Why looking at the customer journey is essential

What is customer journey mapping?

The customer journey helps to understand how customers interact with your business. Each interaction is an opportunity to engage that customer through effective communication. Whilst customer journey mapping can help you to discover additional opportunities to get repeat business from existing customers, it also represents an opportunity to showcase your brand and also help to identify areas where customer service can be improved.

Customer journey mapping helps to visualise interactions with your brand from their original contact and throughout the relationship. That initial engagement could come from a number of different sources, e.g. your website, an e-mail or through face to face contact amongst others. In some businesses, the channel entry point – where customers start that journey will dictate how you communicate with them in the future. Mapping this journey will ensure that you’re exploiting all the opportunities open to you to communicate with customers in a positive way.

Why should I do it?

Successful businesses recognise that the customer should be at the heart of everything they do and this process helps to understand interactions with your business from a customer perspective, helping to identify any frustrations they may encounter along the way. A disjointed journey will result in customer frustration, identifying these pain points can help to retain existing customers – and as we know, this is much cheaper than trying to attract new ones!

How do I start?

There won’t be a single customer journey for your business, consider all of the reasons why someone might get in touch, whether that be to place an order or try to raise a customer service issue.

Some things to consider when looking at your customer journey might be…

• How easy it is for the customer to make a transaction and can it be made easier?

• Which channels make it easy for customers to find your business?

• What is the most popular entry point for customers?

• Does the delivery method make it convenient for customers to receive your product/service?

• Are existing customers recognised when they go to your site, visit your store or is there a mechanism to recognise them during a face to face interaction?

• Are customers talking about their interaction with your brand in social media channels?

• Do you know whether the interaction with your business was a positive one?

• How easy is it for customers to return/replace the product?

• What opportunities are there to contact customers after their purchase?

Does the customer journey reflect your brand?

If you pride yourself on being friendly and welcoming, you need to ensure that all of the customer touchpoints reflect this? Does this come across on your website or in face to face or telephone contact with customer service/sales representatives? Fixing any touchpoints which don’t, will help develop trust from your customers and potentially secure repeat business and long term relationships.

This shouldn’t be a one off exercise…

The way a customer shops with you may change, they may shift from online to offline or vice versa and it is essential that the experience is consistent. Consider how this can be seamless even if this switch is mid journey. Not doing so risks creating customer dissatisfaction and could lead to lost business.

Is your customer journey right for your business and for the customer?

Get in touch to find out how Solomon’s Mind can help you to map and understand the customer journey and potentially identify new communication opportunities and highlight risks to customer satisfaction.