For the love of customer journeys

Customer journeys. Journey mapping. Customer experience mapping.

Sounds like gobbledygook?

Not for us in the land of marketing and communications. Why? You see, customer journey mapping (CJM) is an integral part of the foundation of building strategy.

Very simply, a customer journey map is an in-depth, step-by-step visual representation of a customer's experience with a company at every touchpoint.

We’re sure you know your customers’ journey and experience with your business, we’re sure you do. But, trust us. Get it down on paper (or online) and we can guarantee, if done well, you’ll find out things you never knew or realised, that will benefit your business and importantly, your customers.

There are a few essential elements required before heading off on the journey mapping experience: 1) customer personas; and 2) an understanding of each touchpoint that a customer goes through with your business.

Why are customer journeys so important for businesses? This process enables teams to identify areas for improvement, improve the customer experience, and understand how customers interact with a brand, product, or service. The information in the map provides deep insights into customer thoughts and values and enables businesses to create meaningful engagement points with customers that drive conversion (ie sales) and long-term retention.

Importantly, it also helps businesses identify gaps in service delivery, and even product.

For marketing and communications teams all of this feeds the best, so to say. The information garnered in these journeys provides key insights into the wants and needs of customers, their drivers, their values and behaviours. It also tells us what they’re looking for at each and every step of the journey.

This helps us to build messaging, create content and also the personalisation experience for customers. As it does the business, the customer journey map also helps marketing and communications teams identity gaps in marketing and communications activities that would further facilitate the customer experience, and assist sales, business development and customer service teams.

The customer journey map brings all divisions / departments together to gain clear insight into the customer experience with their business.

But this isn’t a set and forget process. To ensure that you are always aware of how your customers are engaging with, and want to engage with your business, journey mapping must be done on a regular basis. What does regular mean? We don’t mean weekly, or monthly. We could recommend a review is done at least annually to ensure you’re on the right path.

We do recommend this is done in conjunction with a review of customer personas and a review of the touchpoints in your business. Like with all things, customers change, technologies change and the wants and needs of customers change as they move through the world. If your business does not respond to these changes and continues as they ever did, they may indeed get left behind, and your marketing and communications teams with forever be fighting a losing battle.

So, do your business and your marketing and communications teams a favour, instil customer journey mapping in your business. Even better, ensure your marketing and communications teams are either running the process or at least leading the pack.