A customer journey map is visual with several diagrams that depict the stages customer goes through while interacting with a company i.e. from buying products online to accessing customer services over the phone airing grievances on social media platforms. Customer journey mapping makes the interaction between a customer and business visible.

Let’s say you’re a manager of a Tourist company and you want to know how your customers feel about the touring services of your company. The first thing you have to do is to list out all the points your customer would think of while planning a tour, which would include:

Exploring itineraries (Anytime a potential customer or a customer comes in contact with your brand)

Book a Tour

Pre-Tour (where the customers plan for the tour)

During Tour

Post Tour

Now for each stage, let’s identify the customer touchpoints:

Exploring Itineraries

Company Website (where info about the tours are given)

Advertisements (where the customer needs are fulfilled)

Social Media (where he/she is provided with offers)

Now, for each touchpoint, you need to list out how your customer feels about each one. For example, In the case of Company Website, he/she may be happy with the rich tour details you provide. Or else, he/she is unhappy with the lack of real-time support channels. Now, with these findings, you can think of a possible solution. For the lack of real-time support channels, you can think of online chat support or a company WhatsApp account. By putting together the stages, customer touchpoints, feelings and improvements for customer experience, a customer journey map is formed.

A customer journey map identifies the possibilities that might prevent a customer from proceeding smoothly and develops a holistic view of customer experience.

The Need for Customer Journey Mapping in the Digital Era

Customer journey mapping is a powerful tool that can empower organizations to evolve from a value-based approach to set up a whole deal relationship with customers dependent on regards, consistency, and trust. This can be only done via carefully breaking down the purchaser persona step-by-step along with their buying habits. Get valuable insights. Here are the advantages of customer journey mapping.

Understanding customer emotions

As a customer moves, starting with one touchpoint then onto the next, a map may show how rapidly he can do as such. For instance, is he ready to connect with you through the online chat service? Would he be able to change from online chatting to the voice channel effortlessly? What is his satisfaction score post contact? The responses to such inquiries uncover how the customer feels about each stage along the way and can enable brands to enhance practices that cause dissatisfaction. Brands may likewise realize which touchpoints truly fulfill their customers and may then commit more consideration for further upgrading effective strategies.

Identifying gaps in services

Customer journey maps uncover where gaps may exist in customer benefit. For instance, one voice channel may turn out to be understaffed and therefore a reason for disappointment for customers who incline toward that channel. Similarly, a switch from the website to the app may not work well if the app is not optimized. Such maps are perfect for understanding these gaps that should be addressed along the customer journey.

Reduced expenses

Companies that use customer journey maps also experience a reduced in costs. Such organizations witness more benefit in the cost of customer satisfaction. Most importantly, a positive word of mouth exchange and a decrease in customer churn would lessen the expenses of getting new customers.

Increased Sales

Companies which follow customer journey maps enjoy an average sales cycle that is 18 times faster. Advertising practices are additionally compensated, as these brands encounter a 54% more noteworthy profit for promoting their brand.

Customer and Employee Satisfaction

As customers are given the user experience they need, fulfillment normally increases. As issues inside the organization are settled and communication is done properly, employee satisfaction increases too. Having a superior comprehension of an organization's objectives and practices and getting additional support enables workers to play out their jobs with more prominent proficiency.

Components of a Customer Journey Map

Timeline: The timeline of a customer journey map is the single most defining feature of a journey map. It is to be kept simple rather than representing it as a circle or infinity symbol. The ideal timeline runs from left to right across the middle of the page.

Customer steps: To keep a record of what the customer is doing along this timeline, customer steps are required. Let's say; your company sends a customer an email regarding New Year offers. The map should be able to show that he/she has received the mail. The not-to-be-missed part here is to include steps where the customer isn't engaging with your organization — like doing a Google search, asking colleagues for recommendations, or calling a competitor.

Customer profile: Each journey map should represent the experience of only one buyer persona. A customer profile includes the customer’s name, age, location, and a few attitudes or behaviors. These factors will help you understand why this customer experiences the journey as they do.

Pain points and highlights: Effective journey maps point out which functions are working correctly or not. The horizontal axis points out the highlights and the pain points of the customer vertically. The color coding of customer steps would help portray the map in a simple way.

Detailed evidence for support: Detailed data points of a customer journey map highlights the qualitative factors like positive reviews and quantitative factors like Net Promoter scores, customer attrition rates, average handle times, or other financial or operational metrics. This detailed evidence supports the journey mapping process and gives teeth to the story you’re trying to tell with the map.

For better understanding, do peek into the examples of customer journey maps.

Tools for Creating Customer Journeys and Automating Them

With all these factors in mind, customer journey mapping is indeed a complicated process. With ever rising customer expectations, there is a high need for delivering an exceptional customer experience. And the best way of visualizing customer journey mapping is with the help of customer journey mapping tools, to make it a successful one.

Web Engage

WebEngage is a multi-channel user engagement platform which automates communication across users' life-cycle. It enables you to connect with them through these channels - Web Messages (notification, survey, and feedback), In-App Messages, Push Notifications, Emails, and Text Messages. WebEngage builds enriched user profiles for every single user (registered, as well as anonymous) using your website and/or mobile app. Moreover, you can - segment- these users based on their behavior, and engage with them via multiple channels. In a nutshell, WebEngage automates user engagement and helps you retain and grow your user base. Going steady on the mission to humanize all of the world's websites and mobile apps, we are assisting thousands of customers in 50+ countries. From enterprises like Flipkart, eBay, Lynda, Sendgrid, MakeMyTrip, Avaya, Souq etc. to thousands of startups worldwide, we are helping them - Engage, Retain and Grow

Auto Pilot

Autopilot is visual marketing software for automating customer journeys. With native integrations to Salesforce, Twilio, Segment, Slack and Zapier and the ability to connect to over 700 purpose-built tools, Autopilot empower marketers to nurture relationships and grow high-paying customers using email, web, SMS, and direct mail channels.

Exponea

Exponea is a customer experience and data management platform that not only boosts e‑commerce growth with AI-powered engagement automation but also helps improve our clients’ culture with better cross‑department collaboration and customer centricity. Exponea develops an analytics and marketing automation platform to identify, segment, and analyze customers and create automated campaigns in real time. It offers its platform as a cloud, a private instance, or an on-premise solution.

Maropost

Maropost is a cloud-based revenue optimization suite that gives companies the ability to increase multi-channel customer engagement to maximize revenue. Through integrated marketing and sales automation, Maropost provides essential tools, strategic guidance, and support needed to create more personalized customer experiences through a 360-degree business view—from marketing automation to CRM, commerce, and customer support.

Customer Journey mapping can be strengthened with the help of these tools. Want to learn more about the integration of customer journey mapping into your digital marketing? Join Digital Ready today and ace digital marketing.