Customer Journeys : Improving CX

Introduction

We are going to discuss about the customer journey map and analysis. Customer journey mapping is important for an enterprise to understand the touch points and interaction of customer with the software system. Customer journey analysis helps in reducing the cost and making the customer experience better.

Customer journey is a journey of a customer who has a business goal related to a company. The customer journey helps in showing the process how the customer achieves the business goal. The customer’s requirements, problems and initiatives can be captured in a customer journey. Customer journey analysis helps the company to understand the customer’s intentions and goals.

Customer touch points are helpful in creating an efficient process for customer to achieve his business goal. Customer journey map captures the touch points starting the source to destination and how he achieves the goals along the journey. A customer journey which goes through multiple channels can be represented using various swim lanes and the path will be across the swim lanes.

Customer success is maximized when journey steps are aligned and touch points are designed to meet the goals. This helps in solving customer issues and providing success with company’s product and services. Customer journey analysis helps in finding out the website’s interesting pages and the ones which make the customer move away. The content can be created to bring the customer to the products of the company and buy them.

The customer journeys are mapping out after understanding the customer behavior, requirements and problems. The customer journey maps help in targeting marketing campaigns to a specific set of customers. Customer journey maps capture the current experience at every interaction point. Daily life of a customer is observed and customer journey map is created to improve the customer experience in his daily life. Based on the current as-is state, customer journey map presents the to-be state of the customer. People, policies technologies and processes are the important factors used for finding the root causes of the customer journeys which are not performing.

Methodology

Two popular approaches to customer journey analysis are customer journey mapping and customer journey proposition.

Customer journey mapping is related to looking at current process and the process steps. The mapping looks at the service process and customer’s view about the process. The process can be represented in a diagram and there will be measures which need to be gathered for the process. The customer journey mapping happens at the exploratory phase of the design process.

Customer journey proposition is related to the future process which is part of the large design process. The future process is designed based on suggestions from different stakeholders in a company. The customer journey proposition typically involves analysing the touch points and identifying the candidates for replacement.

Customer Journey mapping gathers inputs from various data sources. These data sources are created based on the views of customers, consultants and experts. The processes which are designed are distributed across organizational departments. Customer journey mapping is related to the experience of a customer in a project. It is a tool used for digital transformation. The transformational strategies are based on the customer’s views and needs.

The behavior of the customer helps in creating a customer journey map. These maps help in bringing a change in the organisation. Management utilize the maps to understand the customer’s need and how the journey touches on various channels such as mobile, social media and web.

Implementation

The skills or pre-knowledge required for customer journey mapping are communication skills, listening, problem solving, critical thinking, leadership, positive attitude, teamwork and work ethics. Microsoft Visio, Gliffy, Canvanizer, UXPressia, OmniGraffle, Smaply, Touchpoint, IBM Journey Designer and CFN Insight are the tools used for customer journey mapping.

A canvas with personas need to be defined. Given a process or service, mapping canvas to the personas is done. Customer journey is mapped to a canvas based on the process and service levels. The customer journeys which are performing well and not performing levels are identified. Improvement plan is created to resolve the service issues.

Different stages of the customer journey are identified to have the stage levels right. Customer experience is connected to the customer journey rating at every step. Metrics are identified and measurements are done at various stages of the customer journey. Customer quotes are gathered during the journey to know the happy and unhappy paths.

Customer journeys are simulated by picking a part of the product life cycle. Customer persona is selected and activities of the customer are identified. The customer interactions are measured in time and duration. Customer touch points are mapped in the journey to various channels such as web, phone personnel, office and chatbot.

Different stages of the customer journey are named and customers are mapped to various categories such as “thinking”, “feeling”,”sad”,”happy”,”delighted”, “neutral”, and “confused”. The poor customer experience areas are identified as hotspots and opportunities are created to improve the experience. The opportunities are prioritized and connected to the business case.

Challenges

Customer Journey maps yield results which are not broad and need changes to the customer journey. There are great customer journey mapping tools in the market and they might not match the expected potential. Customer journey maps need data. The touch points of the customer during his journey needs to be gathered.

During the customer journey, the front, middle and back office processes touch upon multiple channels. The processes may not involve the required stakeholders for all the touch points. The reviewers need to be selected from engineering, market and sales for customer journeys. They may not be up to the mark because of the insufficient data. Vocabulary and content might not be consistent across the customer journeys. The goals and actions specified for a customer journey might be overly focussed for short term. Most of the time, customer journey maps are not checked with actual customers. Positive effects are the only ones which are monitored over time.

CX Maturity Improvements

A customer journey needs to have a well defined hypothesis, a set of relevant customers and a leadership team. It cannot be performed in silos. Interviewing process needs to have a well defined team with a structure. The responsibility of the creation of the customer journey might be spread across the organisation. The team needs to have members from marketing, operations and finance departments.

Workshops need to be conducted for communicating the business regarding the journey maps. These workshops need to be done for business, operations, finance and marketing teams. Customer Journey mapping project require big teams to discuss with different departments and customers. The size of the company and the problem related to customer journeys are the key factors. In a month, around 80 customer journeys can be mapped out. Customer journeys need to be updated frequently. This will help in providing insights for actionable strategies. On the other hand, customer experience expectations are changing rapidly. Customer experience improvements need to be designed to delight the customers.