Crafting Your Business’s Customer Journey Map: A How-To Guide

If you’ve never heard of a customer journey map, it will be no surprise that it can be incredibly helpful for businesses. It is an excellent way to visualise the entire experience your customers have with your company, from their first contact with you to when they become loyal customers.

We’re going to talk more about a customer journey map, why you should create one for your business, and how to create one for your business.

What is a Customer Journey Map?

You might be able to guess what a customer journey map is, but if you’re not sure, let me give you a quick definition.

A customer journey map (sometimes called a Customer Experience Map) visually represents all the different interactions between your customers and your business. Think of it like this: every interaction in your business is each dot and arrow on the map. A customer journey map shows your customers’ interactions with your business and the details of each step.

By mapping out the different steps in each customer’s experience of your company, it clarifies where your customers are struggling and where they’re having a difficult time. You can then use this information to redesign certain parts of your customer’s experience to make it better.

When Does a Business Need a Customer Journey Map?

You might think a customer journey map will never be necessary for your business, but it comes in handy for managing your customer’s experience.

It would help if you created a customer journey map when you identify any specific areas of your business that are struggling. You might use a customer journey map to help you prioritise the changes you want to make or see what customers think about certain parts of their experience with your company.

Types of Customer Journey Maps

There are different ways your customer journey map can be presented, depending on the kind of map you use to create it.

1. Current State Customer Journey Map

It would help if you created a customer journey map for each of your business’s current customers. This map will show you what steps your customer has taken so far with you, how they found your business and how they became a loyal customer. You can also use this information to highlight where you can improve the customer experience or tweak their product to make it more attractive.

2. Day-wise Customer Journey Map

You can also create a customer journey map of your customers’ different steps daily. You can use this to see what they do when they first arrive at your business or when they’re in between purchases. It will allow you to identify where you should make changes so your customers don’t waste time searching for certain tools or features.

3. Future State Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map can also show you what your customers want and need out of your business in the future. This timeline will show you how to make them even more loyal and keep them feeling great about your business.

4. Service Blueprint Customer Journey Map

You might also want to create a customer journey map for your business’s customers if they are unhappy with your service. You can use this map to see where they would like to see areas of improvement and find out what they would change if given a choice.

Benefits of Mapping Your Customer’s Journey

Benefits of mapping out your customers’ entire experience and identifying what they think of it include:

1. Helps You Understand Your Customers

You can use a customer journey map to peg down your customers’ thoughts about the differences between two of your business’s aspects. Did you know that there are two major types of customer journeys? An experienced buyer will follow one of two paths, depending on how the company integrates itself with its customers.

Your customer journey map will help you understand which customers are experiencing which journey. You might want to use a customer journey map to determine how your company can improve certain parts of your business.

2. Showcases Customer Journey Where You’re Struggling

If you aren’t using a customer journey map, it might be difficult for you to say what exactly is going wrong with your business. By creating a customer journey map, you can pinpoint problems in the process and identify opportunities for improvement.

3. Showcases Customer Journey Where You’re Strong

You can use a customer journey map to know exactly how your customer feels about certain parts of your business. If you’re trying to gain more customers, you can see which parts of your business are working well and which are not.

Helps You Prioritise Changes

If some particular business areas aren’t working, you can use a customer journey map to help you prioritise the changes you want to make.

How to Create a Customer Journey Map

Creating a Customer Experience Map is just like any other diagram or outline, but with more detail. To create a customer journey map, follow these steps:

1. Create Customers Personas

The first step in creating your customer journey map is to prepare some information about your customers. These are called customers personas. You can think of them as mini-profiles for each of your customers. It’s a great way to visualise the major differences between your customers and helps you understand the biggest issues they have with your business.

2. Define the Behavioural Stage and Identify Their Goals

Next, you should define the behavioural stage that your customers are in. It helps you understand what exactly they’re looking for from your business. You can identify their goals by asking them questions about their experiences with your business. You can also use surveys to find out what kinds of goals your customers have when interacting with your company and whether or not they’re satisfied with your service.

3. Identify Your Customer Touchpoints

Now it’s time to identify your customer touchpoints with your business. These are the different interactions in your business that customers have with you. Think about the specific stages of a customer’s transaction and how they interact with you throughout their experience. It will help you understand what each customer is looking for from your business.

4. Identify Pain Points

Once you understand the behavioural stage your customers are in, the pain points they’re experiencing, and the goals, it’s time to identify the actual problems occurring. You don’t want to create an ideal customer journey for yourself; you want to create a realistic one. Use your customer journey map to pinpoint what makes your customers feel uncomfortable or frustrated and find ways to improve these parts of their experience.

5. Get a Journey and Map Out the Experience

You’ll know you’ve succeeded when there is a clear connection from how a customer buys a product or service to how the company sells it and the experience for your customers. You want to make sure that the path from point A to point B gets easier and more intuitive for your customers and that the process is as convenient as possible.

6. Take Action

After you finish creating your customer journey map, make sure you take action on the problems along the critical moments of your customer’s journey. You should also create updates and progress reports for each problem you solve for your customers to track how your business is improving itself.

Tips for Creating a Customer Journey Map

There are some common mistakes that people make when creating a customer journey map, including:

1. Mapping an Ideal Journey

Don’t create an ideal customer journey for yourself! Instead, you should create one that is realistic and identifies your customers’ problems. If you’re unsure of some parts of your customer’s journey, talk to your customers directly or use surveys. If a customer isn’t happy with their experience, try to figure out if there is anything you can do to improve it.

2. Avoid Complex Details

When creating your customer journey map, avoid using too much detail. Try to keep the details simple to make it easy for your customers to follow.

3. Validate Your Customer Journey Map

When creating your customer journey map, it’s important to validate each point on the diagram. You can ensure that it accurately represents your customers’ experiences by talking directly to your customers. It’s important to keep customer feedback in mind when creating your customer experience map.

Final Words

Creating a Customer Experience Map is an important way to identify the problems occurring within your business. By identifying these problems and fixing them, you’ll make sure that your customers have a better experience and don’t feel frustrated by any small issues they might have along their journey with your business. You can also use the customer journey map to improve your marketing efforts so that you can increase your customer retention in the future.

Contact us on EMB

Team EMB

Our team of expert writers is committed to bringing insights on topics ranging in the fields of technology, marketing, and business. With a wide-reaching range of services on our platform, we help businesses achieve digital transformation end-to-end.