Why Mapping Your Customer Journey is a MUST?
We’ve all heard it before, put yourself in customer shoes, think like a consumer, how would the customer feel. These are all great ideas and often we hear the responses around, that takes too much TIME, this is an INNOVATIVE product customers won’t know yet, we want to attract a diverse population. ( aka get money from everyone)
The truth is, our customers have behavior patterns that guide them to making some sort of decision. The customers’ behavior is the catalyst for making a purchase, becoming an advocate for a brand, building trust and loyalty, sharing their opinion/feedback, or being that brand ambassador within their own social circle. The customer world has evolved so rapidly that mapping the customer journey is crucial to understanding and creating the experience you want, whether it be designing a desktop website, web app, or creating a brick and mortar experience. This simple strategy directly correlates with the business goals that are tied to the experience.
How can the customer journey help us?
It’s a strategic way to discover how the customer first interacts with your brand, how do they research it, what’s their purpose for taking action, and why do they take action. You can identify what type of emotions they might feel as they go through the discovery process, identifying both positive and negative emotions.
When a brand creates an experience, digital or in-person, they have some sort of persona, or avatar, they are trying to attract, sometimes a few types of avatars. Have you ever heard the saying, you can’t be everything to everyone? The customer journey map helps you identify HOW you are going to be WHAT you want to be for YOUR specific type of customer/s. It helps identify what are the customer’s needs, frustrations, motivations, and pain points are.
Identifying this relationship is going to help a business create the TOUCHPOINTS that align to the outcomes/behaviors they are looking to accomplish. If the customer is not reaching the goals, the customer journey map is going to help you make the changes to get them there.
Things change so quickly that re-mapping your customer journey can be very beneficial. As you branch off into various products/brands creating a new customer journey for each area will ultimately help you in achieving your goals. It complements so many other facets of the business i.e. marketing team, sales team, product design, tech team, business leaders, etc.
I hope this is helpful for anyone out there reading it.There are lots of great resources out there to learn more about Customer Journey Mapping. Here is a link to some examples to show the various kinds. Happy Mapping!
https://www.pinterest.com/designationio/customer-journey-maps/