What is Journey Mapping?
Although we have published more than 130 articles on customer experience, we still have not dedicated an article to journey mapping. Journey mapping is the most widely recognized customer experience design and management concept. It is also the most poorly executed customer experience tool.
Myriad organizations spend countless hours and effort creating journey maps that remain nothing more than a record of the bad experience taking place in their organization or a map of what could happen to their employees and customers. However, there is rarely any real organizational commitment, or funding, behind it.
I genuinely dislike journey maps. To me, they create busy work that leaders use as justification to continue the practice of no funding and no real improvement of human experiences. Last week, one of our clients asked me what is journey mapping, so I decided it is time to talk about what journey mapping is. And, more importantly, what it is not.
Journey Mapping is a Visual Tool
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this. A journey map is a tool for experience design. That is all. A journey map is a good internal communication tool. On its own, a journey map cannot change customer or employee experience.
It raises awareness about the difficulties your customers have using your products or services. And it can elevate the executive buy in for strategic, end-to-end customer experience investments.
Simply put, a journey map is a visual representation of the experience of an employee or a customer.
What are the Building Blocks of Journey Mapping?
The first step in the process of journey mapping is to identify the “persona” whose “journey” you will map. This step is critical, because different personas have vastly different needs and challenges. Moreover, one person can be two personas in your journey mapping process depending on context. A woman can be a business traveler persona going through a physical space. The same woman can act as the mom persona when going through that same space with her spouse and child on vacation. So, take the time to define your persona and stick with it throughout the process.
The second step is to choose a journey. This is where you can get buried in details and produce lengthy, overwhelming journey maps that few individuals can absorb, let alone use. So, what do we mean by journey? Think about which customer interaction you want to analyze. For instance, identify whether it is to open a new bank account, to pay a medical bill, or to buy a train ticket.
It is also essential to document the “commitments” of the people making the journey map with you. Let’s assume you find out that your healthcare system only shares medical information in English. But your population is comprised of primarily Spanish speaking consumers. The impactful way to use the map is to identify, within the cross functional group working on the map, who can fix that problem. Find the right people to lead the charge.
The Right Way to Use a Journey Map
The award winning check-in experience at JFK Terminal 5 was the result of multiple, extensive, journey mapping exercises. When we were in the design phase at JetBlue, we had 40 – 50 people in a room discussing what the existing customer experience was, what would be nice to have, and what would be necessary to do for better customer and employee experience in the future.
Through the process of journey mapping, we brought the voice of the customer to parts of the organization that never had to think of the customer before.
Next, we assigned ownership to functional heads including marketing, IT, operations, process effectiveness, data analytics, training and development. We had concrete takeaways. These takeaways mapped what each team needed to change, or seek funding for, in order to design the experience we imagined through journey mapping.
Finally, we built a comprehensive business case to present to the CFO. We asked for meaningful funding. Without this step, the journey map would have been nothing more than a theoretical exercise with no real impact on the airline.
Journey Mapping is a Strategic Tool
The time to start journey mapping is after you have defined your brand and experience vision. The journey map helps businesses express brand and experience vision through their products and services.
Just as every strategy has tactics that bring it to life, journey mapping is a tool that defines operational and business tactics that bring the experience to life. You cannot do journey mapping in isolation. Journey mapping is a cross functional tool that creates empathy among the individuals who create the journey.
For this reason, all relevant stakeholders need to be in the room, not only to build empathy, but to get buy in for the changes the journey map requires, as we laid out in our JetBlue example.
At the end of the day, journey mapping is good business (if it is done correctly). According to McKinsey, higher satisfaction with customer journeys has “the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20%, but also lift revenue up by 15% ,while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%.”
Not a bad ROI. Just keep in mind, you only get those results if you use journey mapping as a tool, not an end in itself.
