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The Customer Journey Map

Written by Katie Waxman on June 9, 2021

Katie Waxman / June 9, 2021

 

 

You may have heard of a customer journey map, but are wondering what it is and how businesses can benefit from it.  An effective customer journey map is a great tool to help you get inside the customer’s mind, understand their perspective, and learn how they interact with your company from start to finish. The better you understand your customer’s journey, the better you can improve their experience.

What Is a Customer Journey Map?

Your customer’s journey (sometimes called a user journey) is their experience from the moment they first learn about your business, to when they engage in purchasing your product or service, to when they receive after-sales communication. It is the entire lifecycle your customer goes through to convert from a prospect to a satisfied customer.

So, what is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is the visual representation of your customers’ journey when engaging with your business. Customer journey mapping is used by many companies to understand every detail of their customers’ experience from discovery, to purchase, to long term customer service and retention. 

Why Is a Customer Journey Map Important?

There are many reasons creating a customer journey map is beneficial for your business. Although no two customer journeys are alike, a customer journey map can help you ensure consistency in providing a great customer experience. It takes time and practice to create a customer journey map that is clear and effective, but it’s worth the effort.

An effective customer journey map can help you better understand and empathize with your customers. In other words, it will help you put yourself in your customer’s shoes. The customer’s experience should be illustrated at every touchpoint, until they achieve “satisfied customer” status. By doing this, your company can identify improvements to make the experience more efficient and rewarding.

Business leaders create customer journey maps that accomplish the following:

Result in a Desired Outcome

Whether it be contacting you for a free consultation or purchasing from a specific product line, your map should have a specific purpose and goal in mind. Are you creating a map to improve customer service, generate more sales, or eliminate specific pain points? Use your map as a tool to clearly identify obstacles on this journey, address them, and then eliminate them. 

Identify Touchpoints

In mapping the customer journey, touchpoints refer to the platforms or locations where customers interact with your business. It can be an advertisement, a social media post, a website, or a Google Search results page.

Customers often go through multiple touchpoints on their journey. For instance, they might have heard of your business from a Yelp review before visiting your website. Identifying all potential touchpoints your customer may go through will help you better understand how you can impact them.

Create Customer Personas

Every customer is unique, comes from a different background, and may have varying expectations. For instance, a facility manager looking for a vending provider might not be looking for the same supplier as an HR manager shopping for an employee retention solution.

Your customer base can be made of multiple types of customers. Part of a compelling customer journey mapping session is identifying and differentiating between each one. Creating different maps tailored to different customer personas ensures your solutions are personalized to that customer type. Personas are powerful tools for predicting different behaviors by customer groups and tailoring your products or services to give them what they are looking for.

Eliminate Barriers

Along their journey, a buyer’s desire to purchase can weaken as doubts creep in. Is this really the right choice? Should I think about this for a few more months? When mapping, anticipate barriers to closing the sale and create plans to reduce or eliminate them. 

Many sales are influenced by price, and they can be lost if a lower-cost alternative is available. Train (or re-train) your team on how to sell value over cost and the points of differentiation that make your offerings unique over the competition. Consider if it is OK to offer discounts or incentives to compete in tough situations and what concessions will make an impact without too much sacrifice to the bottom line.

Be sure your marketing and sales materials are in sync and proactively address the questions and concerns that come to mind along the customer journey.  This can effectively remove small barriers before they become big obstacles to closing a sale.  

Retain

Your existing customers are one of your most valuable assets so it’s important to invest in a plan to ensure their satisfaction and retention. How are you maintaining contact with them post-sale? Your map should address the content you will generate to market to and serve your customers. You should continually evaluate this content to ensure it is timely, relevant, and interesting. 

Keep your customers up to date on news and promotions through regular social media posts, emails, newsletters, and website updates. Blogs, guides, and ‘how tos’ are also excellent ways to help customers without being overly sales-focused. Overall, digital marketing is the quickest and most efficient way to reach your customer base.  It can also attract new prospects to your website to learn more about your offerings.

Listen to your customers’ feedback on your products and services to understand what you are doing well and how you can improve.  Encourage them to share their thoughts and make it convenient for them to do it. Many companies check in with their customers through email surveys or good old-fashioned phone calls. Progressive companies are using apps to make it even easier for customers to share their feedback through a simple text message.  

Mapping your customers’ journey will help you understand their experiences while engaging with your business. It will allow you to identify and better relate to the different types of customers you are serving (or hoping to serve).  And it will help you develop strategies to improve the process from beginning to the end. Considering the factors in this article will help you make your map more comprehensive and effective.  Examples of customer journey maps are readily available online.  Consider using one from your industry as a reference to help you get started. 

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