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How to Create a Customer Journey Map in 7 Steps

How to Create a Customer Journey Map in 7 Steps

Take a look at all the products you have around your house, as you obviously know, they didn't just magically appear in your house, you purchased them. This means that you went through a series of steps and interactions in order to purchase any of those products, which is called a customer journey. 

If you are on the other side of the coin and trying to sell a product to customers, you need to know how to create a customer journey map in order to efficiently sell your products or service.

Any cracks in your selling process that could cause you to lose customers. In fact, companies with better customer service have 4-8% higher revenue than those who don't.

So the problem is, how do you create a proper customer journey map so that you are able to track and record your ability to sell? 

Thankfully, we did that research for you, keep on reading to learn more.

1. Know What a Customer Journey Map Is

A customer journey map is essentially a timeline of all the experiences and interactions a customer goes through until they make a purchase. It helps improve customer service. This may seem like a small piece of the puzzle, but in fact, it is an important component to understand your customers on a deeper level.

For example, let's say you are looking for a new outfit online, your customer journey for purchasing this outfit is outlined something like:

  • You research clothing that fits your style online
  • You look for any sales or deals
  • You discover a website and browse their products that perk your interest
  • You go to check out, but then see another shirt that interests you
  • As you go to check out again, you notice there are customer reviews so you begin to check all the reviews
  • You get distracted and leave the website
  • A couple of days later, you notice a sale on that clothing website you were looking at
  • You decide it was a sign to purchase the clothing, so you do
  • The clothing arrives at your house
  • You try it all on, and it fits perfectly
  • Within a week of the arrival, you receive an email with an even higher discount for more clothing
  • You go back on the clothing website and continue shopping again

Every single action above is part of the customer journey, and observing these actions from your customers will tell you a lot about your efficiency as a company.

2. Identify Your Customer Persona

Identifying your ideal customer is essential for streamlining the customer's journey. For example, if you are utilizing many outbound marketing tactics and targeting everybody, you will not be as efficient as you would be focusing on a specific type of person.

Every niche has its specific customers, you need to know your targeted customers in order to create the right content and target them directly.

3. Observe Each Stage of the Journey

During each stage of the purchasing process, the customer will be experiencing different thoughts, emotions, motivations, rejections, and fears. You need to know how to work around each of these in order to make the process more efficient.

During each stage, you need to understand:

  • Customer actions: What is the common action at this stage? Immediate purchase, checking reviews, browsing more, etc.
  • Motivation: What is motivating the customer to continue on your sales journey? What encourages them to continue to the next stage? 
  • Uncertainties: What fears do they have about continuing, are there any questions they have at this point?
  • Roadblocks: Is there anything deterring the customer from purchasing at the final stage? Are there any surprises?

Understanding the psychology behind your customer's thoughts, feelings, and objections will help you to get into their minds, and handle the objections before they begin. 

4. Do Your Research

Understanding the data and generalizing your target market will do wonders for knowing how to create a customer journey map. In addition to that, you need to research using the best form of information you can get — from the customers themselves. 

For example, the team at gaming site Solitaired ran surveys through emails and on-site notification to learn more about their customers. They asked their users information about age, location, how they found out about the site, and why they wanted to play solitaire games. They even got on the phone with some customers to probe deeper to understand their day to day and mindset when coming to their site. This provided strong insights into creating their customer journey map.

5. Communicate With Your Customers

Ask your customers about their experience, troubles, and obstacles during their purchasing journey, and you could also ask for a review of their experience.

In order to keep organized with your customer communication, it is highly advisable to invest in CCM software. 

What does CCM stand for? Customer communication Management and it can completely revamp the way you communicate with your customers.

6. Draw Out the Journey

It is time to bring out the giant whiteboards and get to the action! Drawing out your customer journey map is part of the visualization of a successful sales process.

The easiest diagrams to draw the customer journey is in a giant circle or a timeline format, this allows you to add in or take out steps along the way without ruining the entire image.

Make sure you use writing material that is easily erasable, as you will be making corrections along the way. 

7. Create the Final Journey Map

After you have created the final draft of your journey map drawing, you will need to show it to everyone else that is a part of your sales process for their approval.

Once you have their approval or alterations, it is now time to create a digital version of your customer journey map. 

There are many online programs that help with creating beautiful customer journey maps and templates for you to use. Start doing your research and see which one works best for you.

Learn More About How to Create a Customer Journey Map

There are many components to an effective sales process, and knowing how to create a customer journey map is one piece of the big puzzle. Remember this takes focus, observation, and many changes along the way to perfect the right journey map.

If you found this article helpful, check out more like this in the marketing section of our blog!

 

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