Customer Journey Map (CJM) is quite a popular tool, but everyone interprets it a little differently. Let’s look closer at how Duamentes business experts make the best of this tool to grow businesses.
What is Customer Journey Mapping
It encompasses every interaction between the brand and the customer, including potential customers, from the moment they first become aware of the brand. CJM covers all elements of the brand experience, extending beyond the product to include marketing, public relations, and even word-of-mouth interactions. It’s designed to not only reveal weaknesses in current product features, processes, and other activities related to the brand but also to suggest how internal business processes can be tweaked to perfect the customer journey and boost key business metrics.
CJM serves a dual purpose: it helps businesses capture their current operational state and identify areas for improvement (CJM as is), and it aids in designing enhanced service experiences and establishing a central point of truth (CJM to be).
This tool is now also employed for designing various types of journeys. For instance, an Employee Journey Map helps examine the interactions between a company and its employees, while an Investor Journey Map is used to map out the interactions between a startup and its investors.
CJM Components
A Customer Journey Map (CJM) visually represents the entire experience a customer has with a company. It encompasses various elements, including customer segments, which are personas representing different groups. The map outlines the phases customers go through, from discovering a product to making a purchase. It identifies touchpoints, such as interactions through websites or social media, and channels, which include different ways customers engage with the brand, like online or in-store. Access ZARA real-time ZARA CJM here.
The map highlights ‘wow’ factors, or unique features and experiences that impress customers. It tracks customer actions, such as signing up for newsletters or making purchases, and considers their emotions throughout the journey. It also uncovers pain points, or challenges customers face, and goals, which are what customers aim to achieve. Finally, the CJM identifies key decision-makers and stakeholders influencing the journey and measures success through metrics like sales, satisfaction, or retention rates.
Different Tools “AS IS” and “TO BE” Mapping
“AS IS” mapping is about understanding the real-world interactions and experiences of the customers, identifying any issues such as bottlenecks, customer dissatisfaction, and suboptimal transition methods.
Mapping out these activities in the “AS IS” phase involves recording the current state of these interactions based on existing protocols and system behaviors. It’s essential to document how the system currently handles these interactions, even if they’re not ideal. This might include ad hoc solutions by customer support over the phone or via chat, and how effectively these issues are resolved.
It is important to describe the actual activities customers engage in, which can be categorized in various ways:
- Identify the most typical and standard actions that most customers take.
- Differentiate which activities are performed online and which are done offline.
- Identify the most frequently encountered journeys at each stage.
- Take note of undesirable customer actions that indicate a sad journey or issues within the journey, where something goes wrong.
“TO BE” mapping is about designing the ideal experience based on the current understanding. This type of CJM projects how a company wants the interactions to occur, balancing the desires of the customers with the capabilities of the business. It’s about redesigning the customer experience to optimize it for both the audience and the business. This involves a delicate balance of considering what is technically feasible and what is commercially viable for the business. If the redesign is too detached from business realities, it may end up being impractical and ineffective.
For instance, if different audience segments respond differently, tailor the journey to meet these specific needs. This could extend to rewriting customer support scripts or redesigning processes for product managers and beyond. Companies may introduce all changes simultaneously or prefer a phased approach. However, it is essential to make a theoretical map to become a living management system and source of truth.
Visualizing and Presenting
There can be one mega-journey map, common elements shared across all customer experiences are highlighted as the main pathway, with variations for specific customer segments noted separately. Access ZARA real-time ZARA CJM here!
However, some companies may have different customer segments and might consider designing distinct journey maps for each segment.
The decision on how best to approach this depends on how processes are structured within the company. For example, if there is a single director or owner responsible for overseeing the entire customer journey, it might be more efficient to have one unified Map with distinct blocks highlighting the differences among segments.
Conversely, if different individuals within the company are responsible for different audience segments, it might be more practical to maintain separate, interconnected journey maps. This ensures that when one-part changes, the entire team understands the need to synchronize and align their efforts.
CJM visualization may vary based on several criteria:
- Interaction Channel: How does the customer experience (CX) phase differ depending on whether the interaction is through a sales representative or e-commerce.
- Customer Type: What are there distinct CX phases for several types of customers, such as consumers, large businesses, or SMBs.
- Payment Type: How does the CX vary by how customers choose to pay (e.g., outright purchase, rental, or financing).
- Experience Providers: How do partners affect the customer experience.
- Geography: Specific market expectations that influence customer experience.
Why Companies Need CJM
Our experience shows CJM is particularly popular among digital-first companies. While, in larger corporations, CJM tends to be simplified into a streamlined process flow, still referred to as CJM. CJM is typically not used as a tool for market entry strategies but is more frequently applied in marketing efforts.
Being an exceptionally adaptable tool CJM can also be used in traction with Employee Journey Maps. These maps are particularly useful for tracing an employee’s journey from the moment they accept a job offer, highlighting key interactions within the company.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning the service blueprint—a framework derived from the CJM. This tool is designed to refine the internal processes of a company so that they align with the envisioned ideal state of the CJM.
CJM proves its worth in various scenarios, helping organizations understand and optimize their interactions with customers. Here’s when CJM is most effective:
- Breaking Down Silos: In large corporations, different departments often work independently on separate aspects of the same product, leading to a fragmented understanding of the customer experience. This is akin to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, where each man touches a different part and yet none can describe the whole elephant. CJM helps everyone see the ‘whole elephant’.
- During Digital Transformations: It is typically integrated at the beginning of the transformation process, helping companies map out all customer interactions upfront.
- Strategic Planning and Troubleshooting: CJM is often adopted after other customer experience improvement efforts have failed, or when there is a clear goal to deepen understanding of the customer journey.
CJM is focused on customers and business growth; companies may utilize it to increase loyalty and conversion, shorten the sales cycle, become more customer-oriented, reduce the risk of new product failure, and identify growth points for existing ones.
However, there are situations where CJM may not be effective, such as post-update deployment fatigue where teams lack the motivation to adopt latest changes immediately.
Myths about CJM
There are several myths circulating about Customer Journey Maps (CJMs). Some mistakenly believe they require extensive research, making them seem impractical. There is also a misconception that integrating CJMs demands significant operational and product changes, leading many to think they are only suitable for large companies or those entirely focused on customers. Additionally, there is the myth that once created, CJMs remain static and only highlight negative aspects of the customer experience.
However, in reality, while additional research may be necessary for a comprehensive CJM, the changes made are determined by the team’s strategic decisions and capabilities. The goal remains to design a CJM that captures comprehensive customer insights, remains actionable, and aligns with the company’s operational realities.
Tools for Designing CJM
When it comes to designing CJM, there are various tools available, each with unique features suitable for various stages of the mapping process. Many design tools cater to various needs, from digital platforms to collaborative online tools. For instance, Figma allows real-time collaboration for CJM design, Excel is great for data-driven mapping, whiteboards are perfect for brainstorming, and Miro offers interactive CJMs with a library of templates. CJM-focused tools like Lucidspark, Smaply, UXPressia, Qualtrics SuiteCX, and InMoment, offer specialized features, valuable integrations, and enhanced data analytics and presentation options.
Every company’s customer journey has unique aspects that standardized templates may not fully capture. Therefore, while templates can serve as a good starting point, they often need to be customized to reflect the true intricacies of a specific customer journey accurately.
Customer Journey Map is a highly effective tool Duamentes experts recommend for companies of all types. It plays an essential role in retaining customers, enhancing their loyalty, and driving business growth.
