CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING

What is a Customer Journey Mapping?

A Customer Journey is the end to end experience of being a customer and are vital to developing a sound business strategy.
It can begin prior to the actual brand experience and can continue after exiting. Customer Journey maps help businesses visualise the steps in this experience journey.  What does a customer need to do to find you, to sign up, to purchase or even to exit?The important thing to consider about mapping your customer journey is that a truly strategic customer journey map needs to be based in truth.
  • You need to have clear understanding of the actual behavioural experiences of customers interacting with your brand. But also the experiences of internal or external stakeholders interacting with the brand.
Brand or business opportunities with your customers cannot be realised until you understand the relationships you have with your customers at every touchpoint. The moments that matter!

Who needs customer journey mapping?

If you run a business and intend to have a return on investment, then you need customer journey mapping services.The customer journey can often be overlooked when starting a business or looking to take it to the next level. By truly understanding your target audience, you’re giving yourself the best chance for financial success. At the end of the day, what you’re looking for is results.Engaging with professional customer journey mapping services will successfully identify how far you can reach and what you need to focus on to drive results at all times.

When should I conduct customer journey mapping?

For the best possible results, it’s practically essential that you engage in customer journey mapping services very early on. Once you have identified your business goals and unique selling points, customer journey mapping is the final step to understanding how your products or services will fit into the existing market.

Thinking about the future of your business, it becomes clear that the customer is the key to success. By starting this in your research phase, you can focus on creating a viable business or product that can change with the market as needed. Wouldn’t you rather know at the outset if your business needs to pivot for success? This is only possible through effective customer journey mapping.

Benefits of customer journey mapping research

There simply isn’t a way around putting in the work. Research on customer journey mapping has a lot of advantages. Businesses can more effectively design goods and services that satisfy customers’ wants by knowing their experiences.

Additionally, customer journey mapping can increase client retention rates, help organisations find and fix issue areas, and even open up new marketing opportunities. Finally, customer journey mapping can be utilised to learn more about the behaviour and preferences of your customers.

This data can be used to improve products and services, find new markets, and design effective marketing efforts. Client journey mapping is crucial for companies looking to strengthen their customer relationships and increase overall success. With the right approach, customer journey mapping can help businesses unlock the full potential of their customers and ultimately lead to greater success.

The role of Market Research

A solid journey map needs to be grounded in solid research to create a purposeful overview.Customer journeys are not based on a single interaction but often a series of touchpoint interactions. It is critical to understand the jobs to be done at each interaction. Touchpoints could include adverting, communications, services, products, channels, or intermediary service providers.When thinking about mapping the customer journey. You need to map each of these specific points to understand how the different elements interact with the customer and each other to inform the full customer journey. This is where market research can really help.Through qualitative and quantitative research we can help you uncover the moments that matter to your business.

How to conduct Customer Journey Mapping Research?

First talk to internal stakeholders
  • The customer journey spans every department in a business. Every department should have input into its mapping. In terms of what they know and what they need to know. This will give you a broad overview of your main customer touchpoints. Also revealing the gaps at each stage of the journey and should highlight research questions as a first pass.
Review Existing Behavioural Research
  • If you have it, use the behavioural data (analytics, customer satisfaction scores etc,) held by your organisation to hollow out the customer journey map or maps you now have drafted. This may provide you with a start point. 
  • You may be tempted to use quantitative data as the basis for your journey map. However, this will only provide you with a high-level understanding of customers’ general attitudes and levels of satisfaction for specific interactions. It won’t provide you with deeper understanding of emotions, mindsets, and motivations for portraying the entire journey.
Conduct Qualitative Research
  • Qualitative research can now help you bring the customer journey to life. Drill down on critical moments and touchpoints. Provide insight and directions for change. 
  • It can help you either directly observe or talk to customers and understand their actual experiences, needs, emotions and actions at each phase of the customer journey. 
  • You can use customer or user interviews that allow storytelling of experiences, mindsets and actions at each moment of the service interaction. Qualitative research can ask questions at each stage. Understanding feelings about the service, onboarding, exiting as well as understanding the challenges for customers at each point. 
  • The research can use a mix of techniques such as behavioural or user diaries to capture actual moments of truth or through online methods or ethnographic research. 
Now you have some clarity on what you need, you can consult a market research agency like Ruby Cha Cha. Providing a brief and objectives of the research you would like to conduct.
Follow up with Quantitative Research
  • After the qualitative research study has been completed. Quantitative research can help reinforce or add to the findings to strengthen you understand of frequency and magnitude of issues at each moment.  This could be via a customer survey or the use of digital analytics to demonstrate where frustrations and challenges lie and for how many customers or prospects. 
  • Customer Journey mapping is a vital part of customer experience CX strategy. Market research is critical for helping you create and implement that strategy.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Interested in learning more about how customer journey mapping can save your business any potential pitfalls down the road? You’ve come to the right place. At Ruby Cha Cha, we ensure that you never have to worry about the complexities of market research on your own. Simply get in touch with us, and we will handle all qualitative research and customer journey mapping services.

By leaving the work to the experts, you can focus on creating a product or service that meets your passion and market demand. Working together will help you get the most out of your business offering and give you all the tools you need to succeed in your chosen industry. We look forward to hearing from you and helping you take your business to the next level.

FAQs

What makes a good customer journey?
A good customer journey is seamless, engaging and meets or exceeds the customer’s expectations. It involves customer experience with a brand, from the first time they become aware of the company to after-sales support. Some elements that make a great customer journey are:
  • Accessibility
  • Efficiency
  • Customisation abilities
  • Consistency
What should you consider when mapping a customer journey?
When mapping a customer journey, it’s important to consider the following factors:
  • Identify customer personas — Customer personas help you understand customers’ characteristics, needs and preferences. This information is essential for creating a customer journey that resonates with your target audience.
  • Understand customer emotions and pain points — Emotions play a significant role in a customer’s decision-making process. It is important to identify the emotions and pain points customers experience at each touchpoint and design the journey to address these appropriately.
  • Map the journey from the customer’s perspective — Focus on the customer’s perspective rather than the company’s internal processes. This will help you identify gaps and areas where the journey can be improved.
How does Ruby Cha Cha improve the customer journey map?
Ruby Cha Cha does all the heavy lifting when it comes to customer journey mapping. We manage all the qualitative research aspects, so you can focus on developing a product or service that meets your customer’s needs. We can provide touchpoint strategies and recommendations as well as clear understanding of triggers and motivations along the way. Contact us today to learn more about our market research services.
How long should a customer journey map take?
The time it takes to create a customer journey map depends on several factors, such as the complexity of the customer journey, the number of touchpoints, the availability of data and the number of stakeholders involved.A simple customer journey map with only a few touchpoints may take a few days of fieldwork plus analysis while a more complex customer journey with multiple touchpoints and personas may take several weeks or even months.