Welcome, one and all, to this beautiful, sometimes baffling Age of the Customer! Your clients/customers are informed, they’re savvy, and they expect a lot from your brand and your product or service. If you want to blow them away with a kick-ass customer experience—the kind that fosters repeat business and brings referrals through the door—we highly suggest mapping your customer journey. Besides shaping and perfecting the customer experience, journey mapping can also help you accomplish other business goals, like improving customer retention or discovering why (and at what point in the journey) sales are falling through. 

The customer journey is a person’s full and complete experience with your brand or business, which begins with that person’s first inkling that they have some sort of need or problem. (This may occur before they even know your brand exists.) A customer journey map is a visualization tool that helps you and your team really get a handle on every step of this winding, often nonlinear journey from the identification of a need or problem to the ultimate purchase decision and, if it’s useful (as it often is), beyond.

A customer journey map can be sticky notes on a big piece of paper, it can be an Excel worksheet, or it can be a gorgeous graphic-designer-level diagram. Truth be told, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. If it’s gorgeous but doesn’t nail it (aka, you’re not really in your customers’ heads), or if it’s gorgeous but you can’t figure out how to use it effectively, then it’s a dud. 

Tips for creating a customer journey map so it’s not a dud:

• Take this approach: Step into your customer’s shoes, understand what irks her, what delights her, and what she wants/needs most from your brand.
•  Include in your map: Actions customers take, emotions they feel at each juncture, and barriers they may encounter along the way.
• Create your customer journey map with specific goals in mind. Is it increased sales? Better engagement or conversion? Customer retention? If you start with an end goal in mind, you’re more likely to meet that goal.
• List out touchpoints. A touchpoint is every moment a customer comes in contact with your brand. This could include not only your own website, social media pages, and ads but also online reviews, influencers’ social media, retailers’ sites, etc. Indulge your inner narcissist (lol) and Google yourself to help you create a full list of touchpoints.
• Leverage tools like Google Analytics to get a handle on how customers behave when they visit your website. This can help you create a more accurate journey map.
• Consider creating not only a customer journey map for the present but also a customer journey map for the future—a #goals map, so to speak. Then figure out how you can get there.
• Get actual customer feedback. Ask them about touchpoints—how did they find you? Ask them what went well and what could have been better. Ask them what they need from you now, post-sale. 

Here’s the thing: The map is just the beginning. Research shows that less than half of the organizations that have created customer journey maps are actually using those maps effectively. Eek! Don’t let that be you.

Need help mapping your customer journey in a way that accomplishes business goals? We’ve got you.