Customer Journey Mapping Doesn't Have to Be a Waste of Time
Customer journey mapping is a rather simple concept. It defines the stages that a customer goes through to engage with your company. It also details the experience with a product or service, in-store and online.
Journey maps are emerging as a major tool for companies’ user experience and customer experience programs. This is why a customer experience head is very important for the success of the company.
Journey maps are built from the customers’ point of view, designed to capture customers’ expectations and needs, diagrams the journey the customer takes to get his need met, and aims to help the company understand and make decisions that are in the customers’ best interests.
So what’s the correlation between meeting customer needs and maximizing customer satisfaction?
According to McKinsey & Company, “Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20% but also to lift revenue by up to 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%.”
The question now is not so much whether you need a great customer experience but how do you effectively design one?
Here are some pointers:
- LISTEN:- When customers provide feedback on their experience with your company, really listen. Understanding what customers like and dislike can do wonders for your company performance and bottom line.
- CHARACTERIZE:- Do research on your customers. Develop persona profiles and consider the types of things and the types of people who might buy from you.
- EMPATHIZE:- Take a minute to put yourself into the customers’ shoes. Take the journey with them and see if what you are offering is what they really want or need.