Liliana Petrova, CCXP
Freelance Customer Experience Lessons for Freelancers
For small businesses and freelancers alike, it’s important to recognize that your business is as strong as the relationships you build with your customers. That’s just one of the key…
When There is No Chat in Chat Support
Today we talk about chat support best practices, the customer experience VALUE that it creates, and the ROI of the business case to implement it. Although we are skeptical about…
Can One Email Build Loyalty? #MYWESTELM
This is exemplary management of the post-purchase journey touch-point. For years, this level of management has been non-existent. At best, it tends to come in the form of an email confirmation that purchased items have been delivered.
The seamless travel experience we deserve
This week on the CES 2020 main stage Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian presented a vision about the future of seamless travel experience that “might happen in just a few years.”…
What is Customer Experience? What are the Faces of CX?
Each area of CX represents a path for CX professionals to impact business health and build successful careers. One of my favorite CX analogies is that it is like the blood in our bodies. When CX is done well, it touches every aspect of an organization. That’s what makes customer experience so much fun! You will never be bored working in CX.
How Southwest Can Own Customer Experience Again
The collapse of the Southwest passenger experience this holiday season is an unlikely jumping off point for a conversation on how to own customer experience transformation. Unfortunately, it is not…
5 Tips to Create Great Customer Experience Design Strategy
A customer experience design strategy that is sustainable and successful starts by having a vision and knowing who your customer is. This launching point enables you to design customer experiences…
Why Your Employee Experience Journey Matters
This week, Andy Newman wrote a great article in The New York Times about the life of a retail sales agent. He used the example of an Old Navy sales…
What is Wayfinding?
I did not always know what wayfinding means. But ever since I left Bulgaria to come to America I have been looking to find my way. The first time I…
How @T4 makes real customer experience impact
Today we share our impressions from visiting our welcoming host Chad at JFK Terminal 4 in NYC. We also celebrate Chad as an effective Customer Experience professional/practitioner. His work is…
Customer Experience Tips and Best Practices In 2017?
This is Post 2 of Liliana Petrova’s series on customer experience. She shares customer experience tips, lessons learned, and best practices for the new year. And dives into organizational culture…
Customer Journey Mapping Tools in 2021
Before we dive into customer journey mapping tools, we must keep in mind that, by itself, journey mapping is not a customer experience product or service. A journey map is…
Do You Know Why The Iconic Brand Toys ‘R’ Us Closed Doors Despite All Our Memories? #RetailBlues
The year is 2016. You are the CEO of Toys ‘R’ Us. Your brand still controls 13.6% of the toy market although the company is highly leveraged, a strategy of…
The ROI of Investing in Organizational Culture
Investing in organizational culture is a strategic and operational imperative for employee retention, scalable growth, and successful mergers and acquisitions. Organizational culture is not what you do as a leader…
WeWork Does Customer Experience Right with a Wow Moment
Used at the right time and place along the customer’s journey, the Wow Moment is an excellent retention technique. When a brand creates personal, relevant experience at exactly the right time, it can build a lifelong, loyal customer relationship.
The ROI of Customer Experience
Knowing the ROI of customer experience helps to fund CX projects and make intelligent investments in customer experience. But a deeper examination into the question about CX return on investment…
Extend the Customer Journey with AI
Superior customer experience hinges on seamless customer journeys. We build strategies around this, design CX programs, and map the journeys of customer personas, all with the aim to meet customer…
What is Big Data and Why Should I Care?
Big data has become part of our daily language. We read about it. We see companies that are “experts in big data.” LinkedIn is filled with engineers and analysts who…
JetBlue Leading Customer Experience
Since I used to lead the JetBlue customer experience, people often ask what is behind the JetBlue experience magic. Or, as one of our clients refers to it, the “JetBlue…
Create Your Tribe: How Great CX Makes a Lifestyle Brand
Newcomers to the market realize that their business is only as strong as the growth of their customer base. With that in mind, senior leaders work hard to shorten the distance between them and the customer.
