How to Create a Customer Journey Map From Scratch
Every company aims to know its customers, their needs and wishes. If you know your customer, you actually know the business you are operating. Without this knowledge, it can be stressful to estimate the exact problems your business is suffering from in terms of customer experience, and those who tell otherwise are just missing out!
Anyway, it’s beyond words how much customer experience is important for you as a client-oriented business owner to understand and track customer experience.
But the main question you are probably asking right now is “What exactly do you mean by that? Is it something that can be measured? Is it something you can calculate? ”And the answer is YES!
How should you do it? Customer Journey Map. Let us explain it in detail.
Customer Journey Map is a visual representation of the process of customer interaction, divided into several key phases and touchpoints. Every phase includes a particular stage where a customer performs a certain action in order to achieve the desired result.
A single customer makes a trip when interacting with products and services. From the starting web page or the first step entering the store — everything is an experience.
From Point A to Point Z your customer may experience various factors on every stage he or she moves. It can be a Browse page where a customer cannot find the right product to add to the cart or lack of interaction with the staff at the store.
It all affects the overall perception of service and, of course, results in whether your customer will come back again or recommend your company to his friends, relatives, and colleagues.
Let us give you a practical example from our own experience.
We have conducted market research in the financial sector and compared two banks that have a similar business model.
Interaction with customers in Banks is extremely important. Therefore, we have created a Customer Journey Map that contained 7 key phases of customer interaction with financial services.
Here they are:
- Leaving a request on the website
- 1st communication with an operator
- Consultation at the branch
- Receiving the document package
- 1st month of post-interaction service
- 2nd month of post-interaction service
- 3rd month of post-interaction service
The research results have shown outstanding performance at the beginning of a customer journey concerning the first bank, and lack of service performance at later phases. On the contrary, the second bank showed a lack of sufficient service at the beginning and respective results at the later phases.
The first bank put really a lot of effort in order to quickly speed up their response from the website and connecting with the 1st operator. The consultation stage is also great at the 2nd phase, even though the processing of documents at phase 3 has issues in terms of complying with standards.
It all falls apart at phases from 5 to 7.
There is almost no post-interaction support during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd month of service.
It really drives customers into negative emotions and affects their loyalty towards the bank.
It is also clear that a customer is more likely to consider a bank with poor service as an unreliable one as the service comes off scammy and unprofessional.
A customer remains a client throughout all terms of interaction with the bank. If management does not pay attention to the bank’s existing customers, this will for sure reduce customer retention and negatively affect additional product sales.
Of course, do remember that every customer is a person who probably interacts with a minimum of 10 people daily. And if your company does not respond or shows no interest in supporting him, what’s the chance that these 10 people will come to you as potential clients?
