What Is A Customer Journey Map?

Customer journey is the entire experience a customer has while interacting with a company in order to achieve a goal. This journey starts the moment the customer becomes aware of a company and continues until all of their interactions with a company ceases to exist. A customer journey map is the visual depiction of the customer journey that shows all the stages and touchpoints the customer has with the company. Some customer journey maps can represent the whole journey, cradle to grave. Some customer journey maps are prepared for up until purchase and so on. It depends on the use case of that particular map.

‍

‍

Why Is A Customer Journey Map So Important?

A customer journey might seem simple on the first look. Customer finds the company then purchases a product or service. But that is indeed not the case. According to research done by Salesforce, customer experience is more important than you might think; 80% of customers now consider their experience with a company to be as important as its products and 60% of customers in the UK expect the customer experience to be connected.

‍

Mapping out the customer journey is very important to understand and improve the customer experience. It allows you to be aware of all touchpoints and therefore how you can improve these interactions to keep your customers happy and satisfied. One customer journey example can be that of a younger customer that hears about the company on social media, researching the company on the mobile version of the website and making an online purchase. Another can be a customer that perhaps sees an advertisement, contacts via phone to learn more about services than makes a purchase on the call and so on. All of these different touchpoints affect the decisions and actions of a customer.

‍

Becoming aware of these touchpoints allows a company to see what they are doing right or wrong and improving on weaker aspects of their interactions with the customers. The things that seem like a minor detail without a closer look might be making or breaking a deal. And to understand these points we need customer journey mapping.

‍

‍

How To Create a Customer Journey Map?

Mapping a customer journey can be a complicated and tedious process but we will try to explain it as simply as possible. To start the process one must gather data on a few things that will be included in the customer journey map. One must gather information on the:

‍

  • Target customer personas

  • Buying process (customer actions)

  • Customer touchpoints

  • Customer emotions and pain points

‍

Once you have gathered all the necessary data you can proceed to preparing the customer journey map. Before you start make sure you have a clear objective on what you want to achieve with this customer journey map and remember to always keep a customer perspective.

‍

‍

1. Profile Your Persona

Choose the persona you want to create the customer journey map for and do some research. Getting data from the customers themselves will be the best thing you can do. Some exemplary questions to ask would be: How did they hear about you? What caught their interest? What is the pain point that brought them there? Did they make a purchase and if so how easy was the process for them? Could they navigate your website easily and find all the information they were looking for? What could've made the process better for them? etc.

‍

‍

2. Identify The Touchpoints and Customer Actions

Once you have gathered information about a persona, it is time to identify the touchpoints of that persona. All potential channels that allow your customers to contact your business such as email, text, websites, social media platforms, ads, etc., should be represented on your map. You should also reflect alternative sequences as customers may take different paths.

‍

While identifying the touchpoints, also pay attention to the actions customers take to go through these paths. If we move off of the example we had previously given of the young customer that hears about the company on social media, researching the company on the mobile version of the website and making an online purchase.

‍

We have three touchpoints: social media, mobile version of the website, and the online purchasing system that is used. Their actions are: see social media account, click on the profile, find the website link and click on the website link, scroll through pages, decide to make a purchase, add an item to cart, decide to continue purchase and check out, make payment. The number of actions to take may vary and might be too much which can be a deterrent of its own. Identifying these actions will help you see the points to improve and where your barriers might be lying. Try to figure out the motivations behind the actions.

‍

‍

3. Put Your Map Together

Having figured out the information you needed, it is time to put together your map. There are many formats you can use and there isn't one right way to do it. Come back to your purpose of creating the map to decide how to put the map together. Choose the information that you want to include and you can build your map accordingly. Below is a very simple customer journey map example of a young customer buying from a company that makes colorful socks.

‍

‍

‍

How BHuman.ai Helps Improve Your Customer Journey?

Our platform allows you to create personalized videos at scale by spending the time and effort it takes to create just one. With BHuman.ai you can improve on all of your touchpoints by providing your customers a personalized experience on each step of the way. You can address each and every one of your customers by name to explain your products and services, thank them for their purchase, ask for feedback, provide customer support, offer promotions, and wish them a happy birthday… The use cases are only limited by your imagination!

‍

Sign up for our platform today at BHuman.ai to utilize personalization immediately, stop missing out on the secret sauce for connection and loyalty!

‍

To learn more about the other ways you can utilize BHuman.ai for your business visit our site at BHuman.ai. You can also contact us at info@bhuman.ai and we will be happy to inspire you in all the ways you can use BHuman.ai to take your customer journey improvement efforts one step further.

‍

‍