Customer experience and beyond: customer journey mapping

The key to creating business value is focusing on customer value and customer experience. Truly understanding the needs and preferences of customers, as well as their omni-channel behavior during the buying journey, is essential for your business strategy.

Customers buy products and services but also experiences and emotional gratification. The buying decision is connected, highly individual and highly emotional, even if rational elements “hide” that emotional dimension.

Customer journey mapping what and why

Customer journey mapping is a relatively straightforward method to map all these elements. Although such maps are rooted in the practices of customer experience management and user experience design, they can be used for much more, including marketing budget allocation, content mapping and conversion optimization of processes and of online marketing, to name just a few.

Customer journey mapping: what and why

By building strategies upon the customer journey, we take the position of the customer and go for customer-centricity. This helps us avoid taking inside-out views that don’t take the customer reality and experience into account enough.

Example of a customer journey map in a more graphical and holistic way - Rehashorg
Example of a customer journey map in a more graphical and holistic way – Rehash.org

Two examples of such approaches that often are placed before a customer-centric view:

  1. Content-centricity: putting content first and then looking at distribution mechanisms to target often poorly defined segments, let alone understanding the individual buying decision.
  2. Channel-centricity: being too blinded by the various, often isolated, channels and media used to interact with customers (for instance, in marketing) or enabling interaction (for instance, in customer service).

By working with customer journeys and matching them with business goals, content and channels become function of value creation.

A generic customer journey map with traditional funnel and touchpoint elements by CustomerChampions
A generic customer journey map with traditional funnel and touchpoint elements by CustomerChampions

Before you start: asking the right questions

Although customer journey maps can be used for many reasons and you can use many elements to fine-tune them, it’s best to start simple. Focus on the key questions and insights you need to have so you can achieve the – customer – goals you’re doing customer journey mapping for to begin with.

It’s easy to get lost when looking at various examples on the Web of – often good looking – customer journey maps. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t get that and realize many of these customer journey maps are online for a reason. Yes, by having good and nice journey maps, brands and agencies can indeed send out a message.

In our overview of customer journey mapping you will find many additional tips and recommendations but don’t get blinded by them if you start with customer journey mapping. Your goal is to be more customer-centric and understand your customers better in order to serve them better and improve customer experience. You don’t need to know everything in order to achieve that.

Customer journey mapping starts with understanding the customer (journey) in correlation with the business and brand goals. From a customer experience view this means that, as CustomerChampions puts it the customer journey map, maps the experience:

  • you want to “provide” to the customer.
  • the customer would like to receive.

Although it’s rather “simple” and there’s more to it, this emphasizes where the customer experience gaps really occur: in-between what you believe and what the customer wants.

Rail Europe Customer Experience Map - one of dozens of examples on the Web - source Adaptive Path
Rail Europe Customer Experience Map – one of dozens of examples on the Web – source Adaptive Path

Traditional and less traditional ways of using customer journey mapping

Customer journey mapping is an underused method and many existing approaches are too narrow. When using them in a broader way than just the actual journey and the user experience context, they offer many opportunities.

Traditional goals of customer journey mapping are:

  • End-to-end customer experience management/optimization.
  • Mapping and ranking touchpoints in order to identify where to optimize/invest first (as in practice you can’t invest in every single experience or touchpoint at once).

Note that customer journey mapping is not the same as touchpoint mapping. Both are complementary: the customer journey map puts the journey in the center while touchpoint maps focus more on these touchpoints and the value within each of them.

However, much more can be achieved using customer journey mapping. When adding stages, touchpoints and connections outside of the buying journey that often is at the core of customer journey maps (from awareness to actual purchase), even more opportunities arise.

Personas in customer journeys and personas in marketing

Personas are used for many reasons. You might see there is often a big difference in the use of personas and buyer personas in customer journey mapping, compared with the use of personas in developing customer-centric marketing strategies.

In B2B marketing, for instance, we often primarily look at the market context, pain points and essential questions we need to know in a buyer persona context so we can develop our strategy around the customer. Very often you will not find typical aspects of personas in B2C or in customer journey mapping. Both exercises are closely related (customers are customers) but the focus is different and thus also very often the approach regarding persona “development”.

Let’s start by looking at some of the things that you can achieve using customer journey mapping outside of the traditional context.

