Customer Journey Map

» How to develop and design a customer journey-Map that guides through current-State assumption planning, pain-Point identification and future-State visioning.«

Number of Participants	Facilitators	Category	Duration	Level of Difficulty
Whole Team	1 (optional)	Empathize, Define, Ideate, Test Phase	Ongoing Process	Moderate

Description

Customer Journey Map is a valuable UX tool for recognizing what motivates the customers and/or users – what their desires, questions and issues are. While most businesses and app developers collect data concerning their customers very well, data alone does not reflect concerns and problems encountered by customers. Journey mapping combines two powerful instruments: storytelling and visualization (Kaplan, 2016).

Materials

• Pens, Markers
• Post-Its
• Clipboard & Flipchart Paper
• Pizza Boxes

Preparation

Since the preparation is also included in the instructions, there is no need to mention any preparation here. In fact, these preparations are the collection of research about the users using apps or product and the processing the research outcome for the customer journey-mapping.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Journey mapping begins in its most simple form by gathering a number of user activities in a timeline. The timeline is then defined by user ideas and emotions to create a plot / narrative. This narrative is simplified and polished, leading directly to visualization.
There are 5 key elements of journey maps:

Create Actor: Define the Personas, Understand Who Your Customers Are

The user personas defined during a product discovery session serve as the basis for a customer travel map. User people are also sometimes referred to as actors throughout this process. The persona or the actor is the one who makes the journey. Provide one view point per map to build a strong, clear narrative, since different views would result in different journeys. For example, you are creating a taxi app and you must clearly provide one perspective point per map: Taxi drivers and passengers. You should create different stories and build separate maps as their interests and purpose are different.
Effective user personas begin with research about the users. The only way to accurately understand the people who interact with the product is through user research. The people’s interviews and observational studies in ways in which they use or interact with the product can show various behaviors, attitudes and emotions. The insights of user research are absolutely necessary to ensure that the design direction of the product is relevant to users. The quantity of research into the development of a product directly influences the accuracy.
It is important to build a persona from a customers’ point of view, not an internal business point of view (Goddard & Hoskie, 2018).

Scenarios and Expectations: Understand Your User’s Goals

Once you’ve defined your persona, you must identify the stages of the customer’s journey. What process does it take to start from consideration all the way through buying your product or services? Based on the persona, determine the expectations, scenarios and stages that your customer experiences with you over time. One scenario, for example, could be switching mobile plans to save money, and the expectations include easily finding all the information needed to decide.

Describe the Touchpoints Your Customers Use to Interact With Your Organization

A “touchpoint” means when a customer comes into contact with your brand – before, after or during your purchase. You’ll want to take into account all potential contact points that occur between your customers and your organization. That way, you’re not going to miss any opportunity to listen to your customers and make improvements that will keep them happy. But first, we should know how to identify the touchpoints. This task can be made easier by putting yourself in your customer’s or user’s shoes and walking yourself through their journey step-by-step.

Then ask yourself the following:

• “Where do I go (and how do I get there) when…”
• … I have a [problem that your product/company solves]?
• … I discover the product or business that solves my problem?
• … I make my decision for the purchase?
• … I encounter the business again after the purchase?

Conduct Research

While you may have to provide some participatory opportunities, most people are happy to contribute when they understand that you genuinely want to learn their experience and use their input to better things for others. Seek to classify for every point of the journey:

• What were their aims, what did they want?
• How did they find the method to be?
• The steps and points that they used to finish the stage
• How did they feel emotionally in every touch and why?
• The point they had other thoughts
• How long did it take to finish?

Also you can especially identify the pain points of your customers by asking these questions:
Are my customers achieving their goals on my website?
Where are the main areas of friction and frustration?
Where are people abandoning purchases (and why)?
Once you know where the roadblocks, points and pain points are, mark them down on your customer journey map.

Prioritize, Update and Fix the Issues, and Resolve:

“What needs to be corrected or built up? Is it necessary to break everything down and start from scratch? Or are a few simple changes all that’s needed to make a big impact?”
These questions should be asked in order to improve and adapt. For example, if customers often complain about how complicated your registration process is, it’s probably time to rework it and make things easier. After you have identified these roadblocks, take a step back and look at the big picture from a macro perspective. Recognize that the ultimate goal is not to optimize each step or touchpoint just for the sake of optimizing it, but to push your customers down the enclosure and bring them one step closer to conversion.

Remarks, Tips, Limitations

• Journey mapping is a process which provides an overall view of the client experience through a series of interactions, uncovering moments of frustration and pleasure. Successfully done, it reveals opportunities for addressing the pain points of customers, alleviating fragmentation and ultimately creating a better experience for your users.
• Once it is complete, the customer journey map should not be left to collect dust on the shelf. Because your customers are constantly changing and evolving, your customer travel map should also be the same. Consider this a living document that will continue to grow and develop.
• If possible, test, update and improve your customer travel map every 6 months or so. In addition, customer journey maps should also be adjusted accordingly whenever you make significant changes to your product / service.
• There are some tools that help you create, edit and update a customer journey map.
• Unless employees or team members are properly briefed on customer journey mapping, there is a danger that CJM may be viewed as more of a workshop exercise than a practical tool (Davey, 2020).
• While taking on-board the opinions of your employees is a good starting point for customer journey mapping, you must validate these internal views by speaking with the customers themselves.

References

Davey, N. (2020, July 16). Seven reasons why customer journey mapping goes wrong. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.mycustomer.com/customer-experience/engagement/seven-reasons-why-customer-journey-mapping-goes-wrong
Gibbons, S. (2018). Journey Mapping 101. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-mapping-101/
Goddard, P., & Hoski, K. (2018, April 21). 5 Essential Components of Effective Customer Journey Maps. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.tandemseven.com/journey-mapping/5-essentials-for-customer-journey-maps/
Kaplan, K. (2016). When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping/
Ross, L. (2020, May 14). Customer Journey Mapping – Six Steps to Creating The Complete… Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.invespcro.com/blog/customer-journey-maps/
What is Customer Journey Map? (2020). Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.visual-paradigm.com/guide/customer-experience/what-is-customer-journey-mapping/

Contributed by Engin Teymur.