The Customer Journey Map (CJM) is a widely used technique that describes the journey of a user by representing the different touchpoints that characterize their interaction with the service.

It is a diagram that illustrates the journey through a variety of touchpoints that the customer moves through before, during and after making a purchase.

It is very important for identifying weaknesses and opportunities for our products. Not all customers will necessarily interact with all touchpoints (e.g., if there are 10 identified touchpoints, some may interact with 4, others with 8, and few with all 10).

The customer journey itself does not solve anything, but it provides us with an overview to take actions later.

It helps us to:

• Share a common understanding of the context and use of the service with our workgroup.
• Understand the user's expectations of how the process should work.
• Identify errors or deficiencies in the process to achieve a given objective.

Steps to Build a Customer Journey

1. Choose which moment of the customer's journey you want to map. Sometimes you may want to map all the situations the customer can interact with, or for example, only a part (e.g., purchase in a physical store, always including before, during, and after).
2. Identify the stages and interactions of the customer. Understand the before, during, and after, and describe each of those interactions.
3. Uncover the customer's perception to identify the level of experience, emotions, and moments of truth. Have accurate information from the outside in.
4. Identify and prioritize improvement ideas to create your action plan.

Customer Perception

Perception is more emotional than rational; it is what the customer felt and what sensation they will remember. We must understand our customers' perception, as it will help us create our Customer Journey Map.

How to measure customer perception?

• Use information obtained from surveys, observation, interviews conducted with customers, transforming it into knowledge that allows you to take concrete improvements and consider it for the CJM creation.
• Identify other sources of customer insights, such as listening to both sales and after-sales calls.
• Conduct efficient analysis of social media interactions.
• Organize interviews with employees to obtain the internal customer's perception.

Customer Insights

• Focus groups
• Employee interviews
• Surveys
• Social media
• Call listening

Key aspects of a Customer Journey Map

• Stages: Associated stage in the customer lifecycle for the customer interaction
• Interaction: Specific moment experienced by the customer when interacting with the company, told from their own perspective.
• Description: Describe the customer's actions in each interaction
• Breakdown: Identify problems impacting the experience caused by various factors such as poorly designed or executed processes, unfriendly or faulty systems, behaviors that require training or a service-oriented attitude.
• Level of experience:
• ~Very good: Beyond expectations.
• ~Good: Meets expectations.
• ~Functional: Meets the minimum requirements, neither good nor bad, not memorable.
• ~Poor: There is a breakdown, something that damages the experience.
• ~Very poor: Very negative connotation.
• Contact Channels: Contact channel in which the interaction takes place
• Moment of truth: Moments of truth are episodes in which the customer comes into contact with some aspect of the company, regardless of how remote it may be, and as a result, has the opportunity to form an impression. They do not always involve human contact; infrastructure, communication, and reputation can generate Moments of Truth (e.g., website, email, etc.). Some are particularly critical (in person service, website); if not managed properly, they pose a risk of losing loyalty. They are not inherently positive or negative. It is the management of that encounter that turns it into a positive or negative experience for the customer. They do not occur randomly; they usually occur in a logical and measurable sequence.
• Pain point: Pain points are negative situations that a customer has experienced at any of the touchpoints with a company. Pain points are associated with negative emotional burden (frustration, anxiety, anger, fear, etc.), and managing them in a timely manner can trigger the creation of a detractor and decrease a company's NPS.
• Emotions: Describe the emotions and feelings generated in the customer by that interaction.
• Satisfaction elements: Describe in great detail all the elements that can generate satisfaction for the customer when experiencing that specific interaction.
• Dissatisfaction elements: Describe in great detail all the elements that can generate dissatisfaction for the customer when experiencing that specific interaction.
• Opportunities/Improvement ideas: Identify ideas and recommendations to redesign the experience in interactions where breakdowns have been identified.

After having a clear Customer Journey Map and proposing improvement plans, it is necessary to prioritize the ideas for improvement:

Key Aspects for Creating the Action Plan

Interaction: Select those interactions where the level of experience was functional, poor, or very poor, and where I identified breakdowns and pain points.Breakdown: Describe the breakdown identified in the Customer Journey Map.Proposed Plan: Write down the improvement plan identified in the CJM.Investment: Refers to the level of investment needed for the proposed plan, categorized as high, medium, or low.Budget: Estimate the estimated budget to carry out the improvement plan (this information may or may not be available).Implementation Date: Refers to the date on which the action plan will be implemented (when it is ready and implemented).Steps to Execute the Plan: Precisely detail what needs to happen to execute and make the proposed plan a reality.Responsible(s): Assign one or at most two people who will be responsible for ensuring the plan is implemented.Difficulty: Refers to the difficulty of implementing the proposed plan, categorized as high, medium, or low.Status: Indicates whether the plan is Implemented, Not Started, In Progress, or Cancelled.Comments: Record project progress and any comments mentioned during status meetings.Priority: Once all plans have been documented, they are collectively analyzed, and priorities are defined, categorized as 1, 2, or 3.

Perfection is the enemy of progress... The important thing is to start and create a CJM.

You can download a free copy of a Customer Journey Map template [1] from the following links:

Note: Inside each box, there is information provided as a comment on what you need to fill in.

Bibliography

[1] C. Hugony, “Customer development & Journey mapping,” Crehana, link

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