What is a Customer Journey

Andrew Andreev

Author at ApiX-Drive

Reading time: ~10 min

Customer journey and customer journey map - what is it?

• Description of the stages of the client's actions from his acquaintance with the product to the purchase.
• Expectations, motives, emotions and intentions that arise at every step.
  
• The most effective channels of interaction between the client and the brand.
  

What are the stages of the customer journey?

1. Awareness. The client is aware of their problem or need.
2. Consideration. The client begins to look for a solution to his problem/need.
   
3. Decision. The client finds a solution to his problem/need and starts looking for a suitable offer.
   
4. Purchasing. The customer makes the first purchase of the product or service he has chosen and forms the first impression of the product.
   
5. Loyalty. If the product helped to solve his problem or need, then the client becomes loyal to the brand and makes repeated purchases.
   
6. Advocacy. At the final stage of CJM, the client reaches the maximum degree of loyalty and is ready to recommend the brand and its products to others.
   

Why do I need a Customer Journey Map (CJM)?

• To see the strengths and weaknesses of the marketing or sales strategy;
• Improve the sales funnel, reduce the number of cycles in it;
  
• Better understand and more effectively solve problems / close the pains of customers with the help of their products;
  
• Visualize the customer experience of interacting with the brand and product, as well as effectively manage it;
  
• To make customer familiarization with the product easier and more comfortable, which will reduce the number of objections in the process of its sale;
  
• Take action to optimize marketing campaigns and improve customer experience.
  

How to build a customer journey map?

• Study the target audience and draw up a portrait of a typical buyer. This is a very important and defining stage, on the basis of which the entire further path of the client will be built. If you have several products with different target audiences, then you need to create a separate map for each of them. The profile of the average buyer should indicate their expected gender, age, place of residence, profession, preferences, habits, pains/problems, behavioral factors, and other relevant information.
• Analyze the product and create a portrait of buyer-persons. The second step in the development of the CJM should be a detailed analysis of the product. This will highlight its properties and benefits that can attract buyer-persons - a collective image of a particular category of customers. Unlike the portrait of a typical buyer, there will most likely be several such personas. As a result of the analysis, you will receive information about what features of the product are important for buyer-personas, what can hook them and interest them, how to introduce these personas to your product and what can repel them in it.
  
• Analyze the stages of the customer journey. Further, to create a customer journey map template, it is necessary to draw up an ideal customer journey to the product: from understanding the problem/need to the first purchase and subsequent stages (repeated purchases/recommendations). Here you need to think through the step-by-step path of the jorney customer in accordance with the six stages indicated earlier, and then prescribe his intended goals for all stages. It is also recommended to indicate the approximate time frame for each stage. Choose customer service software to gather all the customer information required and personalize their journey to success.
  
• Define user interaction points. The next step is to analyze the information about the target audience and the customer journey again. Here it is important to highlight the most popular communication channels among potential customers and the ways they get to know the brand and its product. To do this, you need to make a list of all possible points of contact between the company and its target audience: social networks, website, contextual advertising, email / SMS mailings, outdoor advertising, stores / sales offices, etc. Define what your target audience prefers on that matter because some groups may prefer using telephone service to contact businesses, while others want to messaging platforms; therefore, create a communication strategy based on their preferences.
  
• Reveal emotions and barriers. Next, in the course of drawing up an example of a customer journey, you should consider what emotions he can experience at each of the stages. Understanding the emotions of users is a very important advantage that allows you to create the most accurate and efficient custom journey map. In addition, it is worth identifying potential barriers that prevent the client from moving to the next stage of their journey to the product. Such factors can be very different: high price, lack of a convenient way of communication, remote location of the store/office, etc.
  
• Consider ways to remove barriers. After you have analyzed your customer journey map and found all the possible problems that may arise on the customer journey, you need to think about methods for solving them. Here you need to carefully study all the weak points and understand what causes doubts, difficulties or negative emotions in customers. This way you will understand what needs to be improved: product, service, marketing, service, support, etc. Then formulate tasks to eliminate these shortcomings and delegate them to responsible employees. When you are up to a project, keeping track and having a backlog in place is important.
  
• Update CJM as needed. The user journey map is not a strictly fixed instruction, it can and should be reviewed and changed. It is necessary to edit or build a new CJM in many cases: when a new product, target audience, promotion channels, entering a new market, new barriers, etc. appear. Your map should instantly adapt to any change in the customer journey.
  

Popular formats and common CJM errors

• Table. The simplest and most popular CJM format, which is compiled extremely quickly and is suitable for any business area. In the table, you can flexibly structure a variety of data: for example, in the cells you can indicate the stages of the path and actions of a potential client vertically, and horizontally - his expectations, emotions and experience. Or, mark the stages of the customer journey as levels of the sales funnel horizontally (search, selection, purchase, etc.), and write down the likely goals and questions of the client, points of contact and solutions vertically.
• Mindmap. A more modern customer journey mapping format involves the creation of a circular map that covers not only the customer journey, but also other aspects of the business. This type of CJM has become widespread among technology and digital companies. The mind map includes two circles: the inner one displays the company's activities (products or services offered to it), and the outer one shows the goals/intentions/problems/pains of its target audience. The points of contact between the company and customers are displayed as icons. A mind map helps you figure out which direction your business should go in order to better fit into the user experience.
  
• Infographics. Another popular type of CJM is infographics: they allow you to visualize the customer journey visually, making the map more understandable and memorable. In general, this is a very flexible marketing tool, the format and appearance of which can be easily changed depending on the scope, specifics, company goals and other factors.
  

• Lack of segmentation. A universal map of the user journey “for everyone” is unlikely to bring at least some tangible benefit. Therefore, it must be divided into segments “Product X + Audience X”, with a separate path for each combination.
• Lack of data. Before starting to develop a user journey map, attention should be paid to collecting and analyzing up-to-date data about the company, product, target audience, competitors, etc. Market research, end-to-end and web analytics services, information from CRM, etc. are often used as their sources. Without reliable data, you can miss a lot and create an inaccurate or completely erroneous customer journey.
  
• Surface description. Sometimes marketers make another common mistake when they prescribe the user path too briefly and generally, without delving into the details. Also, some of them confuse CJM with a sales funnel, marking only sales stages in the customer journey map. But at the same time, they forget about the significance of the preliminary and subsequent stages, which greatly reduces the effectiveness of the map.
  

What other types of maps are there for mapping?

• User journey map (UJM). Some marketers separate CJM and UJM into two different maps, believing that the term customer journey refers to the buyer's journey (from recognizing a problem to purchasing a product), and user journey is a separate user journey after purchasing a product. Thus, everything in it needs to describe all further stages, including the first acquaintance with the product, repeated purchases, etc.
• Customer experience map (CEM). This is a larger study, with which you can describe the life experience of a potential buyer as a whole, and not just in the context of interaction with the product. With its help, marketers try to more accurately determine the emotions, intentions, goals, problems and behaviors of the target audience. A user experience map will be useful for brand development: it helps to understand what other needs/pains of the target audience it can cover with its product.
• Service blueprint (SB). This map visualizes all the business processes taking place in the company, describing the relationships between them, the employees who perform them, and customers. The SB is created as an add-on for a specific user experience map and shows the custom jorney from the company side. The service map helps you understand which departments and employees are responsible for touch points with the client at different stages of his journey. Using its data, you can optimize the interaction by supplementing or changing existing processes.
  

Conclusion