We advise you to also use customer journey mapping for following (additional) goals:

  • Building a customer-oriented content marketing strategy/plan.
  • Conducting content gap analysis.
  • Looking at potential leaking buckets in customer processes and interactions.
  • Improving what you do right now and acting upon those leaking buckets.
  • Developing new products and services.
  • Reconsider customer service, contact center and other service-related processes and propositions.
Example of a journey map that layers emotions, expectation ratings and opportunities along the customer’s journey
Example of a journey map that layers emotions, expectation ratings and opportunities along the customer’s journey – via tandemseven

Emotions and experiences are key

Very often customer journey maps also only look at the intent, goals and pain points of customers or focus too much on just funnel and touchpoint elements as in the case of the generic customer journey map above. It’s our belief that this isn’t enough either. The customer experience is by far an emotional given, even if in buying decisions rational elements are – often a posteriori – cited as criteria by buyers.

The difference between emotion and ratio is far less real than we like to believe and stems from the belief that human beings are split into different “compartments”. Mind versus matter. Body versus mind. Ratio versus emotion. This doesn’t correspond with reality and is a consequence of the clear dominance of biological thinking and cause-consequence view of modern times.

Much of what we do – in a conscious and apparently logical or rational way – de facto is the acting out of emotional processes and patterns. It’s key to understand this in order to understand customers and people overall.

Therefore, when making customer journey maps, we also advise you to:

  • Look at emotional satisfaction and triggers. The customer experience is mainly about emotions to begin with, anyway.
  • Go beyond rational personas and buyer personas if needed and include psychological models when relevant.
  • Beware of generalizations and strict cause-consequence approaches.
  • Not just look at pain points but also where possible at success points, persuasion points, passion points and anything else that plays a role in emotional decision taking and, most certainly, unconscious triggers to act (even if rationally there seems no reason to).

Simply said: look at your own buying behavior and decisions. You don’t only chose a supplier or partner, based on so-called rational criteria. Objectivity is by definition impossible and subjectivity is far stronger than we often tend to believe.

One of the shortcomings of customer journey mapping in this sense of course is that we cannot understand or map everything and everyone and thus need to use a more or less structured method, constructed around generalizations and stages that are de facto overlapping and, as such, simplifications.

When we stay as close as possible to our customers in the broadest sense – what we want to achieve with customer journey mapping – it is much stronger and closer to reality than, for instance, traditional funnel models.

Customer journey mapping: understanding the customer

In our introduction to customer journey mapping, thus far we looked at the what and why, with several tips to use customer journey maps beyond the strict scope of customer experience management.

Essentially, with customer journey maps we have an outside-in view and place ourselves in the shoes of our customers. But is that even possible and how do we involve the customer?

An honest answer to the question whether we can place ourselves in the shoes of our customers is no. Admittedly, the customer journey of buyer of shoes, for instance, is much easier to (try to) understand than that of a buyer of an expensive software solution for very specific business needs in a complex journey whereby vendors have complex go-to-market models and decisions are group decisions (which buying shoes can be as well by the way).

It’s clear we can’t put ourselves in the shoes of the individual buyer, even if it’s about buying shoes. We’re all different but at the same time – fortunately – we decide in more or less identifiable ways with more or less known parameters. Otherwise, customer journey mapping wouldn’t even be possible. However, when we look at more complex buying journeys and multiple influencers, decision makers and stages, the more complex the customer journey map is.

Understanding the customer: sources of insight for customer journey mapping

Putting ourselves in the shoes of our customers is great but of course we need to avoid the (pure) inside-out approach and thus truly understand the key elements and customer-related data, facts and realities we need to grasp so we can build a customer journey map and build an outside-in customer culture.

Holistic journey mapping – a journey map can identify pain points and help align with business priorities – via tandemseven

There are several ways to do this and, although none of them is perfect and never will be, we advise you to consider several ones to reduce the number of potential errors. Some sources to use.

Trusted content sources and research

In order to know decision makers in specific verticals for specific solutions (mainly in complex markets) and to understand the key “pain points”, we consult the Web and offline resources, especially trusted resources such as some analysts, other companies targeting the same audiences, etc.

There is quite some research that can be conducted if you allocate the resources to do it, combine it with other ways of gaining market and even buyer insights and use some smart ways to conduct research in the stricter sense of the word and interview some experts as well.

