Editorial
The Gist
- Journey understanding. Customer journey mapping provides valuable insights into customer behavior and experiences.
- Employee engagement. Mapping skills can be applied to other areas, like improving employee journeys and experience.
- Map management. Keep journey maps iterative, simple and targeted to relevant team needs.
In the 2022 Digital-First Customer Experience Report, NICE asked consumers and senior decision-makers what they believe is working in digital-first customer journeys. Unsurprisingly, the report reveals that there are major gaps between what customers think about their experience and how seriously business leaders are taking customer journey mapping. And the findings show that these disconnects have a major impact on brand loyalty — 57% of customers will abandon a brand after only one or two negative interactions.
At its most basic form, a customer journey map is a visualization of a process that a person goes through to accomplish a goal. From a CX perspective, that could be completing a purchase or renewing a product; from an employee perspective, that could be signing up for benefits or navigating parental leave; and from a marketing perspective, that could be signing up for a free trial or a demo, or even submitting a form to download free resources.
While all these processes have different audiences and goals and outcomes — and effects on revenue — they aren’t really that different. Someone does something; something happens; and then something else happens. And while those things are happening, internal systems are used, employees are affected and everyone has emotions about the entire process.
So, cue up your favorite road trip playlist, grab your favorite snacks and let’s get started on the journey of customer journey mapping.
Related Article: Customer Journey Mapping: A How-To Guide
Build Your Customer Journey Mapping Route
As someone who leads an internal customer experience team, I’m biased toward an internal CX team owning the journey mapping process. However, you need to know your own organization. If there’s a lot of internal conflict, or a lack of trust, bringing in an external consultant to lead the process may be right for you. Regardless of if you’re leading your initiative internally or externally, CX can’t do it alone — the most effective initiatives are a result of working with a cross-functional team that includes groups such as finance, HR and IT, to develop the desired experience and identify gaps.
I like to think of it like the parable of the blind men eating the elephant — because they’re each focused on what’s in front of them, they don’t realize it’s an elephant. Customer journey mapping is similar — each group has a part of the problem, and their own view on it. It takes someone to sit down and put it all together, and to put the customer’s view in the process. It should be easy for the customer, not easy for you. (Ideally it should be easy for both, but bias toward making it simple for your customer.) So ask yourself questions like what can we automate? Where can we eliminate paper forms? How can we simplify processes and improve communication? What really needs to happen to make our customers’ experiences personal, relevant, intuitive and accessible on demand — even if it’s at scale?
Related Article: Customer Journey Analytics Basics for Better CX
Apply Journey Mapping Skills to Other Aspects of Your Business
Once you’ve gotten started, you can apply customer journey mapping skills to many different aspects of your business, including the employee journey. From the moment someone looks at your careers page — and then applies for a job to the moment they leave your organization — everything an employee does, sees and feels is part of the employee journey. These moments and milestones contribute to the employee experience. Focusing on EX just as much as we do on CX helps improve recruitment and retention, drives equity and inclusion, and closes experience gaps (especially around technology) that exist for employees. And, as a benefit, improving the employee journey can positively impact the customer experience in the long run.
Prepare for Customer Journey Roadblocks
But, like you will on any road trip, you’re likely to hit some obstacles. The biggest challenge I’ve seen is trying to take on too much at once. It’s easy to say “we want to improve the demo process” — but how do you do that? Focus on a journey with known pain points and easily definable quick wins, something more like “We want to improve the form submission process, because people are confused at when they will get a response and they are lacking follow-up information.”
As you map out that process, you’ll identify other quick wins — maybe automatic calendaring of overview calls with your sales development representatives (SDRs) in an autoresponder email — but having a small, focused scope will help you get started and deliver a journey map you can actually execute on.
No One Makes Customer Processes Difficult on Purpose
I’ve found that design thinking, or understanding the people for whom you’re designing the process, has delivered the greatest rewards. Generally, processes result organically. No one sits down and says, “Wow, I want to make this hard for our customers.” Instead, systems, processes and personnel evolve over time, and they end up being difficult for customers.
When you’re focused on your customers, empathy is key. Talk to customers and employees to understand what about the process bothers them and makes work difficult. You can survey them or interview them, but whatever you do, make sure they know that their input is key to change.
Determining the Problems With Customer Journey Mapping
Next, look across these scenarios to see if there are similarities. Is there cross-departmental coordination that’s causing processes to lag? Are customers filling out the same information in multiple systems because you have internal silos? Are there manual steps that you can automate that you couldn’t back when the process was designed?
The reality is, while we think we must have everything perfect at the beginning, customer journey mapping can help at any stage of the customer relationship — and with any type of customer, whether that be internal or external.
Start Your Customer Journey Mapping Journey
Journey mapping provides a holistic view of the customer experience. It helps you uncover both moments of frustration and delight. When you put the effort into it, it helps you address pain points, alleviate fragmentation — especially vital for prospects who have less allegiance to you anyway — and ultimately create a stronger, healthier community.
Here are a few tips I’ve found helpful throughout the journey mapping process:
- Go lo-fi. Journey mapping is iterative. Don’t go high-tech from the start. Use sticky notes and put them up on the wall. Move them around. Let people walk by and comment on them. Don’t get stuck with your initial preconceptions. Especially if you’ve been working with a process or a company for a while, it’s easy to think you know it all. Be open to iteration and moving things around.
- Provide recommendations. It’s not just about mapping the steps of the process. Look for the pain and the gain. It can be tempting to look at the journey map as an exhaustive list of problems to be addressed. Instead, look at it as a way to drive a better experience for your customers and your employees.
- Keep it simple. You’ll likely have a super detailed journey map, and that’s awesome! But don’t forget to make a simple one for management. You can create multiple versions for multiple teams to highlight the insights that are relevant for the team you’re talking to. Part of change management is tailoring your insights to your audience. Don’t forget that when it comes to presenting your ideas.
Practice Journey Mapping for Smooth CX Enhancements
The most important thing is that you’re aligned on the content of your map. Because if you aren’t, nothing can really change. If you’re just getting started, try practicing on a low-stakes journey first. Try mapping something you’re familiar with — like navigating security at the airport or setting up a new e-book reader. Think about how you researched the process, what information you received and when you got it, and how it helped (or didn’t). If you’re stuck, try researching existing journey maps for inspiration. There’s plenty of examples out there and that can help you plan your project timeline, communication and scope.
Related Article: 11 Things You Can Do to Ensure Your Journey Maps Are Actionable
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Journey Mapping and Organizational Transformation
When done right, customer journey mapping is a vehicle for organizational transformation. It helps break down silos and reorient the organization around the customer.
We’ve all heard the stats that 60%-70% of change initiatives fail. While all change is disruptive, getting the organization involved in journey mapping can make that disruption positive. It helps empower your employees to view decisions through the eyes of the customer, and, more importantly, give the organization greater clarity of what kinds of initiatives and investments will strengthen the customer experience and drive revenue.
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