What does your brand’s customer journey look like?
Being able to answer this question requires a comprehensive understanding of the customer experience, and in highly competitive markets where it’s essential to stand out from the crowd, this isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity.
If your customer is Frodo, think of their journey as their route to Mordor. Your aim is to provide the most efficient path to the One Ring - the less monsters and giant spiders the better - in order for your customers to achieve their end goal.
This is where customer journey mapping comes in.
Customer journey mapping is one of the most effective ways to visualise, understand, and improve the end-to-end experience of interacting with your brand. By charting each touchpoint, you gain a clearer picture of what your customers go through, where they experience positivity, and where they face frustration - and it’s your aim to keep them out of the shadows.
But just as the Fellowship’s quest requires vigilance and adaptation, customer journey maps cannot remain static relics from the kickoff phase of your project. To truly deliver value, they need to be living documents that evolve as your business and your customers’ needs change.
So, don your best Gandalf cloak as we embark on a journey to explore why mapping customer journeys is so valuable, how to do it most effectively, and how brands have wielded this approach to enhance their customer experience.
Why start a project with customer journey mapping?
Think of starting a project with a customer journey map like inputting your destination into a GPS. You wouldn’t set off driving from Sunderland to London without any idea of which way was south. Instead, you’d want to follow the fastest route with the least amount of diversions, and one that passes a good service station to stop along the way…preferably one with a Greggs.
So while Bilbo Baggins would tell you that “not all those who wander are lost”, when it comes to customer journey mapping, your aim is to establish a similar understanding of exactly where your customers are heading and the most efficient means of getting there. That’s because when everyone on the team has this shared understanding of the customer experience, it creates clarity, aligns goals, and brings a user-centred focus to every decision.
For example, customer journey mapping is particularly helpful for:
- Building empathy and insight: A journey map lets you see your brand from the customer’s perspective, shifting your perspective from inside-out to outside-in. You might be surprised at just how many decisions impacting the customer experience are driven by your internal processes, systems, and culture - but this approach rarely aligns with the actual wants, needs, and expectations of your customers. Customer mapping helps to flip this on its head by placing the spotlight on actual human experiences, refocusing efforts on the motivations, actions, and emotions of customers at each stage.
- Identifying pain points early: By mapping the journey, you can pinpoint areas where customers may face obstacles and address them proactively. Not only does this prevent costly reworks by helping to create a smooth experience from day one, but also helps you make better sense of quantitative data. Sure, you might know that something is happening - perhaps a feature isn’t being used or a page is failing to convert, for example - but customer mapping can give you a better understanding of why this is happening too.
- Aligning teams around customer needs: Journey maps serve as a single source of truth for all departments, from marketing and sales to product development and customer service. This helps to break down departmental silos and encourages conversation and collaboration across teams by making it easier to coordinate efforts and deliver a consistent experience.
- Assigning ownership of key stages: It’s not uncommon for bumps and barriers across the customer journey to exist purely because teams aren’t sure who is responsible for addressing them. By creating a clear customer journey map, departments are able to more effectively recognise who takes ownership for which stages and touchpoints, and as a result, can be more proactive in tackling any challenges that arise in these areas.
6 key features of an effective customer journey map
While a customer journey map doesn’t quite look like a treasure scroll from Pirate Of The Caribbean, nor is it just a list of interactions. Instead, it’s a strategic tool that includes insights into each phase of the customer experience. Here’s what a robust journey map should include, me mateys (*in our best Jack Sparrow voice*):
- Customer personas: Start by creating user personas around your target segments based on audience research and the insights at your disposal. This anthropic approach to your data will give you a springboard for understanding who your users are and, as a result, how they think, feel and act.
- Stages of the journey: Break down the journey into its major stages, like Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Onboarding, and Loyalty. Each stage represents a key phase in the customer experience and influences their relationship with your brand.
- Touchpoints: Identify where customers interact with your brand at each stage, whether it’s a human-led experience like a customer service call or in-person interaction, or a digital experience like a website visit or social media engagement. These are the vital points in the customer experience that can either positively or negatively impact the customer’s trust in your brand.
- Channels and devices: Your customer journeys are rarely an omnichannel experience. Instead, customers will likely engage with your brand across multiple channels and devices, meaning it’s imperative to understand the impact this has on each customer’s journey. By identifying which is favoured by customers at each stage, you can better optimise the experience across every touchpoint.
- Pain points and high moments: Time to introduce the emotions (no, no, not like that - turn The Notebook off). Instead, highlight areas where customers may feel a strong emotion at either end of the spectrum, like frustration or joy. This is critical for understanding where improvements are needed and where you’re already excelling.
- Goals and expectations: Finally, look to capture what the customer is trying to accomplish at each stage and what they expect from the interaction. This helps you design experiences that feel intuitive and seamless.
Why should you review and update maps regularly?
The bad news? Customer journey maps are not “set it and forget it” tools. As your business grows, technology advances, and customer expectations evolve, so too should your journey map.
The good news? Regular reviews keep your map relevant and allow you to stay responsive to customer needs like:
- Evolving with customer expectations: Customer needs change over time, and so do industry standards and technology. By reviewing your journey map regularly, you ensure that your approach remains agile enough to stay aligned with customer expectations and keep pace with market trends.
- Refining the customer experience: Customer feedback—through surveys, reviews, or direct interactions—provides valuable insights into how your journey map can be improved. Regular updates ensure that your map reflects actual experiences and identifies new opportunities for enhancement, aiding everything from conversion success to customer retention.
- Driving continuous improvement: A journey map that’s regularly updated becomes a tool for continuous improvement. With fresh insights, your team can adjust processes, introduce new touchpoints, and streamline existing ones to keep the customer experience at its best.
Real world examples: how customer journey mapping improved our clients’ customer experiences
Enhancing the build-to-site workflow
A modular housing manufacturer was struggling with outdated processes and excessive reliance on spreadsheets, which were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and share across teams. We helped them streamline their offsite and onsite operations.
Solution: Through a series of workshops, interviews, and market research, we identified the manufacturer’s functional needs across key areas including resource and inventory management, quality assurance, and scalability. We discovered that many of their current processes could be automated and standardised.
Outcome: Our discovery phase resulted in a clear project and functional specification for a low-code platform. This platform would feature an admin dashboard for managing inventory, project status, and resource allocation, as well as a Progressive Web App (PWA) for onsite staff to use during the building process. This solution empowered the business to operate efficiently while remaining adaptable to future needs. By providing a scalable tool tailored to their specific requirements, we helped the client establish a strong foundation for continued innovation in modular housing.
Streamlining the customer payment journey
We assisted a tunnel tolling operator in optimising their customers' payment process after using the tunnels. This project presented unique challenges, as customers could pay through multiple channels, leading to diverse user journeys. Additionally, the solution needed to be highly accessible to accommodate a wide range of users.
Solution: We conducted workshops with a wide-ranging group of stakeholders, including both internal teams and external users, to gather insights. We then combined this qualitative data with platformance analytics to identify key areas for improvement.
Outcome: We designed tailored user journeys that prioritised the users' key objectives while also meeting the company's need to collect vital information at specific stages. This resulted in improved customer satisfaction and increased retention rates for customers signing up for accounts.
Building a customer-centric foundation with journey mapping
Always remember that customer journey mapping isn’t just about documenting the steps a customer takes—it’s about understanding, enhancing, and aligning the experience to meet customer needs at every stage.
By visualising the journey and making it a dynamic tool for continuous improvement, you’re setting a customer-centric foundation that builds loyalty and fosters long-term growth, building stronger connections with every interaction and creating experiences as memorable as the most epic tales of Middle-earth.