How to Create a Customer Journey Map to Live Your Customers’ Experience

It is not enough to design your company’s customer journey; you must also experience what it is like to be a customer.

Your company can create a customer journey map to determine the steps a person takes from the moment they realize they have a need (also known as a pain point) until that need is met. It’s similar to when we want to go on a trip: we plan it first, and then we stick to it until the end.

As a manager or business owner, you want to know every step your potential customer takes so you can get ahead of them and offer them a solution before they look for it themselves or go to your competition to solve their need. For more information on what the customer journey means, read our article “What is a customer journey and why is it important?“

There have been several television programs in recent years where the owner of a company pretends to be a customer to learn about the problems of your company; something similar to this is what we want to propose, that you can give the entire journey that makes a customer in your company, in the same way, that the television program does, but for the process of marketing and sales planning.

This is the first of three articles in which we will develop the topic; in the first article we will develop the first three steps for the construction of the Customer Journey, and we will continue with the topic in subsequent posts until we reach the end.

Creating your customer journey map

To create your customer journey map, you must be clear on the steps the customer will take from the moment they realize they have a pain point until they make a purchase. E-commerce sites and businesses in general around the world are quickly realizing that a great customer experience is where the money is. Poor customer service negatively impacts the customer experience, as 89% of e-commerce consumers attest. They quickly stop shopping at stores that offer poor customer service. Given that it costs 6-7 times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an old one, improving the customer experience is even more important.

Other interesting statistics are as follows:

• 55% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
• After experiencing a service-related problem, a customer is four times more likely to purchase from a competitor than after experiencing a price or product-related problem.
• A ten percent increase in customer retention translates into a thirty percent increase in perceived company value
• The steps to create the customer journey for your company are as follows:

Setting objectives

An objective is the desired outcome or goal to be attained. It is what motivates both individuals and businesses to make decisions or pursue their goals. It is the goal for which it is planned, and it must be verified whether or not it has been achieved at the end of the period established to take the necessary corrective actions.

Each objective we set should be SMART:

• Specific: Aim for a measurable outcome.
• Measurable: It is necessary to be able to measure the goal in order to determine whether it has been met.
• Attainable: We cannot set goals that we cannot meet because this will frustrate our employees.
• Relevant: The outcome must have a significant impact on business performance.
• Time-bound: Our goals must have a target date or time frame to complete them.

Examples of SMART objectives:

• By the end of the fourth quarter of this year, we will have determined what kind of information people require to make a purchasing decision by implementing 30 e-mail surveys.
• Determine which product in our portfolio is the most appealing in the next four weeks by calling 35 potential customers and asking direct questions.
• By the end of this year, we will know which phase of our process is causing us to lose up to 15% of our potential customers and we will reduce this value by 10%.

How to establish your Buyer Persona

To create your Buyer Persona, you will need to collect data from both your customers and people who fit the profile you are looking for. There are numerous ways to accomplish this, such as direct interviews, emails, forms, etc. Some of the questions that can be asked in any of the options you choose are:

• Gender and age
• How did you find out about our company?
• What drew you to our website?
• Have you ever made a purchase from our website?
• Have you ever entered our site intending to make a purchase but were unable to do so, and if so, why were you unable to do so?
• If you could change anything on our website, what would you change and why?
• Have you dealt with our customer service, and if so, how was your experience?
• How easy is it to navigate our site on a scale of 1 to 10?

In the end, we can have one or two buyer persona descriptions. We can make a strategy that includes both or focus only on one to achieve the objectives we have set in point one. Once we have decided whether to work with one or several buyer personas, we must maintain that objective and not modify it until the deadline established in the objectives has been met to be able to objectively evaluate the fulfillment of the objective.

In our next article, we will continue to address this topic.