Is our customer satisfied? You were delighted after buying our product, but when you consumed it, you saw something you didn’t like? Remember that the Customer Experience must be the most important part of our marketing strategy. A dissatisfied customer will leave negative comments on their social networks, however a good experience can turn our customer into a prescriber of our product. Design a good Customer Journey Map to know how your customer feels at each stage of their life cycle with your product or service. Knowing how they feel and what their needs are at any given moment, you will have the tools to make them satisfied and, therefore, speak well of your brand.
The Customer Journey Map, or customer experience map, is a tool that allows us to have an in-depth view of all the stages that a customer will go through, both in the process of buying a product and service, as well as during the consumption or use of the same. Thanks to this tool you will be able to know why he has contracted his home insurance policy with a competitor, or why after buying airline tickets he has complained on Twitter. Was the point of contact appropriate and did you receive sufficient information? Have any of the stages of your consumption not lived up to your expectations? These are some of the questions you will be able to answer thanks to the Customer Journey Map.
Here are some tips to help you design a good Customer Journey Map for your customer:
1. Know your customers as well as you know yourself. People are at the heart of the Customer Journey Map. Without them the product would not exist, and the success of the product depends on their degree of satisfaction. To be successful you will have to know how they behave and what their consumption habits are. Define very well your archetypes, or group of customers based on their behavior. That way you will know how to interact with them at all times, for example, if they want to receive information via e-mail, or if they prefer telephone contact to be more confident when purchasing your product.
2. Sales are not the only objective. The purchase of a product is only a small part of the customer’s journey with our brand. Of course, we have to get him to buy, because without the purchase there won’t be a complete experience; but, above all, our goal has to be to excite him. You have to be convinced of your decision throughout the life of the product. Also, remember that your customer is not always the one who consumes your product. If this is the case, you will have to make this second person fall in love with your product/service as much as the one who purchased it.
3. Draw a good road map. As we have already mentioned, the customer experience is developed throughout the life of the product or service, so it will be necessary to define a timeline to know at what point or moment our customer is at. This in turn will have to be divided into stages, among which we can highlight the first contact, the moment of purchase, the first use of the product, etc. Depending on the stage the interaction with the customer will vary.
4. Define well the points of contact. The customer will have different points of contact to interact with our brand. The customer can contact the company by telephone, go to a physical point of sale, request information through our website, or simply buy. After the purchase, we will have to know which media to use to build loyalty. Do you prefer a postal mailing to inform you about new offers? Do you open the e-mailings we send you every month with our brand news?
5. Know how your customer feels at all times. Having defined the stages and the different moments of the Customer Experience, it is time to know what emotions our product generates in the customer at each stage. Were you satisfied with your purchase, but we gave you bad technical service? If you are dissatisfied, do we know why? It will be time to ask him to find out what his needs are at that moment and try to satisfy him.
6. There is always room for improvement. Asking questions is the first action to take when a customer is dissatisfied. Apply different metrics, such as heat maps, call logs or sample surveys. After the analysis based on this information, it is time to work on the Blueprint.
Designing a Customer Journey Map based on these tips will allow you to obtain three major benefits:
1. You will find out what your customer is really like. In the design of your Customer Journey Map you have defined your customer archetypes based on behavioral patterns. Now you will be able to better profile those archetypes, and know if they have been matched to your real customer. In addition, you will be able to discover when they have been dissatisfied, and reinforce points of contact where the customer’s expectations have not been met.
2. You will know the strengths and weaknesses of your product. Having discovered the weakest points of contact, or the critical moments in the customer’s life cycle with the product/service, it is time to see what weaknesses the experience we offer has. It reinforces your attractive attributes and improves your weaknesses.
3. A satisfied customer is a story to tell. Take advantage of favorable opinions and communicate them. Storytelling is one of the best tools to generate good publicity.