Customer Journey Map: The Ideal Blueprint To Achieve Customer Success

Introduction

In the context of customer success, the first step towards understanding and enhancing the CX (Customer Experience) is often marked by creating a “Customer Journey Map”. Think of a Customer Journey Map as the guiding star— a compass that directs your efforts toward understanding, anticipating, and fulfilling the desires of your valued customers.

Now, what more is there to learn about a Customer Journey Map and why should a business owner bother about creating one in his or her already busy schedule? Well, all these questions are about to be answered in this article.

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What is a Customer Journey?

Technically, a Customer Journey entails all interactions a customer has with a specific brand before making a purchase.

For instance, a customer has to buy a cake for his mother’s birthday, he looks online for recommendations and comes across one particular website with customized cakes as per his liking. He decides to buy a custom cake and the cake turns out to be a real showstopper during the birthday celebration. This entire process reveals how businesses can cater to customer needs and create memorable experiences that enable loyalty or repeat business.

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8 Distinct Stages of the Customer Journey

Since now we are quite crystal clear about the concept of the Customer Journey. Let’s talk a bit about the 8 unique stages that constitute the Customer Journey & Success atlas - Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Onboarding, Adoption, Retention, Upsell, and Advocacy.

1. Awareness

The first stage a customer encounters during his or her journey is the “awareness” stage. Here, the customer discovers the brand, product, or service through various channels such as ads, social media, online search, or word of mouth.

2. Consideration

At this stage, the customer does his/her research and compares the products or services of different brands to make a sound decision.

3. Purchase/Decision

This is a critical stage in which the customer makes the final decision to purchase a specific product or service after weighing up several options.

4. Onboarding

After purchase, the customer enters the onboarding stage in which they gain the initial experience with the product or service, understand its value proposition, and enjoy successful setup assistance.

5. Product Adoption

Now comes the stage of “adoption” in which the customer incorporates the said product or service into their daily life and workflows to encounter an enhanced user experience.

6. Customer Retention

At the retention stage, the respective Retention Specialist ensures that the customer stays with the brand for a longer timeframe. Brands develop retention strategies to build strong relationships with their customers and increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

7. Upsell

This stage is all about expanding the customers by offering upgrades or additional products and services to generate higher revenue growth and profits for the business.

8. Customer Advocacy

The final stage, i.e., advocacy is an interesting stage where the satisfied customer becomes a loyal advocate of the respective brand. Now, the customer recommends the brand’s products and services, thus, uplifting the brand’s reputation.

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Customer Journey Maps - What, Why, and How

Customer Journey Maps showcase a visual representation of all interactions a customer has with a particular business. This is an effective tool that enables brands to improve CX (Customer Experience) at each stage of the Customer Journey to enhance Customer Success or reduce churn rate.

Here are some proven benefits you can expect after deploying a Customer Journey Map.

1. Better Clarity on Customer Profiles

Customer Journey Maps offer brands a clear view of the buyer’s entire experience, through which they can even store accurate and updated customer profiles in their database.

2. Superior Omnichannel Marketing

A thorough customer journey map spans all touchpoints, enabling brands to enhance their Omnichannel Marketing funnel.

3. Enhanced Customer Experience

Another reason to develop a customer journey blueprint is to ensure greater CX (Customer Experience) across all channels.

4. Higher Customer Success Rate

With the aid of Customer Journey Maps, businesses can deliver personalized CX, gain insightful customer understanding, make data-driven decisions, improve customer retention, and amplify customer success rate.

5. Sustained Success

A Customer Journey Map can surely make way for sustained success through insightful understanding, targeted strategies, and continual improvements.

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How to create a Customer Journey Map?

So, how do you produce an ROI-driven Customer Journey Map? Simply, by following the steps below.

Step 1: Establish Clear Goals & Metrics

The first step in creating a Customer Journey Map is to define clear goals for measurable metrics such as brand awareness, increased sales, customer loyalty, and so forth.

Step 2: Perform Customer Segmentation

The next step is to divide customers into various segments based on factors like demographics, behavior, preferences, purchasing patterns, etc.

Step 3: Identify Key Touchpoints & Assign Values

Recognize all customer interactions, then assign values to prioritize touchpoints with the greatest impact on sales, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Step 4: Allocate Costs

Compute the costs associated with all touchpoints, such as technology, marketing, and customer service as well as other relevant expenses.

Step 5: Forecast ROI & Strategize

The final step is to calculate potential returns for each touchpoint and optimize strategies to maximize ROI by emphasizing high-impact areas.

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Customer Journey Mapping - What do the stats say?

Presenting a few insights to help you gain a deeper understanding of Customer Journey Maps.

• According to PwC’s latest report surveying 15,000 consumers, it was discovered that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they love after one single bad experience, while 92% would completely forsake a company after two or three negative interactions.
• Companies that provide great customer experience fare approximately 80% better than their counterparts.
• Companies that use customer journey maps are twice as likely to outperform their rivals.
• 88% of businesses increasingly prioritize the customer experience in their contact centers.
• According to 88% of respondents, brands must tailor their customer experience to succeed, yet they lack the tools and expertise needed to improve the digital customer journey.

Exciting B2C Customer Journey Maps To Explore

Look at the top 3 pretty cool Customer Journey Maps for valuable insights.

Starbucks

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Spotify

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Nike

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Conclusion

To sum up, businesses can surely leverage Customer Journey Maps to ensure personalized CX (Customer Experience), heightened customer success, and increased brand loyalty in today’s hypercompetitive business world.