touchpoints. It should extend from touchpoints designed to raise awareness and interest – including advertising and marketing efforts, PR, etc. – through to the touchpoints associated with usage e.g. sales reps, accounts teams, support services complaints handling, etc. It should also extend to the cessation of the relationship with the company e.g. closing a bank account, switching to an alternative provider, etc. as the handling of this stage can be critical in turning around experiences and inviting future return to usage.

A Customer Journey Map (CJM) should therefore include:

• A flowchart or diagrammatical representation of the journey which customers take.
• All interactions and interfaces (touchpoints) between the customer and the company/brand
• Likely “pain points” in the journey i.e. areas where the customer is likely to experience difficulties or negative emotions.
• Key “moments of truth” i.e. areas where there is the opportunity to “make” or “break” the relationship.

Once maps have been developed, it is also common to then populate them further, to include:

• Identification of departments, regions, and people responsible for the delivery of the customer experience at each touchpoint (e.g. customer service, technical support, HR, sales and marketing, etc.)
• Linkages between touchpoints
• Emotions elicited and desired in the customer at each touchpoint.
• Importance ratings for each touchpoint. This can include looking at the internal perception of importance compared to customer measures.
• Performance of the company/brand at each touchpoint. As with importance, the gap between the internal and external perception can be identified.

Customer journey mapping is evolving to be more sophisticated in driving action. The use of AI in customer journey mapping is on the horizon, to allow us to more accurately predict customer behavior based on past data – which can in turn help organizations to improve customer experience and satisfaction through anticipating what the customer will need. It is certain that customer journey mapping will be even more relevant to drive customer satisfaction and retention in the future.