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!

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?

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team or market research experts here at Ruby Cha Cha