Mapping the Customer Journey: Strategies for Every Stage

Often, you hear leaders say that the customer’s perception is the reality for businesses. It is a timeless truth that many companies fail to realise. What happens as a result – mismatched product expectations and delivery.

This means how customers see your business and what they need are important. For this reason, businesses must understand and plan every step of the customer journey. In fact, a clear view and strategy for customer interactions is no longer a mere choice —it’s basic.

Growth Jockey helps businesses map customer lifecycle stages and create a shared vision for how they experience your brand.

Here, we have listed the top strategies to create a customer journey map to get a better idea. We’ll also learn how you can build a worthwhile experience for your customers.

Proven Strategies to Create an Effective Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map is a visual presentation of the steps your customer goes through while engaging with your company. Visual storytelling helps a brand understand and improve the customer’s experience.

Here, customer lifecycle management is an important concept for building customer relationships. The customer lifecycle stages involve the complete customer experience, from pre-purchase to post-purchase. It includes initial awareness of a product and making a purchase.

Let’s look at the top strategies that help create a customer journey map to drive success.

Consider the Customer Personas

One of the most crucial steps is to discover targeted customer personas when creating a customer journey map.

You can get the necessary insights through surveys, interviews, testimonials, reviews, and feedback. Asking the customer relation teams can give you the correct customer perspective. It lets you discover why a customer leaves the cart in the buying journey.

Another way is to try competitor analysis. It allows you to identify what they are doing to connect with the audience.

But, creating initial personas is not enough. Find their lifestyle traits, shared interests, and similar features.

The more specifics you can get about your customers, the better. It will help you create more effective customer journey maps.

Identify Stages and Set Precise Goals for Them

A customer journey map can have many unique stages. These stages can depend on your goals and how you wish to represent your brand.

But, the most common customer lifecycle stages include awareness, consideration, purchase/decision stage, and retention. Let’s talk about how to map these customer journey stages.

Awareness Stage

At this stage, the customer may already know about the problem that needs attention. So, in search of the solution, they learn about your product or brand for the first time.

The goal is to discover why customers search for a product and their motivations. Also, consider when and how they first become aware of your brand.

Consideration Stage

A customer is in the consideration stage when they think about your products. They also actively research your brand and competitor products.

This is when a customer learns about the home pages. They browse your product descriptions and pricing. They can also visit about pages, service/product pages, help centres, and FAQs. Customers may check the online reviews.

Decision Stage

At the decision stage, a customer has enough details to go ahead with the purchase. So, this is when a customer experiences your purchase process.

For this, they will use the online ordering pages, receive email confirmations, and find FAQs on shipping and billing expectations. So, mapping the customer journey can help optimise all these touch points and address related concerns.

Retention Stage

The customer completes the initial purchase and thinks about the overall experience. This is where brands can find opportunities to turn them into loyal and returning customers. So, they may use the company’s customer support services, check delivery and return options, and future discounts or deals.

Identify Touchpoints

A touchpoint is the connection between a brand and a customer. It is any time a customer interacts with the brand, be it your website, an ad, purchasing, using your services, or asking a question.

Think about all the different ways a customer can interact with your brand and note what actions they take for each one. Be sure to count indirect engagements, like reviews of your brand, that customers read on third-party sites.

Every touchpoint can help improve the customer experience journey. So, consider all the possibilities a customer can learn about your brand and engage.

Collect Data and Customer Feedback

The next tip is to understand what your customers are thinking and feeling. Take the customer journey yourself to understand your customer’s perspective. Getting customer feedback is also important and gives valuable details about the issues.

Note their emotions, thoughts, and motivations when interacting with your brand. Also, do not forget to add sections of quotes from in-person interviews and online reviews. You can also include a section that lists statistics from surveys and questionnaires.

Learn About the Pain Points

The above feedback and insights will give you a clearer picture of why your customers are dropping their purchase decisions.

You find out different angles and friction points. Where are your customers showing frustration? Are there gaps within the journey? Or are they facing issues when moving to the next stage?

Pay attention to the pain points and what's causing them. Also, find out how your customers react and at what stage they face issues. It will help you resolve those issues and improve their experience.

Improve as Expectations Evolve

Find areas of the customer journey that need improvements for a better experience. Think about solutions or remedies for each pain point. Make the necessary changes once you devise different ways to reduce your customer’s frustrations.

You can also try creating a separate map of an ideal customer journey to find the pain points. Compare to their actual journey to find differences. Viewing the maps side-by-side can tell you what can be done to improve your customer's viewpoint towards your brand.

Final Thoughts

How customers interact with your website or brand is mostly a non-linear process. No matter how much you try, getting people to move from Point A to Point B isn’t always possible.

Mapping customer lifecycle stages can give you better insights into your brand's meaning to the buyer. Spend time and resources to ensure your brand offers customers a smooth experience.

Use the above strategies to meet your prospects’ and customers' expectations. Mean well when creating marketing strategies to ensure a better customer experience.

GrowthJockey helps create personalised models, handling the challenges faced by clients to improve their customer journey. Our expert team uses technologies and expertise to optimise the customer journey map for a brand’s success.

Also read our researched article: Challenges in Banking Customer Lifecycle and How to Overcome Them

FAQs

1. How do you create an effective customer journey map?

The first step is to research your customers. Then, start by identifying touchpoints and getting insights into their emotions and motivations. Learn about their pain points and find opportunities to address them.

You can also use surveys and analytics to get more details. Also, it is important to update the map whenever the customer's needs and feedback change.

2. What is the right time to create a customer journey map?

Customer journey maps work best when created when planning your marketing campaigns. The mapping helps to understand your customers’ experiences and interactions with your brand.

So, when could you use the insights and adjust marketing strategies? This is valuable for launching a new product or service or improving your existing customer experience.

3. Why must digital marketers map customer journeys?

Digital marketers must start customer journey mapping as it gives insights into how customers behave online. With information about the customers' digital interactions, marketers can create website designs, personalise content, and target relevant touchpoints.

It allows marketers to strategise targeted, effective marketing campaigns and improve customer experience.

4. What makes a successful customer journey?

A successful customer journey is about simple and smooth interactions with the brand. It must also offer personalised experiences and meet customer needs and expectations at every stage.

For this to happen, brands must offer clear communication, quick problem resolution, and emotional connection. The most direct result of a successful customer journey is satisfaction. It also means customers wish to engage with the brand in the future and recommend it to others.

5. What’s the difference between customer journey and buyer journey?

A customer journey is about the entire relationship between a customer and a brand. It involves pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase interactions. It focuses more on long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty.

On the other hand, the buyer journey refers to the stages building up to the purchase decision. It starts from realising a need to compare options and deciding. It has a short-term focus on the purchase process.