{"id":6742,"date":"2020-06-14T05:39:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T05:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revuze.it\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2020-06-14T05:39:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T05:39:39","slug":"customer-journey-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revuze.it\/blog\/customer-journey-map\/","title":{"rendered":"Customer Journey Map: A Road to Improve Customer Experience & Higher Conversion Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Businesses have to face an uphill battle to convince their potential customers to try their products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wouldn’t it be easy to convince a customer if you know what exactly your customers are thinking when they are planning to buy a product similar to yours? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today’s customer uses an array of channels to look for solutions to their problems. Your business should be present on every platform where your potential customers might search for products or services you offer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The customer journey consists of different touchpoints. You need to understand these touchpoints and make it easier for your prospects to notice your brand and convince them to start doing business with you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a Customer Journey Map?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The customer journey map is a visual representation of the path that the prospects take to become your customers. It represents the entire customer journey consisting of steps, pain-points, needs, hesitations, and the different emotional states that the customers go through at every point of interaction with your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer journey mapping is all about peeping into your customer’s minds and convincing them to make a purchasing decision. It helps you to look at your business from the customer’s point of view<\/a>. Hence, you can figure out the expectations, needs, and trouble your customers have to face during the journey. You can’t do that unless you know the exact path your customers are taking to interact with your business at different stages of the customer journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the buying process of consumers isn’t enough. You need to represent the process in a format, preferably in an excel sheet that everyone can easily understand, which is what we call the customer journey map. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s create a demo customer journey map to understand this process in a more natural way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1- Find Your Target Customer Persona<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before thinking of building a map, you need to be clear about who your customers are. As you might be dealing with multiple services or products, it is better to check multiple buyers’ behavior. The reason is every buyer responds differently at different stages of the journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you know this, it will be easier for you to set a direction for your map, specify your goals, and determine who you are building this map for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will discuss how to prepare a buyer persona in detail in the coming sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 2- Find What is in The Mind of Your Customers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every customer thinks, feels, and acts differently. The next step is to know what their expectations are at the end of each phase during the journey.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can determine it in several ways, like reaching out and getting their feedback. You can even use customer analytics tools for this task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the research, you can now spot different types of customer personas. But, it is advisable to pick only 1-2 types of personas to avoid confusion. Also, you have to focus on only those who take a specific path across the journey, which will help you to know the customer’s experiences accurately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 3- Finding The Touchpoints <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touchpoints are the moments when customers are in touch with your brand. It could be while searching for information in the search engines while browsing the social media, while attending a webinar or while interacting with your customer support team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, many of those touchpoints are worth looking at. They provide you with the opportunity to understand your customers. Fewer touchpoints may indicate your brand is not visible enough to reach the customers on every channel.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the best ways to learn about these touchpoints is by using Google Analytics. It has two useful reports to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1- Behavior flow report<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2- Goal flow report<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both these reports give you a deep understanding of the path the customers take to visit your website and their associated behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will discuss this in more detail in the coming sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 4- Recognize The Roadblocks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You now have all the data to identify the obstacles or roadblocks that hinder your customer’s journey. Analyze the data and list down those obstacles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Point those phases where customers are more frequently leaving the site. Considering the stage, prepare a list of actions that you need to take to minimize the bounce back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 5- Find Out A Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you know the exact points where things are not falling right, your next step is to find the correction techniques. Here, you need to keep one thing in mind that your ultimate goal is not correcting every single hindrance but to pull the customer through the funnel. Therefore, look at your goal first and pick the roadblocks accordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you are ready with your set of corrections to be made, start the process of making changes to the phases. After adjustments, review it to ensure that the issues with the customers are addressed at that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, it would be best if you keep updating and improving your customer journey map from time to time, as the customer needs are changing every moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"customer<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Customer Journey Mapping Templates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are two primary examples of customer journey maps you must have a look at. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1- The Classic Buyer Journey Template<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buyer’s Journey<\/strong><\/td>Awareness<\/strong><\/td>Consideration<\/strong><\/td>Decision<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Steps<\/strong><\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
Emotions<\/strong><\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
Actions<\/strong><\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
Touchpoints<\/strong><\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
Pain Points<\/strong><\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
opportunities<\/strong><\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2- Day in the Life of Your Customers Template<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buyer\u2019s Journey<\/strong><\/td>Morning<\/strong><\/td>Afternoon<\/strong><\/td>Evening<\/strong><\/td>Night<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
What is the customer\u2019s thinking \/feeling?<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
What are the customer’s needs?<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
What are the customer’s pain points?<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
What are the customer’s touchpoints with the business?<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The coming sections will discuss in detail how you can prepare the buyer persona and find the customer touchpoints using different tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significance of Customer Journey Mapping<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A customer journey map focuses on telling the story from the point where the customers find out about your brand to where they become loyal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer journey mapping is quite an elaborate concept that every business owner should look forward to learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your business website may be friendly from your point of view, but the customer may be finding it hard to navigate. It is sometimes challenging to get into the customers\u2019 mind and know what they are thinking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, some customers will log in to an online store, fill their carts, and leave without paying for them. Some site visitors may also find it challenging to trace some tabs on your business website like the fill out forms and CTA buttons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every business needs to understand what their customers are thinking about whenever they visit their websites. This can help them design their sites to meet their target customers\u2019 needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an effective customer journey map, a business can interact better with the customers and achieve its goals and objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s discuss some benefits of customer journey mapping and give you some valid reasons why you should invest in it to improve your customer acquisition and lead generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1- Discover Your Customers  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditional outbound marketing campaigns have been successful for most companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, sometimes if you intend to read your customers\u2019 mind and offer them the best user experience on your site, you may have to adopt inbound marketing strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step to adopting inbound marketing is finding out what drives people away from your website by conducting a website audit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With inbound marketing, you can read your customers’ minds and understand what they want. You can work around creating content that your target customers are looking for whenever they browse the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you practice effective customer journey mapping, you can quickly tell what your customers need and begin creating content that makes them stay on your landing pages for long, thereby increasing your customer conversion rate significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2- Create a Focused Customer Group<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, if you are not aware of your customers\u2019 journey whenever they visit your site, you cannot tell more about their demographics and behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychographics and demographics information is critical for market segmentation. By dividing your market into different parts, you focus on launching the best inbound marketing strategy for each group of customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A customer journey map helps you to narrow your customer base and begin creating quality content that targets addressing their problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It helps you to know the kind of people that are interested in your products and services. You can find out about the customers\u2019 shopping behavior, like which time of the day or month they are most likely to buy in bulk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this broad picture of your customers\u2019 buying behavior, you can now be selective with the type of marketing campaign that you choose for your online business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3- Improve Customer-centric Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer Journey Mapping is central to discovering, adapting, and improving a customer-centric marketing<\/a> strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once your business grows to have many departments, it becomes a bit challenging to coordinate everything and still ensure that the whole organization knows what the final customers want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a clear customer journey map, you can share it across all departments in your organization. Your marketing team can then adopt a more reliable after-sale, customer service, and marketing strategy that aims at improving your customers\u2019 experience with your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, if you have all the information you need on customers\u2019 behavior, you can change your product quality and improve your customer service desk. You may even adopt a marketing campaign you believe can increase your total sales and help you achieve your ROI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4- Identify and Bridge the Gaps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the process of coming up with a customer journey map, you are likely to discover more about communication gaps in your service and product delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will learn more about what limits customers to moving from point A to B whenever they visit your online store. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, you may be having many steps that a customer must follow to transact on your online store. By reducing the steps customers follow on your site, you are likely to double your leads and increase your total sales in the shortest time possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, you find out that you are not using social media platforms accordingly to interact with your customers and answer the question they post about your brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the right measures once you find out about these gaps can boost your brand reputation and help your stay ahead of the park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A customer journey map helps you to quickly find out all the communication, operation, and marketing gaps in your organization and think of the best way to fill them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5- Mould the Touch-points<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your customers may be experiencing a lot of challenges on their journey to buying your products or accessing your services. Customer journey mapping helps you to fix all those challenges that customers experience with your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a customer journey map, you are in the best position to provide customers with the right information at the right time and place, thereby removing all the confusion in their journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Map Your Customer Journey: 7 Best Practices that You Should Take into Consideration <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating and following the customer journey maps have proven to be one of the significant ways of converting prospective customers. The better you map the customer\u2019s journey, the better will be the result. Finding and analyzing the data is the key to mapping the best customer journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very few people convert on their first visit. It takes around five to twenty touchpoints<\/a> to convert a lead to a sale. As a business, you would not want your customers to lose interest in your product as they move deeper into the sales funnel. You should offer them the best possible user experience<\/a>. That\u2019s why customer journey maps are crucial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer journey maps display all the touchpoints customers come into contact with your brand, enabling you to provide the same experience across channels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, creating customer journey maps isn\u2019t as easy as it seems. You have to know the entire timeline of each customer to offer the best possible experience and increase the chances of conversions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s have a look at the seven best practices to map your customer journey.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1- Know Your Company Goals <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer journey maps that are created to support a business goal often leads to actionable results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some examples of company goals that customer journey mapping support include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n