Brands understand in order to enhance their customer experience they need to map out their entire customer journeys. Customer Journey Mapping illustrates every step a customer makes from finding a product that matches their needs, to awareness of the brand selling the product, to engagement with the brand then to either purchase the product or to ask a question.
There is a massive step change, with brands now striving to provide seamless experiences, regardless of the channel or device customers use. Identifying ways to introduce consistent omni-channel customer experience touch-points, offering a variety of ways for customers to search and buy the products that they need. It is more important than ever before that brands introduce consistency in their messages and their customer shopping experience across all customer touch-points, such as in-store face-to face engagement, search engines, websites, digital mobile apps, social media, catalogues and their customer contact management team processes.
The key objective is to unlock the real-truths behind what customers experience when engaging with the brand and to identify any barriers that exist along the way. It is valuable to hold customer research groups where customers can explain their own Customer Journey Maps and openly discuss their experiences with the brand.
Here are 5 considerations to unlock when designing Customer Journey Maps.
- Customer Action: Where does the customer journey start and what do they do in order to move on to the next stage? e.g. Customer searches for kettles in Google, clicks on a brand website link to find out more about their products.
- Customer Emotion: At each stage what emotions do customers feel and what motivates them to move onto the next stage? e.g. Customer feels the process is simple and they want their kettle, so continues.
- Experience More: At each stage how do you inspire and optimise cross-sell / up-sell opportunities with the customer? e.g. Brand displays lovely matching kettle and toaster options.
- Experience Barriers: At each stage what barriers do customers experience that stop them from moving forward? e.g. Customer clicks a purchase product link but it is broken, so they end their purchase experience with the brand.
- Experience Solutions: Identify the ways to fix the found barriers to improve on the customer experience. e.g. Brand fixes the link so the next customer continues to add the product to their basket and purchase.
At each touch-point brands need to come across helpful, credible and relevant so the customer wants to move onto the next stage. Customer Journey Mapping helps brands to better understand their customer interactions, which will create a better customer engagement experience, build loyalty and maximise return.