5 Stages of Successful Customer Journey Maps – Digitization of business environments has been a key factor in increasing competition among businesses. This means organizations now have to make greater efforts to augment their marketing tactics and drive better results. A simple way to do this is to enhance customer journey mapping and deploy measures to boost conversion rates.

Customer journey mapping is very important to encourage customers to go through with the purchase. As a result, it becomes imperative to understand what a customer journey map is and the goal it is meant to serve. So, here’s all you got to know about using customer journey mapping to your advantage and driving tangible results.

What Exact Are Customer Journey Maps?

Customer journey maps are nothing but visual representations of the customer’s journey. Many even call it a user journey map or buyer journey map. Using these maps gives one a better idea of different experiences at diverse brand touchpoints.

These can be social media, live chat, emails, or any other channel the customer uses to communicate with the organization. It helps you determine gaps and deploy corrective measures to drive better results.

In most cases, you will find B2B businesses using this approach to generate insights into customers’ pain points. Access to these insights further helps them personalize and optimize the customer experience and stimulate growth.

Why Do You Need To Map Customer Journeys?

Every business strives to better understand its customers and augment its efforts accordingly. This is exactly what makes customer journey mapping so important, as this strategic approach gives better insights into the customer experience.

Businesses of all scales and different industries need to use customer journey mapping. One must acknowledge that customer expectations are changing, and your business needs to meet those expectations. Customers of the 21st-century demand an omnichannel approach to marketing, customer service, and even sales.

Personalization is one of the most imperative aspects of customer experiences. Customers want to be treated like humans instead of statistics or numbers. Using customer journey mapping can help you provide this by reaching them right where they are.

Besides, there are many tangible upsides to effective customer journey mapping. Some of these benefits include:

  • Benchmarking customer experiences customers want again what they get
  • Optimizing the overall onboarding process for customers
  • Facilitate a logical order in the customer journey
  • Determining distinctions between customer personas as they move along the buying funnel

However, the most significant benefit is better understanding your customers. The better you understand their expectations, the better experience you deliver them.

Different Stages in Customer Journey Mapping

Experts recommend dividing customer journey mapping into five different stages. Here are the phases you need to keep an eye out for.

First Stage: Gathering information

Second Stage: Decide to create

Third Stage: Brainstorming

Fourth Stage: Creation

Fifth Stage: Optimize and enhance

So let’s explore them in detail and learn how to drive better results.

First Stage: Gathering Information

The first stage is to gather all necessary information to visualize the customer’s journey through an app, website, or any other platform. This stage is more or less concerned with addressing different feelings of customers. These feelings can range from anxiety, excitement, confusion, and rush.

Create a timeline for a week or two and get started on searching for information about different deliverables. Determine the deliverable that aligns with the goal you have for the project. This is also an area where you can generate input from other team members and get a better insight.

Second Stage: Decide To Create

The second stage is concerned with you finalizing a customer journey map that best serves your requirements. This does not take much longer, and spending a day or two on the second stage is enough.

Nonetheless, do not rush the decision and take your time to evaluate a couple of different customer journey maps. This will help you find the one that aligns with the objectives of your specific project. Presenting the idea to your management can help incorporate their inputs for better outcomes.

Third Stage: Brainstorming

Now that you have finalized a customer journey map, it is time to think of ideas to enhance it. This includes ideas on how you want the customer journey map to appear and other defining elements of the map. In most cases, even a day is enough to ensure the successful completion of this stage.

You need to determine the elements you want, map out the different reaching findings, and curate a sketch of how the journey will look. You can host workshops for your team members to discuss and brainstorm the customer journey map. Finally, prioritize the content you want and group them appropriately.

Fourth Stage: Creating

This is the stage where you actually create the initial iterations of the customer journey map. The fourth stage might take some time, but a week is more or less enough to help you reach a conclusion.

For starters, you need to finalize the brainstorming sketches into initial iterations. Then simply evaluate all the content to verify if they are created and grouped appropriately. You can design the iteration yourself or assign a designer for the task.

Fifth Stage: Optimize and Enhance

There is no saying how long the fifth stage can take. This is where you start with validating and disproving the elements in the initial iteration based on their merits. You must carry out user research sessions to get better ideas.

Determine any missing or inappropriate information and deploy corrective measures for the same. The fifth stage also requires you to educate other departments on using the customer journey map. They can use the map to enhance products and drive innovation.

Final Thoughts – 5 Stages of Successful Customer Journey Maps

Creating an ideal customer journey map is about thorough research to understand customer intent and base your visualization on the same. These five steps will help eliminate the complexities of the entire ordeal and simplify things for good. Lastly, the more you innovate, the better the customer experiences and better the results that come with the customer journey map.