A customer journey map visualises all touch points between the customer and the organisation, from customer research on the product, to first contact with the company, to building customer loyalty. By constructing theoretical customer decision-making scenarios, companies can more easily understand factors and product features that influence customers’ purchase decisions.
Journey Mapping is an outside-in exercise, reviewing and documenting the stages of customers’ lifecycle from their points of view looking in. Customer journey maps may also be called customer interaction maps, customer corridors, or service blueprints. Customer Process Mapping (CPM), often an artifact of Six Sigma or Lean work efforts document, is similar but different from customer journey mapping in that it is about internal processes and the channels businesses undertake when serving a customer.
This page covers all you need to know about customer journey mapping:
- Why Customer Journey Mapping?
- What Does the Mapping Process Look Like?
- Where Can I Learn More About Customer Journey Mapping?
- How Can Pearl-Plaza Help My Brand?
Why Customer Journey Mapping?
Customer Journey Mapping allows companies to see the gaps between the desired Customer Experience (CX) and the one that the customer actually receives. Creating a Customer Journey Map can help organisations:
- Explore, document, and understand the personal, emotional parts of the customer experience that quantitative measures alone often miss
- Create a detailed visual representation that places specific customer touch points and interactions in the larger context of the complete customer journey
- Identify the key moments of truth that impact customer perceptions and satisfaction the most, so you can monitor and improve them over time
- Generate opportunities for customer co-creation
- Understand which factors are most important in building customer loyalty
- Decrease customer turnover
- Build a common, shared, and accurate internal view of the customer experience, to align the entire organisation around a culture of CX excellence
- Reveal gaps and weaknesses in existing Voice of Customer (VoC) programs that may be limiting companies’ ability to turn customer feedback into business results
WHITE PAPER
Five Steps to Uncovering the Real Customer Experience Journey
Learn how to take a walk in your customers’ shoes, identify opportunities that inspire improved experiences, and drive operational efficiencies across the board.
Mapping the customer’s journey starts with identifying and building out the steps of the journey from the company’s point of view, from beginning to end. Companies start by identifying the key moments a customer has when interacting with the company. Reaching agreement on the discrete steps a customer takes can be difficult, as each functional area and stakeholder will bring a unique perspective to the table. It is critical for the organisation to work from a common vision of the journey so that measurements, improvements, and enhancements can be created using a shared framework. Once the steps of the journey are identified, each step can be expanded to include the following elements:
- Customer’s desired outcomes
- Time or duration
- Attitudes and thoughts
- Emotional responses
- Emotional needs
- Customer pain points
- Areas of weakness
- Areas of strength
- Importance of the step
- Satisfaction with the step
After the journey map is created, the process of customer journey mapping continues. Companies seek customer feedback to better understand the customer’s view of the journey, then create plans to improve the customer experience based on the customer journey map. Finally, companies need to periodically update their journey maps as the customer journey evolves, due to technology, market, and company changes.
What Does the Mapping Process Look Like?
01
Project Scoping Meeting
Review relevant research branding & company promises. Jointly define the scope and success.
02
Create the Company View
Build a map of the company’s perspective of the customer journey to guide customer interviews.
03
Customer Listening & Learning
Understand from multiple approaches the experience a customer has with your company.
04
Review Current State
Establish a common understanding of the current journey and identify key insights for creating a new journey.
05
Ideate Future State
Use new learnings to create near term and longer term solutions.
Strategic Services
Pearl-Plaza on Journey Mapping
Journey Mapping is a flexible consulting engagement for organisations seeking more complete, accurate insights into what their customers really feel, perceive, and experience. It includes resources, expertise, and documentation—including detailed visual representations of the complete customer journey—to identify hidden moments of truth and close the gap between internal CX perceptions and customer realities.
Pearl-Plaza has helped some of the world’s largest, most successful companies understand and improve their customer journeys.
See ROI in Half the Time
Pearl-Plaza’s integrated CX approach increases customer lifetime value and bottom line performance in just 12 months, significantly faster than the industry average of 25 months!
