How To Create A Customer Journey Map? Learn more.

It may be challenging for your company to get into the minds of your customers. You could be wondering why a customer spends so long browsing your selection – and adding products to their cart – just to close the tab. Alternatively, you could be wondering why it’s taking your customers 10 moves to get from Point A to Point B when it should just be taking them one.

Whatever the uncertainty may be, the core cause is that you most likely don’t have a clear grasp of the customer journey, which is the process by which a customer interacts with a company so that they are able to achieve a certain goal.

Challenging Interaction Paths

Today’s consumers relate to brands in ways that are difficult to pin down. From gaining an appreciation of a brand via social media, through to getting a “thank you for your purchase” email following a successful transaction, there are often many and various steps in between.

This isn’t something which you can assume or predict founded on your internal perspective. A customer journey is quite specific to the physical experiences your customers have. Therefore, the best way to understand the journeys of your customers is by asking them.

When it comes down to having a good understanding your customer’s experience, there’s really no easy way to do this. Many organisations turn to customer journey maps. There are positives – as well as negatives – which come with customer journey maps, and like any other digital marketing research and documentation, it comes down to two aspects:

1. Spotting the goal and purpose behind it.
2. Understanding how to actually apply and use it.

If you go with customer journey maps, we highly recommend you keep the two criteria in mind.

What Is A Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a visual example of a customer’s experience with your brand. These images tell a story about how a customer moves through each of the phases of interaction – as well as experiences – during each phase.

Your customer journey map should incorporate touchpoints and moments of truth, but also potential customer feelings such as frustration or confusion in addition to any actions that you want the customer to take.

Customer journey maps are often founded on a timeline of events, for example:

• A customer’s first visit on your website,
• The way they progress towards their initial in-product experience, purchase, onboarding emails and cancellation.

Your customer journey maps could need to be custom-made to your business or product. However, the best way to identify as well as refine these phases is to talk to your customers.

Research your target audiences in order to understand how they make decisions to purchase, etc. Without a fundamental understanding of your customers and their needs, a customer journey map will not lead you to success. However, a well-constructed and researched customer journey map can give you the insights to improve your business’s customer experience drastically.

Correctly mapping your customer journey is a fundamental part of creating a win-win digital marketing strategy.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Become an advanced digital marketer with us and see how digital marketing can take your business from strength to strength.