Customer Loyalty Begins In-House
Ten years ago, creating customer loyalty meant assigning a membership number customers fed back to brands at the time of purchase. Customers went through the trouble of keeping track of loyalty numbers, hoping to collect enough points along the
The Great Re-onboading: How to Bring Back Your Employees
Re-onboarding is the next employee experience organizations need to tackle. Since March 2020, leaders have encountered pandemic shutdowns, remote workforce transitions, and the Great Resignation. As restrictions lift and we…
5 Ways Customer Experience Consultants Keep Customer Promises
Customer experience is the follow-through on brand promises across every interaction. Some organizations assume the importance of customer experience is limited to commercial brands. This is far from true. In…
What is the Real Cost of Employee Experience?
There are two types of leaders (and organizational cultures) that stand to benefit most from improving employee experience. The first kind have 40% or higher turnover and think their frontline…
#CXTHUS Exchange Insights – winners and losers?
Attending a customer experience conference is a significant investment of time and money. Even if you are speaker at the conference, like I was last week, the time away from…
Why Good CX Programs Fail
Digital technology powers employee experience on the inside to deliver seamless, intuitive experience to customers on the outside. So, when you are creating Customer Experience Programs, you must plan and…
Customer Experience Best Practices for 2018?
The JetBlue blog features Liliana Petrova in a new four-part series. The series is on Customer Experience and Customer Experience Innovation. 2017 Lessons Liliana gathers insight from 2017 customer experience…
What You Need To Do To Start 2018 Right
It is the end of December and we are all in reflective moods. Did I do enough for my customer experience career this year? Did I build the right team…
Customer Experience Audit: Cadillac Scores Millennial Customers with Future-Forward Thinking
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a Customer Experience Audit series. See all the audit stories. The automotive industry is right next to the airline industry in terms of…
A Lot of Data, Not Enough Insight
A month ago I saw a Forrester presentation on Customer Experience measurement that began with a great quote from the Global Bank: “We are drowning in data and starving for…
How Smart Do Humans Want AI To Get?
Earlier, we covered the basics of AI and what it is in theory. Today, we talk more about existing practical applications of AI and more examples of artificial intelligence. And…
Customer Experience ROI. Is It Worth Doing?
The business case for Customer Service is complex. Gone are the days when we bought a piece of hardware that depreciates over 5 or 10 year on the balance sheet. CX does not even show up on our assets list. At least not with that name.
How to make work at home work?
Post-COVID employee experience is a top priority of every HR executive. Most executives I know are losing sleep over this piece of organizational culture. Their challenge is to design the…
Is AI Really The Answer?
Earlier this week we shared some of the pitfalls of implementing self-service and highlighted the importance of strategic and empathetic implementation. AI (artificial intelligence) is one of the self-service tools…
What Holiday Parties Teach about Hospitality
Last week The Petrova Experience, like many companies, hosted our holiday party. In good customer experience fashion, we put significant effort into finding the perfect location. We agonized over the…
3 Cost Conscious Mistakes in Hospitality Implementation that Lose Money
Hospitality is a cornerstone of customer experience in travel, healthcare, and across industries. There is no question that hospitality is essential for creating world class, seamless experiences and driving customer…
How to Prepare for AI: Dispatches from CR Summit, Charleston
On the eve of the #CRSummit in Charleston, customer experience leaders from various industries held the first AI Committee meeting. AI is a challenging topic to cover because it has…
Customer Facing Experience: Communication and Hospitality
Today, we are talking about communication as part of the customer facing experience. This is one of the most misused and misinterpreted notions both in our professional lives and our…
What Can Casino Consulting Firms Learn from Airlines?
Today we’re talking about casino experience. Casinos and airlines are similar in their operational complexity and sense of wonder. They also are similar in the way they can implement technology…
Patient Experience Trends in 2021 – Telehealth is Here to Stay
Today, we continue our series about 2021 Customer Experience trends and tactics. We take a closer look at patient experience and what telehealth means for the future. Both for patients…
Think Strategically about Telehealth in 2021
Today, we examine telehealth strategy for an in-depth look at this 2021 customer experience trend. As we continue our conversation about why telehealth is here to stay in 2021, we…
It’s Time to Meet The Petrova Experience!
