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Topic(s): Customer Centricity CX & Business Strategy

Dos and Don'ts in Customer Journey Mapping

Most organizations are reasonably good at gathering data on their customers. But data often fails to communicate the frustrations and experiences of customers. A story can do that, and one of the best storytelling tools in business is the customer journey map.

What is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map tells the story of the customer’s experience: from initial contact, through the process of engagement and into a long-term relationship. It often provides a sense of the customer’s greater motivation. What do they wish to achieve, and what are their expectations of the organization?

The exercise of creating a map also helps a great deal in learning to think from a customer point of view instead of from the organizational structures.

We've seen journey maps been created with post-its on a large paper, beautiful infographics and some might even use customer journey mapping tools.

How do you create a customer journey map?

The output of the customer journey mapping process is the map itself – a practical and visual document that should be able to communicate a number of things:

  • The steps the customer takes, their expectations, concerns and state of mind and the outcome they are seeking at each stage.
  • What success looks like from their perspective and from the organization’s.
  • What the organization can influence and how their policies and processes affect customer experience, engagement, and value.
  • Moments of truth – the points in a journey that define the overall experience; positive and negative: The moments that present an opportunity to delight the customer. The things the customer expects and does not notice unless they are absent. These are the hygiene factors or the opportunities to dismay.
  • What the organization needs to do to deliver the desired outcomes.

Customer journey mapping is not a solo job. It's also never finished. Mapping the customer journey is a very valuable exercise to do across the organization. Include people from various departments, allowing a unique outlook on the customer.

 

Put yourself in the shoes of the customer!

Once you've created your customer journey map, it's a good idea to make a visualized version of it. Like an infographic to share across the organization. 

Finally, the journey map will also be a good guide to figure out which moments of interaction you need to monitor and improve on.