Admittedly, this is not the way to get close and personal but it allows you to detect patterns and conducting research can lead to insights and facts you can use, among others, for marketing purposes (content). We feel that organizations in general should do more analysis themselves. To be fair, the line between consultancy, analysis, good journalism and research for content is sometimes a thin one. Again, not the closest to your target audiences or customers but you just need to stay in the loop and use what’s available – and it also helps in seeing the trends and current evolutions that might lead to necessary digital transformation efforts as a consequence.

Your subject matter experts

Interview your internal “brains”. Consult the people who are in your organization, especially those that are close to the end customer and – in case of a channel model – also those that work with those different “chains” in your go-to-market approach.

Obviously, subject matter experts in this case also include your good partners and any other contact you can work with (analyst relationships, consultants, subcontractors, whatever).

Subject matter experts on the customer level are not just people who are close to the customers such as customer service reps, customer analysts, sales people, etc. They are also those that regularly get out and talk to real customers, something every exec should do. And, often forgotten, they also involve people who inform R&D and product marketing because – normally – no product or service is developed if there is no clear customer need it covers – or customer expectation it fulfills. Communicating the business rationale and detected customer needs is the job of both these departments, for instance to sales. It’s one of many reasons we recommend to involve product marketing in a content marketing plan, for instance.

Personas, your customers and the customers of their customers

Customer journey mapping works with personas. But, again, this is a model. Personas remain important to work with but remember that, just as the funnel and the customer journey map as such, they are depictions. Also remember that nothing – including the customer experience – is linear.

Furthermore, potential customers can interact with your business across each possible touchpoint, regardless of the stage they’re in. With digital and content becoming pervasive, this is even more the case. It’s not because you have a paper that is aimed at customers comparing or considering vendors/products/solution that they can’t be downloaded by people in the discovery or awareness stage, for instance. In fact, in an increasingly real-time economy where ever more personalization is possible, there are reasons to consider other options than persona models.

Nevertheless, until further notice, personas are still the predominant way we work with in customer journey maps. There is an increasing trend to differ between different types of personas, depending on their stage in the overall customer life cycle (buying behavior to be precise). This has, among others, been advocated by Tony Zambito. You can also read more about it in our buyer persona overview. Some work with simple segments and job roles instead of personas or with pure psychographic models.

Regardless of the methods you use it’s clear that the customer is the only one able to really putting himself in the shoes of the customer. So, it’s equally clear that you’ll need to involve the customer.

If you’re in a go-to-market model with partners, remember the lessons of value chains we mention in various articles of this website. In order to understand the customer, you also need to understand the customer of the customer, etc., all the way to the end buyer, whether it’s in the capacity of a consumer or of a B2B buyer. Remember, however, that it’s best to focus on what matters most and not make it too complicated unless you really can – and want to – dive very deep into the customer experience in relationship with, for instance, content plans, partner enablement efforts, etc.

You need to get the customer on board of your customer journey mapping. Although, it’s obvious, all too often it still doesn’t happen and people genuinely believe they can truly understand their customers just by talking to their peers, employees or, worse, relying on the opinions of those good old HiPPOs (highest paid person’s opinion).

Effective journey maps illustrate the customer journey across multiple touchpoints

Involving the customer

Empathy can go a long way but it’s not magic. Involving customers in several ways is essential. A non-exhaustive list of ways to involve the customer (and the customer of the customer, etc.):

Conduct customer research

Customer research is a first way to gauge what customers want, how their journey looks like, what their pain points and emotional triggers are and so forth. Also use it as a way, to check the findings from what you’ve learned in other ways (validation).

Big caveat, however, and always to remember: there are very often big discrepancies between what people say they do/want/value and what they turn out to do/want/value in practice. Finding these discrepancies is already interesting as such (and anyway, the discrepancies will be far smaller than those between what organizations believe are valuable touchpoints and customer experiences on one hand and what customers themselves think about that on the other).

Research can be done via telephone, using online surveys, at events, etc. It’s best to get an experienced partner on board to narrow down the error margin and avoid too much opinion.

Workshops

Just as agencies and consultants conduct workshops with their customers to map buyer insights, create personas and work on the initial drafts of the customer journey map (often along with storyboards), organizations can conduct similar workshops with actual customers and potential buyers.

We advise – again, if feasible, to involve the customers of customers in such workshops with agencies and consultants too by the way. The quality and outcomes of such workshops are, among others defined, by the invited people (how representative?) and making sure you have a predominant focus on the outside-in approach.

In such workshops there is of course always the risk of thinking (what people and participants want) versus actual behavior and a partner might come in handy too for the same reasons as mentioned in the section on customer research.