Today marks one of the big milestones in my life. This is the day I am officially choosing to live my dream. We are launching The Petrova Experience, a customer…
Liliana Petrova Talks Patient Experience in Healthcare Podcast
Recently, we recorded a podcast on patient experience in healthcare with Stacey Richter. Today, we are excited to share it with you. On the episode, we discuss travel and healthcare…
How to Sell the C-Suite on Customer Experience
You finally got your big career break. You are leading a project that requires executive approval. So, now what? Intuitively, you know that this is a chance to make a…
5 Things You Can Do to Provide Excellent Passenger Experience in 2022
The Wall Street Journal predicts this Thanksgiving will be among the busiest travel days in decades, with 55 million travelers anticipated to be moving through US airports and other transportation…
From Pain Points to Magical Moments: Transform the Customer Experience
Argyle Journal interviewed Liliana Petrova about emerging self service technology and meeting and exceeding customer expectations in airports. One such way, as Liliana explains, is to create magical customer experience…
Customer Engagement ROI
We have discussed the power of employee engagement for your brand. And we have explained the true meaning and ROI of a working organizational culture (a culture that starts at…
Return to Office – how to get it right in 2022?
Last week, the CEO of Better.com, Vishal Gard, made the news again. This time, it was for the executive’s massive blunder of firing 900 people via Zoom. A blunder that…
Customer Experience Audit: eBay’s Vibrant Marketplace of the Future
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series of Customer Experience Audits. They highlight advances in artificial intelligence in retail and other technologies. See all audit stories. Two years…
CX Skills Builders: You May Have a CX Job and Not Know It
Last week we talked about the identity crisis of CX professionals and we urged you to fix any small problem or seam on the customer journey in order to build internal brand equity and buy in.
What is Journey Mapping?
Although we have published more than 130 articles on customer experience, we still have not dedicated an article to journey mapping. Journey mapping is the most widely recognized customer experience…
How Facial Recognition Works for Your Customers?
One of the hurdles for Customer Experience Consultants like us is proving the business case for bringing us on board. Leaders often think that if they talk about being customer-centric…
Diversity is more than difference of color
Yesterday I had the privilege to join a panel on how to develop diversity and inclusion on your teams at Developer Week in Brooklyn. I was really excited to learn…
What is Telemedicine? Keeping Medicine at the Heart
Guest Post by Dr. Melynda Barnes for The Petrova Experience. In this post Dr. Barnes answers the question “what is telemedicine,” and reminds us to keep medicine at the heart…
Customer Experience, Self Service, and the Gift of Time
Time is the most precious gift in life. If you think about it, time is the one thing we all want more of. As we get older and busier, time gets even more valuable to us.
Customer Experience Audit: New York Times Beats Google
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series of Customer Experience Audits. In this series we walk you through customer experience examples across industries. We feature brands that made…
Top CX Design Challenges in 2021
Customer experience design challenges in 2021 remind us of the overall challenges that face organizations in a year marked by changing expectations and demands. Top customer experience design challenges include…
How Hospitality Can Save Tourism
Travel experience experts need to remember why people travel. For most tourists, it is all about the destination. The destination is why you leave home. Before you make the decision…
End to End Customer Experience – How to Get it Right
When we think of travel, we often think of the flight experience. But the end to end customer experience is complex, and includes all modes of transportation that get you…
How Well Do You Understand AI Applications?
In the last week I spoke about AI at the Argyle Forum webinar and at the ConnectID Conference in Washington, DC. Technology is emerging
The Wholehearted Traveler and Other 2024 Travel Trends
Back in 2020, we predicted the rise of the Revenge Traveler and the impact it would have on travel and hospitality experience providers. As we approach 2024, we are spotting…
Would You Pitch In To Save Toys “R” Us For Your Children To Experience? #ToysRUsGoFundMe
Last week we laid out the big moves that the leadership of Toys ‘R’ Us failed to take to evolve with customer needs and thus joins other brands as examples of…
How to approach Return-to-Office Resistance
There is a general resistance to return to office. People do not want to go back to the pre-pandemic office routine, particularly to a 5-day-a-week, in-office schedule. Out of ten…
The ROI of Customer Experience Programs
What customer experience is, and how well brands think they are executing customer experience, and how well they are actually doing it are often at odds. According to Bain, 80%…
Customer Experience Plan is More Important than Ever
Last week we published eight Customer Experience Trends to look out for in 2021. Today we are diving deeper into the first one: Customer Experience is more important than ever…
How Does Social Media Affect Customer Experience?
