To make the most of a tool, you need to know it thoroughly. Today we’ll talk to you about the customer journey and how to create the customer journey map of your business in 6 steps.
- What is the customer journey?
- What are the stages of the customer journey?
- How to build your own customer journey map
- Customer journey map: conclusion
What is the customer journey?
It is a real path that the user takes when interacting with your brand, going through different channels and touchpoints, online but also offline. In a practical sense, the contact points are for example the moment in which potential customers visit your ecommerce, when they like a post on your social profile or when they open a newsletter that you sent them.
But what is the final destination of this user’s journey? Usually, the desire is what ends with an actual purchase on your online shop. The customer journey is not just a path that leads the user to buy, but, above all, actions that nourish an ongoing relationship of trust that leads the user to recognize the brand over time and to choose it again.
What are the stages of the customer journey?
There is no single “user journey”; in fact, the stages of the process can be different, depending on the type of customer and the need they must satisfy.
It is therefore difficult to establish precise and equal phases for everyone, but you’ll have to define those that you consider relevant for your brand and for your customers.
The customer journey is made up of the key events that occur between the moment in which the consumer becomes aware of a need he has to face and the moment in which he satisfies it, up to when he decides to share his experience with others.
Here is a general example where we examine most of the phases of the user’s journey:
- They become aware of a need.
The first phase focuses on becoming aware of a need, so the user will start looking for information to meet this need. They will probably already have an idea of which brands could help them, but they’re not aware of specific and concrete information on all the offers on the market. - They compare options to meet their needs.
After a potential customer has researched the offers available, they will begin a specific and more detailed study, comparing different brands, in order to determine which options can best meet their needs. - They try to acquire the desired offer.
This is the phase in which a potential customer becomes a customer, identifies the mechanisms necessary to purchase, uses your product or the services that your brand offers, to best meet their needs. - They require support from you.
After the purchase, it may happen that your customer requests support from your company to resolve a doubt about the product, or to learn how to use it to its fullest potential. The customer wants to get more out of the products you sell or the services of your brand. This phase can take place through direct contact on social networks, via email or via an assistance chat, but also through the blog or by means of tutorials on YouTube that you may have previously studied to facilitate customers in using the products you sell. - They consider whether to continue using your products.
When a customer reflects on the value they’re getting from your company and the products they use, they’re thinking directly whether to continue buying from you, or whether to cancel the use of an offer. They can also compare the current offer with that of competing brands, trying to find the best value for money. - They are satisfied and share their experience.
When your customer is satisfied with the purchase and the whole experience, they are committed to share their positive experience with your brand with family, friends, colleagues or perhaps on social media or online and non-online channels.
How to build your own customer journey map
First of all, you need to listen deeply to your customers, understand their needs and frustrations. The aim is not only to increase earnings but to make your consumers perceive the attention and care we reserve for them, offering an engaging, interactive and satisfying experience.
- What are your goals?
Ask yourself the right questions: “What are my business goals?”, “What do I want to achieve with my ecommerce?”, “What do I want users to do on my site?”.
Consider and combine all the objectives thanks to these questions, both the general ones related to the product, and the more specific ones related to the user’s path. - Do a lot of research
Collect as much information as possible about your potential customers. You can create your buyer personas, analyze the audience of your social networks, do interviews, request surveys via email in exchange for a small prize, etc. - Find touchpoints and channels
List all the contact points and channels that the customer has available to interact with your brand: social, ecommerce, adv, YouTube, word of mouth, newsletter, etc. Think about those that you have not yet included in your strategy and that perhaps could be integrated, generating advantages for your brand. Certainly new interesting ideas will emerge to implement an alternative strategy.
Remember that your customers can get in touch with your reality in many different ways. - Create the map of empathy
The winning way of any brand is to focus on the users. How do your customers react when they interact with your brand? What reaction do they have? Do you share the same values or not? Creating a so-called empathy map will help visually represent the different emotional aspects of a person and their experiences in specific scenarios along your customer journey.
Tracing the empathic profile of the personas will help you develop a deeper understanding of how that user feels in that experience, focusing in particular on what they think, see, hear, say when they interact with your brand. - Targeted brainstorming
Write down all the considerations that will have emerged from the previous phases and brainstorm following very specific keywords related to your business; in this way it will be easier for you to identify possible solutions in the short term.
Viewing them in a visual and orderly way will help you understand how many problems coexist and can be solved with the same solutions.
Remember that failing to launch a communication channel or an important touchpoint can result in the loss of a possible clientele. In 2022 it is increasingly essential to have a multi-channel mentality and to adopt integrated solutions able to offer coherence to your brand. - Design the customer journey and put it into practice
Once the strategy creation process is complete, you’ll need to collect the information that emerged on your channels, through the people, touchpoints, actions and tools, and draw the map of your brand.
Be creative: there are no fixed templates and there are endless possibilities. Everyone is different and it might be helpful for you to see a large map, video, storyboard, or have a linear sequence. Create a visual guide to support the parties involved, essential for the realization of the new Customer Journey.
Customer journey map: conclusion
Having a continuously improving business is essential if you want to offer your customers an increasingly satisfying experience and the representation of the customer journey map can be a valuable aid.
Question your business, we assure you that there will always be room for improvement; it will be difficult to identify the shortcomings and defects on your own, but listening to your customers while putting pride aside is one of the easiest ways to grow your business. If you adopt this mindset, your revenue will always grow, your customers will be happier and you’ll be more successful.
Adopting a good customer journey map will help you achieve all of this!
