Marketing has one goal: to reach consumers at the exact moment they are making a decision. That’s why consumer electronics companies ensure their televisions are displayed both in stores and showcase vivid, high-definition images. It’s why Walmart has chocolate bars and magazines in the check-out line, and why Amazon offers targeted product recommendations to consumers already logged in and ready to buy.

This moment is part of the customer journey that every consumer goes through. It allows businesses to understand how their users behave on their website, and what they can do to improve their experience, so the customer keeps coming back.

There’s no easy way to understand your customer’s experience, that’s why many turn to customer journey maps. A customer journey map has both positives and negatives, and like any other marketing research, it boils down to two things:

• Identifying the goal and purpose behind it.
• Knowing how to actually apply and use it.

We highly recommend you keep both of these criteria in mind when using customer journey maps.

What are customer journey maps?

Customer journey maps represent the interactions your customers have with your brand, service, or product. Using a journey map, you can see where you may be missing the mark, what you are doing right, and where you can make improvements across the customer lifecycle.

Journey maps detail all touchpoints a customer may have with your brand—from what they initially learn about you through social media or brand advertising to their direct interactions with your product, website, and support team—and any actions they take over time to complete an objective.

How do customer journey maps improve the customer experience?

A visual breakdown of your current processes can help you understand what customers are experiencing in real-time and may reveal pain points that need to be addressed.

This approach provides two major benefits:

• The decision-makers can keep focused on the customers.
• It simplifies each step of the buying process for potential leads.

Even if you have the best marketing team, if your customers aren’t satisfied, you won’t be able to succeed.

What are the components of a customer journey map?

To create an optimized customer journey map, you’ll need the following components:

• Buyer personas represent your target customers based on detailed market research. For example, they include attributes such as age, gender, and title. Each buyer persona has its own specific buying behavior. That’s why you need to design a different customer journey map for each persona. By using the information collected about the buyer persona, you can create a customized journey for that persona.
• Customer stages are commonly referred to as the marketing funnel. The customer acquisition process consists of the following stages: awareness, consideration, decision, and retention.
• Understanding your customers’ goals at each stage is crucial. To determine your customers’ goals, collect data through surveys, interviews, and customer service emails. Then match them to the customer journey touchpoints.
• At each customer stage, identify the touchpoints your brand has with your customers on specific web pages or ads. As an example, awareness-stage touchpoints could include short-form landing pages, case studies, webinars, and your blog.
• Maintain a time frame using data collected through customer analytics. By conducting surveys and interviews, you can set realistic expectations for when various customer stages will end. To convince customers to move to the next stage, you should know how long your touchpoints take.
• Since the client’s journey is told from the customer’s perspective, you’ll need to keep into consideration which emotion (whether delight or frustration) your customer is likely to feel. This helps you ascertain if they will move from one stage to the other.

Customer journeys can greatly differ between industries and depending on whether you are selling to individuals or large corporations. Regardless of the unique characteristics of your business and customers, there are universal steps to follow. These include:

• Awareness: discovering the business
• Searchability: reading reviews and locating the business
• Interest: finding out why they should buy from the business
• Purchase: buying the product from the business
• Experience: enjoying the product and advocating for the business

This whole concept revolves around building empathy for your client and focusing on their problems and paths, not your possible solutions.

A Guide to Creating Comprehensive Customer Journey Maps

Step 1: Identify your customer and what the customer wants.

Consider your customer’s perspective and plan all your touchpoints around that approach. They’re the reason you exist.

Frequently, businesses overlook this important detail in favor of marketing, SEO, social media, and branding. While all of these aspects are essential to running a business, you cannot forget about your customers and the way they interact with your brand.

How was their experience? How easy is it for visitors to navigate your website and does it provide all the information they need?

Questionnaires and user testing are great ways to get this information; just make sure you get feedback only from people who are actually interested in purchasing your products and services, and who have interacted with your company or plan to do so in the future.

Step 2: Identify touchpoints

You have a chance to increase your sales every time a customer encounters your brand, whether it’s before (advertisement), during (visit to a website or store), or after (positive or negative feedback, return experience, newsletter).

We call these interactions “touchpoints”.

By using this information, you can identify obstacles that may occur during the customer’s journey.

Having a quick and seamless sales process where the customer is in and out in no time is just as important as providing high-quality products or services. Happy customers become loyal customers.

Step 3: Create your graphic

The graph should not be too complicated, but it must include both analytical and anecdotal research data. It will highlight when customers stop interacting or get frustrated, so your team can adjust its approach.

In every transaction, there are countless possibilities, so it’s impossible to predict every possible scenario. However, knowing where the blips are is crucial.

Graphs are useful for understanding customer behavior, identifying problems, and identifying successes.

Start Using Assist90’s Business App

To generate personalized user behavior reports for your site, start by using Assist90’s Business app.

Our business app works as a dashboard that can give you proof-of-performance automated reporting, showing you where your customers’ touchpoints are.

When a customer first discovers your business, they should be entering a streamlined adventure that keeps them satisfied and coming back to you for all their business needs. We can help you map that journey. Contact Assist90 today at (314) 560-5649 or visit us online to see our wide selection of brand-awareness products or to book an assessment.