Customer Journey - kompendium wiedzy ▷▷ ServiceDesign.pl Socjomania

Customers take a number of different actions before deciding whether or not to use your company’s services. Moreover, this relationship with them does not end when they stop actively using your products or solutions.

Between one point and another, a series of activities takes place, during which clients are accompanied by a lot of emotions.

That is why the Customer Journey is so important. Tracking, together with the analysis of the experiences accompanying consumers at each stage, indicates the direction of changes that must take place in your organization in order to meet customer expectations and maximize the potential of the provided services.

What is a Customer Journey?

A Customer Journey is a process that consists of recreating all interactions that occur between the customer and the brand before, after, and during the use of a service or product. But that’s not all.

The key element is the analysis, thanks to which you can identify the aspects that need improvement, change or a complete redesign. By focusing on the underdeveloped moments of customer interactions with your business, you can improve your customer journey and experience.

Why is analyzing customer experience worth the effort?

The final effect of the Customer Journey depends on the goal you set before analyzing the customer journey.

Customer journey analysis can be used by organizations and specialists in various fields, including salespeople, marketing and customer service specialists, product managers, and even programmers and web designers.

By creating a Customer Journey map you will:

Identify all points of contact between the customer and the brand.
Determine customer needs at every stage of the purchasing path.
Learn which solutions are worth improving and which need to be redesigned.
Implement the necessary changes in your organization.

According to the 2016 McKinsey report, companies that are working on improving the customer experience have recorded a 10-15% increase in revenues. Moreover, they experience a 20% increase in customer satisfaction as well as a cost reduction of 15-20%.

Customer Journey and Customer Experience

When you run a business, you don’t only offer your customers products or services. Whether you like it or not, you also provide them with experience.

All the feelings and emotions that accompany them while interacting with your company make up the Customer Experience. In other words, Customer Experience is the product of all customer experiences with a given brand.

Customer Experience may include:

customer service level,
the purchase process and the accompanying emotions,
feelings related to the use of the product or service,
marketing and brand communication, for example by promoting certain values,
opinion about a given company on the market.

The level of satisfaction with Customer Experience in your company can indicate whether or not the path your customers follow requires optimization. If it is not as high as possible – A Customer Journey analysis will help you find areas for improvement.

How to create a Customer Journey Map?

The customer journey map is a visual representation of all points of contact between consumers and your company. It is built by recreating the complete purchasing paths of your customers. Therefore, you cannot focus only on the moment of purchase or the time of using services or products.

Include customer experiences during the following steps:

Before purchase.
While using the product or service.
After the service.

What elements of the Customer Journey should you analyze?

Creating a Customer Journey Map enables a thorough analysis of all interactions between the customer and your brand.

However, it is not just a matter of identifying the points of contact. It is crucial to get to know the emotions and problems, as well as the expectations accompanying the customer at every stage of the shopping path.

You need to consider the following:

Client’s needs. Why did they decide to use your services? What was important to them? Have they managed to achieve their goal?
Channel. In which channel was the service provided? Was it real or digital?
Emotions. How did clients feel at each stage of their path? Was it a certainty, satisfaction, or maybe disappointment and frustration?
Problems. What difficulties did customers have to face at each stage?
Parts of the process that were viewed positively by customers. Although Customer Journey is all about finding aspects to be optimized, it does not mean that you should ignore solutions that are currently effective.
Room for optimization. Is there a chance to improve the critical aspects? What can customers say about this?
Indicators. How do you measure customer satisfaction levels? How can you track a specific stage and analyze a given interaction?

Tools used to create Customer Journey

Customer Journey Map is not the only tool thanks to which you will learn about the needs and experiences of your customers.

To get a complete picture of the expectations of your target group representatives, you can create personas. An empathy map or service blueprint may also be useful. Any customer funnel map visualization tools can also help.

However, if you want, you can even start with a plain blackboard or a sheet of paper.

Stages of creating a Customer Journey

The process of creating a customer journey consists of several stages. Regardless of the industry in which you provide services, you will have to include them in your work.

Defining the goal

Unfortunately, this is a step that is often overlooked – but without it, the entire process will not be effective. Think about the purpose for which you are creating a customer journey map. Maybe to optimize costs? To improve the quality of customer service? Or to create coherent communication?

There are many possibilities, but you certainly know what your organization and customers need the most.

Target group

Who are your customers? What do they need? What problems are they facing? At this stage, you need to find answers to these and many other questions in order to get to know your target audience. A reliable tool, personas, will help you in this.

Collecting information

Before creating a Customer Journey Map, make sure that you have collected all the data that your company already has. If you see significant gaps in your knowledge, you may need to do additional research.

Remember that just having data is not enough. It is necessary to analyze them in order to complete the crucial information, e.g. concerning the target group.

Creating a Customer Journey Map

The most convenient way to create a map is in physical form, on a blackboard or a piece of paper. The choice of the tool, however, is completely yours. The most important thing is that it should be intuitive for people involved in delivering the service. If you want, you can even try to create it in Excel 🙂

Include any data you have already collected during the steps mentioned above. Remember to map customer experiences not only while using the service but also before and after the purchase.

Implementation of changes

Today, customer expectations are increasing faster than ever. Technology is developing at an equally dizzying pace. Even if you are sure that the changes implemented in accordance with the Customer Journey are effective and that your customers are fully satisfied, you need to keep your finger on the pulse. The situation can always change under the influence of external factors.

Monitoring the effects

Summary

Remember that working on Customer Journey should bring your company real benefits – also in the form of an increase in revenues. This will only happen when you solve your clients’ real problems by working with an experienced, interdisciplinary team.

Also read, Definitions of Service Design.