Customer Journey Maps: What Are They And 3 Reasons Why You Need Them

If you’ve ever heard the term “journey mapping” and wondered what in the world that means and why everyone is talking about it, you’ve come to the right place.

Customer journey mapping is a hot topic in the business marketing world right now, and for good reason. When it comes to your customer having a positive experience with your brand or product, it can make or break your success.

Think about the last time you had an amazing experience as a customer. You likely now recommend that place or business every chance you get, and it’s likely the first place you turn when in need of a specific product or service.

On the flip side, a bad or difficult experience with a brand can permanently damage that customer relationship. In fact, 33% of Americans say they’ll consider switching companies after just a single instance of poor service. It goes without saying — it pays to create a positive experience for every single one of your customers.

Ok, so you are pretty sure your customers’ experiences with your brand are great, and you have nothing to worry about. But how do you really know for sure? How can you test it? The answer is customer journey mapping.

What Is Customer Journey Mapping Anyway and Why Do You Need It?

The name might sound fancy and complicated, but customer journey mapping is actually a fairly straightforward concept. Plus, it’s actually very easy to do — really!

At its core, a customer journey map is a visual representation of the process a customer goes through, from end to end, with your company. Customer journey mapping is a valuable tool that allows you to ensure that your customers are having a positive experience when interacting with your brand to achieve a specific goal, whether it’s sales or email sign-ups.

Think of it like you are creating a persona. It puts yourself in your customers’ shoes so that you can bring light to many overlooked pain points that need addressing.

1. It Shows You What You Need to Improve

Have you ever been a customer and thought to yourself “this process would be a lot easier if they just did it this way?” Or, have you ever had trouble finding something on a webpage or waited for way too long in a line due to glaring inefficiencies? It can seem so obvious to an outsider, but not so obvious to those in charge.

The saying “can’t see the forest for the trees” applies to brands just as much as individuals. Before you can ever hope to improve marketing campaigns and achieve broader goals, you must first identify and define the problems standing in your way. Sometimes, it takes stepping back and looking at your business processes through a different lens to realize what you need to improve.

Journey mapping is a key tool in identifying what needs to be improved. It’s a low cost and low-effort exercise that any brand can achieve and the results can drastically change your business’s reputation.

2. Creates a Seamless Experience

As much as we’d like to admit it, our shopping and browsing habits are fickle. Especially nowadays, our attention spans can be short. If we’re not immediately finding what we need on a brand’s website or in a store, we are very likely to give up.

Creating a seamless experience allows for a smooth and simple flow for the customer. For example, glaring gaps between your website and social media, gaps in a sales process leading from point A to point B, or any other hurdle the customer needs to jump overall make it more likely that they will walk away. Customer journey mapping allows you to identify and fix those gaps. Every step from initial interest to conversion and sales should be smooth sailing for everyone involved in your brand.

Customer journey mapping puts the customer front and center in an organization’s thinking, improving customer service and brand sentiment.

3. Journey Mapping Allows You to Learn More About Your Audience

In our digital world, trends, habits, and sentiments about brands are ever-changing. Brands need to stay on their toes and be able to adapt quickly to the changing expectations of their customers if they want to remain competitive.

It’s imperative that everyone on your team understands key areas of the customer sales cycle and knows how to make it the best it can be. Leveraging the data you glean from customer journey mapping can open up new avenues to how you interact with your customer.

Get Started with Customer Journey Mapping to Improve Your Business

You don’t need to feel intimidated by the thought of putting together a customer journey map for your business. They’re not hard to execute, and you can learn how to do it online or by attending a marketing workshop. The small amount of effort put into a customer journey map is worth the valuable information about your customer you get out of it.

In today’s busy and chaotic world, knowing your customer’s needs inside and out can put you ahead of the pack and make your business stand out. A seamless and positive experience from a brand, from start to finish, is what customers are going to really remember.

Make yourself memorable and earn new loyal customers with a journey map today! Book a demo online to get started.