An interesting infographic highlighting the business benefits of Customer Journey Mapping. Most customer relationships are…
How do you create effective Customer Journey Maps?
Creating effective customer journey maps takes time and a bit of patience.
If they are done well though, they can become a powerful tool for the whole organization to understand how customers interact with and perceive the company.
Download a free copy of the customer journey map canvas.
Today, two-thirds of the touch points a consumer has with a brand during product evaluation are customer-initiated.
A typical customer journey may involve searching internet reviews, browsing websites, and getting word-of-mouth recommendations from friends or family.
Customers may also visit stores or compare products with past experiences and available alternatives.
In fact, according to Google, shoppers now use an average of 10.4 sources of information to make a purchase decision.
In a recent study of digital and e-commerce marketers, over 63% rated customer journey analysis as the most valuable method to increasing website purchases.
This makes it one of the best competencies for a company to develop.
But effective customer journey mapping also requires diligence, research, flexibility, and perspective.
Actionable customer journey maps should paint the consumer in his or her full context, requiring teams to consider and account for a significant amount of multi-channel complexity.
Customer journey mapping relies on a blend of data driven insights into how customers feel and emotionally react.
The best approach is to start building your journey map by using your existing knowledge and data about your customers: both qualitative and quantitative.
Audit the data you have and what research and further data you need.
Then you can bridge the gap by defining by what research is needed and ranking its importance. This will often include:
The key is to understand four things about your customer:
Research where and how customers interact with your brand, and build a list (for a quick start, download our content distribution channel checklist).
This should include offline and digital, as well as other important non-marketing interactions like customer service.
It can also be useful to weight and rank the importance of touchpoints to create effective customer journey maps. For example, in physical retail, merchandising and packaging have become increasingly important selling factors, a point often under-appreciated by digital marketers.
Consumers want to look at a product in action and are highly influenced by visual attributes.
According to McKinsey research, up to 40 per cent of customers change their minds because of something they see, learn, or do at the direct point of purchase—observing visual packaging, shelf placement, or interactions with retail employees, for example.
Some important points about creating an effective journey map: