Customer Touchpoint Mapping

Customer touchpoint mapping is the idea that you can walk in the customer’s shoes, helping you better understand how the consumer will interact with you and what they expect from you. No two customers will have the exact same experience, but it helps to get a general idea of how certain groups might react. There are a few things to keep in mind:

• CX maps won’t be linear. They’ll have a defined end point which is purchasing, but can have many different start points and steps along the way. Each point at which the customer makes contact with your business is a step, but these steps might not be taken in the correct order and some may even be skipped depending on customer knowledge. 
• The aim of the CX map is to get an idea of what your customers are experiencing, and this is best done by analyzing feedback from your customers and integrating it into your approach. Detailed surveys are the best, however few customers are likely to complete them. A balance of detail and amount of customers giving feedback is often the best way to get a general picture.
• The term map isn’t literal, but it can help greatly to have a chart that flows from one step to the next in order to visualize your customers’ experiences. Seeing how the options flow and which points are the crossroads are great ways to help you comprehend things.

Charting the journey and improving the experience

In order to chart your CX map, you’ll need to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Often it can be helpful to create customer personas to frame the experience in, different personas based on different ages, demographics, etc. in order to get a more rounded picture. While the way people in certain groups behave isn’t identical there are general trends which can be useful to pick out. 

Once you’ve mapped out your customer journey, you can visualize the key steps that are taken and where contact is first made. Often the best thing you can do with a CX map is simply look for more options, channels that your main demographics could go through but aren’t currently able to, and expand your horizons where possible. It’s all about return on investment, as small improvements that affect a large number of consumers are often better than large ones that don’t affect many. You need to weigh the pros and cons of your actions and decide what to prioritize in your improvements in order to get the best customer experience improvement you can.