How to improve your customer journey map

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a great tool that can help progressive companies and product managers around the world visualise and improve user experience. People create such maps to understand the difference between how clients solve their problems today, and how they can do it more effectively in the future.

They also allow you to see the customer’s emotional reaction to your product based on key touchpoints. It is very important not to just come up with your own ideas on how to solve customer problems, but to take these facts from interviews and data obtained as a result of customer development.

Once you have created your first customer journey map, you’re probably wondering: “What’s next?”, “Does it work as intended?”, “How can I improve it?”. Keep on reading to find out the answers to these questions.

Remove pain points

First, identify the moments in which your clients are experiencing the most difficulties. Do your best to remove these pain points in the client’s journey, because they will remember all of the negative aspects. It’s nearly impossible to remove all of the problems at once, so it’s best to tackle the pain points one by one.

If you are planning to design an app, make sure that It starts working at the moment when the client is ready to pay for the purchase, so that the speed and simplicity of the service would make the payment process a lot faster and more convenient.

Raise the bar

By now your customers should be happy with the product. However, that doesn’t mean that you should stop. You need to keep coming up with new ideas to try to exceed their expectations. For example, you could take a look at some of the digital customer journey map templates to see if you’re missing something important.

Moreover, you need to build a bond with your clients. Thus, it’s important to show how much you value them, and provide them with friendly customer support, a loyalty system, and a personal approach. All of that will make them want to stay with you.

Think two steps ahead

Typically, the customer journey is mapped to the very process of interacting with your product. But what if you could influence what happens immediately before and after this process? The most useful products are those that solve the client’s problem from start to finish. This is why you should always think ahead and never get complacent.

For example, banks have always provided money-saving services and different payment methods. But today many banks are expanding their products by offering statistics on your expenses and tips on how to save money.

Make everyone’s life easier

One of the best methods to simplify customer experience is to remove any unnecessary steps along the way. For example, you can see the difference right away when you compare an apple and a banana. If you need to get to the apple pulp, you’ll have to take a knife and start peeling it, which can take up to thirty seconds. In the case of a banana, you can skip the peeling part and get to the pulp a lot quicker – in just about five seconds.

You’re probably wondering what this comparison has to do with a customer journey map. Well, everything is quite simple. You have to try to make your products look more like a banana than an apple. You need to minimize effort and maximize results.

For instance, not too long ago there was no other option but to register at a website with your email and a password. Today it is no longer necessary, as many services allow you to register via Facebook or another social network, making registration as easy and quick as possible.

Another thing you can do to improve customer service is to use chatbots. They can help you speed up the ordering process through automatic order and shipping confirmations.

Develop an omnichannel strategy

Another thing you can do to improve the customer journey is to implement an omnichannel strategy.

Omnichannel marketing is the further development of multi-channel marketing, in which customers are offered a cross-channel service. You can come into contact with brands and products via websites, apps, social media, flyers, etc. With multi-channel, however, each channel often stands for itself and acts independently – up to and including competition. This separation no longer exists with omnichannel: product and customer data are collected centrally, updated, and are available anytime and anywhere.

To apply an omnichannel strategy, follow these steps:

• Make all of the data about customers available anywhere in the company at any time. This means that every department in a company must be able to view all information about a customer. For example, the order status, the most recent contact with customer service, and so on;
• Update all data centrally;
• Continuously develop the payment system and add payment, web tracking, and search options;
• Keep all of the content up-to-date;
• Make your website mobile-friendly for all devices.

Finish strong

The endpoint of the customer journey and the emotions that your clients are experiencing at that moment is key. Thus, remember to do everything possible to enhance your customer’s memory of their experience.