10 tips on customer journey mapping for marketers

Many individuals are not aware of what customer journey map is why we need to improve the same. Customer journey map is a series of touchpoints that depicts the stages customers go through when interacting with a company like check-outs on an online website, shopping basket, etc. So, with advanced technology, there are new software and methods to map the touchpoints, which will help us to improve the customer journey map. This simply means that the process of journey mapping always needs an update.

Given below are ten tips on customer journey mapping that all marketers must follow.

Know your customer’s perspective
Customer journey map is all about stepping into your customer’s shoes, and therefore it is the most important thing on the list. There are several data sources available, but all these data will work only if they are integrated together and interpreted. Having such a view on customer’s journey will help you make real-time decisions which will increase your insight into their specific requirements.

Remember that customer journey map is customer’s map and not yours
Customer journey map is combined thoughts that the customer had when they were introduced to your brand. It is their understanding of your brand, which can only be understood and not managed by you. So, your job in the business is not to manage the journey map but to understand and interpret it to make the interactions with the customers more effectively.

Understand customers’ behavior
Always be honest with yourself and your goal when you are trying to understand customer’s behavior. Insight into a customer’s mind will reveal the real customer journey map and will create a meaningful conclusion on why customers behave the way they behave. It will show you the real customer needs and not the materialistic ones. In theory, it is assumed that customer journey map is a controllable process and people are expected to behave in a certain way. However, this is just a theory and reality is far from it.

Keep yourself updated on the live customer journey map
To make sure that the fact mentioned above is true, you can check the same while viewing a live or real-time customer journey map. Real-time data shows you the real interactions of customers happening across all your data channels, and now with advanced technology available, it is possible to do the same more easily.

Draw actionable conclusions
The interpretation of any customer journey map gives you insights or an understanding of the customer’s touchpoints which can be interpreted as opportunities for your business. You can use this data to make an actionable plan to strategize the pain points and how to use them to build a relationship with your customer. You must make sure that the data which provides you the insight is a real-time data and not an offline one. As only then you can chart some effective plans.

Cumulate data from different systems
The data that you receive regarding all the touchpoints is of a single customer, which means it gives an insight into only one customer of the business. This just means you need to cumulate all the customer’s data that you have in different systems of your business, which provide you with an overall view of the customer journey map of all.

Always store the old data maps
Customer journey maps, even though are made from the live or real-time data, do not make the old ones any less useful. These old data maps can be used along with the live data to analyze the behavior of customer from past to present and how it affected various scenarios.

Use the latest technology
Traditional technology can’t be used any longer. Give yourself a break from all the manual work that you were doing and update yourself with the latest technology. This, indeed, will do most of the work for you. It will help you get more accurate results based on which you can make effective decisions.

Get a broader view of customer touchpoints
Instead of focusing on a single touchpoint, try to look at the different touchpoints for a longer period. See the different interactions at various points and evaluate them accordingly.

Understand customers’ emotions and actions
Customers’ thought process relate to their emotions and experiences. To understand a customer, you must dig in layer by layer to understand their actions and behaviors. Survey tools and market research data can help you with this so that you can make more informed decisions. Various tools and workshops are used to decipher the behavior of the customers.

So, follow the tips mentioned above and improve your customer journey map with the latest technology. This, in the long run, will help your business grow quickly and reach new heights of success.