The basics about customer journey mapping
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map is a visual representation of the process a customer or prospect goes through to achieve a goal with your company.
Why would you want to make a customer journey map?
There are several reasons for making a customer journey map:
“You can’t transform something you don’t understand. If you don’t know and understand what the current state of the customer experience is, how can you possibly design the desired future state?” – Annette Franz
How to make a customer journey map
Step 1. Determine context
Do you know who the customer is whose journey you are mapping? You can use persona's to determine the context. You need to know what motivates your customer. You also need to know what the objectives of your company are and which ones you want to improve on in this map. This will help you in determining why you need to map this particular customer journey for this particular personal. Be strict with yourself about how many persona's and goals you want to reach in one customer journey. In this case less is better. You need to involve your stakeholders early on to ensure the necessary resources.
Step 2. Analyze data
This is done with both quantitative and qualitative data. Be sure to get your data and focus it on the personal you defined in step 1.
Step 3. Draw the customer journey map
Making a customer journey map is a group effort. You always start by defining a time line and phases in the customer journey. Next are the actions, motivations, emotions and barriers customers experience during their journey.
Step 4. Iterate and improve
You will see during the mapping of the customer journey that you will need extra insights. This is the moment to get them and fill in the gaps. One of the best ways to do this is by gathering data and taking the customer journey yourself. Work with your team to brainstorm solutions and keep your stakeholders informed and involved. These solutions can involve different types of actions:
- Writing better content
- Improving products
- Developing new products
- Developing new apps or tools
- ....
You will need your stakeholders for the next phase of prototyping and testing your solutions. I will take you a through the next steps of the customer journey in later blogs. I hope you enjoyed this one.
