Customer Journey Maps (CJMs) are quickly emerging as the go-to tool for leading businesses because of the instantly-usable customer experience benefits they provide. If you want to find out more about customer journey mapping, check out our 3-part beginner's blog series which goes through what a customer journey map is and its benefits.
Let's do a quick customer journey map recap!
What is customer experience in a nutshell?
In short, customer experience is the sum of all experiences a customer has with a company from start to finish.
To ensure a great customer experience, businesses need to map out and understand the customer journey. This means that businesses must conduct research. Customer research involves figuring out all the steps customers take when interacting with your company, as well as their emotional reactions at each stage.
Once you have this understanding, you can start making changes to improve the customer experience.
What is a customer journey map in a nutshell?
A customer journey map is a visual representation of how a customer interacts with your entire organization across the different customer touchpoints.
Customer journey maps are useful for businesses because they help you to see the customer experience from the customer's perspective. Walking in the customer's shoes is a valuable experience that can transform the way you think about customer experiences. Specifically, customer journey maps allow you to identify pain points and areas where you can improve the customer experience.
When using customer journey map templates you want to make sure they meet the requirements of a successful customer journey map. These can be found here.
Now that we've refreshed your memory on customer journey mapping, let's move on to the 5 ways it can transform your business!
How can using a customer journey map template improve my business?
Improved Customer Experience
The first and most obvious benefit of customer journey mapping is the improvement to customer experience (CX) that it can bring about. By understanding the various customer touchpoints that buyers have with your business, you can identify areas where the customer experience could be improved. This might be something as simple as making sure that your website is easy to navigate or that your customer service team is properly trained.
Customer interactions can be the make or break of the customer onboarding process. You want to make sure that the average customer feels valued by your company.
Increased Sales and Revenue
Customer journey map research has told us that when you understand customer journeys, you also understand how to improve your business metrics. Improved customer experience often leads to increased sales and revenue. This is because happy customers are more likely to become repeat customers and they are also more likely to recommend your business to others.
In fact, a study by the Temkin Group found that companies that excel at customer experience see an average revenue increase of 4.6%.
Reduced Costs
There is a misconception that when you invest in a customer journey map template or professional service, you are wasting money. This is far from the reality of it!
Customer journey mapping can help to reduce costs by identifying areas where your business is wasting money. When done properly, you will no longer target what a fictitious customer needs and wants from your business. You will create a customer journey that is meaningful for target customers.
For example, you may find that you are spending a lot of money on advertising to attract new customers but most of them never make it through the sales process. By understanding the customer journey, you can target your advertising more effectively and reduce your costs.
Improved Employee Satisfaction
You not only want to create a customer journey that is amazing, you also want to create an excellent employee experience.
Happy employees lead to improved customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to increased sales and revenue. Therefore, improving employee satisfaction should be one of your goals when using customer journey mapping.
One way to do this is to identify areas where employees are coming into contact with customers and make sure that they have the training and tools they need to do their jobs effectively.
Increased Customer Loyalty
Finally, a customer journey mapping can also help to increase customer loyalty. This is because loyal customers are more likely to continue doing business with you, even if there are cheaper or more convenient alternatives available. By understanding the customer journey, you can identify areas where you can provide additional value to your customers and make them loyal advocates for your brand.
Key Takeaways
Access to insights about how your customers interact with your team and the possible pain points for them in doing so enables you to prioritise meaningful investments that will drive growth. Customer journey maps help you to deeply understand your customer’s experience from their point of view whilst also providing a framework to take action on your findings.
A Customer journey map is a powerful tool that can be used to transform your business. By improving customer experience, you can increase sales and revenue while also reducing costs. In addition, employee satisfaction will improve, leading to even better customer service. And, finally, you'll be able to increase customer loyalty and create lasting relationships with your best customers.
This article only scratches the surface of what customer journey mapping can do for businesses.
If you want some customer journey mapping examples check out our blog - Beginner's Guide to Understanding the Anatomy of a High Performing Customer Journey Map. Or if you want to find out how Proto Partners can help you map your customer's journey, click here.