Social Media is the only real-time channel for successful brands to manage customer experience and brand management.
Lessons Learned at the Forrester Conference: “Data is the New Sexy”
Once a year I look for an event to attend where I can learn something new and get better at what I do. This year, I attended an event hosted…
Do You Know Where Your Inventory Is?
When I worked in the airline business our most embarrassing incident was “losing a minor”. We never lost a child, of course. But we might not have known where a…
Bad Customer Experience
Doing the right thing when things go wrong is not exactly a good business case. But many do it anyway. Why? Because brands want to protect (and grow) their brand…
Customer Experience Technology View of your Call Center
By 2022 the global cloud based contact center market is growing from USD 6.8Bn in 2017 to 20.93Bn in 2022. This makes for CAGR of 25.2%. If you do not…
What is Revenge Travel and Why People Do It
LinkedIn is overflowing with articles and company news in response to COVID-19. We are starting to see renderings of future casino experiences that are anything but human-centric. People are beginning…
3 Challenges of Hybrid Working and How to Overcome Them
According to a Gallup study, 53% of Americans expect to work in a hybrid arrangement in 2022 and beyond. This number is significant enough for corporate America to get hybrid…
Employee Centric Culture – Culture is King
In 2017 we introduced our ROI series recognizing the challenges all customer experience professionals have to obtain funding for CX initiatives and to prove their positive returns. Our second ROI…
CX Skills Builder: How to articulate your CX Value and secure your budget
Two weeks ago we urged you to find CX problems and fix them instead of diagnosing and mapping them. That is
Holiday Wishes for Great CX: Career Advice Edition
Every successful customer experience initiative starts with a skilled CX team. Brush up on your CX skills to strengthen the business case for CX; to develop relationships within your organization; and to deliver standout customer experiences in the new year.
Autonomous Customers, Traveler Privacy and More Questions for CX Professionals in a Changing World
“As we move toward a more automated culture, most travelers will adapt to a Jetsonian, automated lifestyle. Every industry we know will be disrupted. For those of us in aviation,…
3 Ways to Create a Better Employee Experience Strategy
Guest Post by Gabe Smith, CCXP for The Petrova Experience The relationship between employee experience strategy and customer experience has long been discussed. Without engaged employees, we’re told, it’s difficult…
How to Build Customer-Centric Culture
Before we address how to build customer-centric culture, let’s examine the terminology: what culture is and what it is not. Culture is not executives talking about high level strategy. Equally,…
Customer Experience Audit: Uber Bets On Self-Driving Cars With Big Volvo Purchase
The question that remains unanswered is who will be part of the future of transportation. Uber is going for the vertical integration – the whole pie. The future industry of urban transportation will be made of players in three different categories: cars, self-driving software, and ride-sharing network. In contrast, Lyft approaches the future through partnerships.
What is Human-Centered Design and how to Leverage it in 2021?
At its core, design is about value creation. In the world of Customer Experience, value-driven design requires CX professionals to use empathy to imagine a future customer experience that is…
Top 5 Customer Experience Design Principles in 2021
Customer experience design principles are difficult for organizations to understand and apply. Time and again, we see this in organizations, even though we encounter customer experience design principles in our…
Liliana Petrova Talks Patient Experience in Healthcare Podcast
Recently, we recorded a podcast on patient experience in healthcare with Stacey Richter. Today, we are excited to share it with you. On the episode, we discuss travel and healthcare…