Other methods

While surveys, workshops, interviews and customer advisory panels/boards are all good ways to involve customers into the journey mapping exercise, you need data for all the reasons mentioned above.

As you probably noticed by now, there is ALWAYS a genuine risk of mistaking opinions for facts, whether the opinions come from customers, panel members or your internal teams such as customer-facing employees and subject matter experts. That’s why it’s always a good idea to 1) validate the outcomes with several stakeholders a second time (others) before moving to the next step, 2) conduct workshops, interviews etc. with partners who have experience in customer journey mapping and 3) look at facts.

Get out. Validate your findings by getting out more often and listen and talk to customers and the customers of your customers. Tradeshows, other events, phone calls, face-to-face meetings, spending a few days in (your) shops, passing some time in sales and customer service, asking a partner to spend some time with then when they visit end customers or in their offices. We don’t get out enough anymore, instead hiding behind screens and dashboards.

Facts are partially about data but it’s also good to ask people to fulfil specific tasks, rather than just asking their opinions. Such exercises, whereby people are asked to complete a task on a website and their actual behavior is traced, exist since a very long time in the field of user experience and usability. So, strictly speaking, they say nothing about the journey.

However, using such methods and knowing there are clear links between customer experience and user experience, even in offline environments such as shops and, if possible in a more-to-end way (you can even combine this with journals), you’ll get a better picture of various steps in the digital customer journey (and of digital touchpoints but remember customer journey mapping is not the same as touchpoint mapping).

Funnel alternative model and customer experience touchpoint model by Forrester reasearch - read more about both
Funnel alternative model and customer experience touchpoint model by Forrester reasearch – read more about both

Let’s face it: the customer does have a multi-channel or channel-agnostic journey but the number of digital touchpoints and touches is increasing in many areas. So, when it makes sense in a specific context/area, use such methods. Whereas in user experience you would typically focus on a task regarding one service or property, you can broaden the scope of the task in a digital environment.

So, instead of saying “find the number of xyz on the website of abc” (to see how long it takes for the user to find the specific content and gauge how visitor-centric the website is), say something like “look for a new insurance provider using the Web”. User experience experts might be horrified by reading this (in general, we focus on very specific tasks, as specific as possible) and customer experience experts will probably say it’s an artificial setting and the journey is not just online.

They’re both right but do the exercise to see what insights it delivers, knowing that it has shortcomings. You might learn quite a bit about not just which channels different people use but also about user experiences and touchpoints, even if that’s not your core goal here (you can combine goals though if they don’t interfere).

Last but not least, note that the single customer experience is as important as the end-to-end customer experience so there is no need NOT to look at individual experiences as well.

On funnels and journey models

The customer journey has traditionally been presented in rather linear ways looking at consecutive ways such as discovery, evaluation, buying and advocacy as depicted in the image on this page. It’s clear that this linear representation is a model and always has been one, just as is the case with the funnels we have been using for so long.

In demand generation and lead nurturing we’ve known since ages that such models can lead to errors of the overlooking of important elements. One example: very often we forget what Mac McConnel called the “Buddha Funnel” several years ago in a lead scoring and marketing automation context.

There have been numerous attempts to look at the buying journey, customer experience, customer life cycle etc. in less linear ways that correspond more with the customer reality. One of many examples, as you can read here, is the model that Forrester’s Lori Wizdo presented several years ago and, which she called when we chatted about it, rather “Seussian”.

Reality is indeed hard to represent. And to be honest, if you realize nothing in reality is linear and people can enter into contact with you, directly or indirectly, anywhere at any time and for any reason (and go away and come back again as well) it’s ok to use a model based on typical customer stages.

The customer reality is complex and involves more than one buy or a few stages. It’s dynamic, ongoing (until it stops), individual, etc. Various models such as McKinsey’s Customer Decision Journey Model, Google’s multi-channel view, Altimeter’s dynamic customer journey model and several others are closer to reality and can help you in your journey mapping as well. However, in the end it doesn’t matter how it looks graphically or how it’s structured. As long as it’s as accurate as it needs to be to achieve what you want to achieve, understanding the funnel is just a funnel, the journey is looped and connected and there is no perfect model.

The Customer Experience Lifecycle - infographic by CMSWire
The Customer Experience Lifecycle – infographic by CMSWire

Images purchased under license from Shutterstock