What is a customer journey map?

A visual or graphical interpretation of the overall story from an individual's perspective of their relationship with an organisation, service, product or brand, over time and across the channels they utilise. The story is told from the customer's perspective, but also emphasises important intersections between user expectations and business requirements.

No two journey maps are alike, and regardless of format they will allow you to consider interactions from your customers' points of view, instead of taking a business outwards focus. They can be used in both current state review and future state visioning to examine the present, highlight pain points and uncover the most significant opportunities for building a better experience for customers.

The process of customer experience mapping is a joint activity - the process itself being just as important as the actual artefact. The discussions that experience mapping fosters and the consensus it builds are important building blocks to any future customer experience transformation action.

There is no single way to map customer journeys nor is there any one right answer.

The DNA of a customer journey map

There are some common elements you will need to include regardless of the presentation of the map itself:

• Persona: The main characters that illustrate the needs, goals, thoughts, feelings, opinions, expectations, and pain points of the user. The persona is an overriding filter through which you view and orientate the journey
• Timeline: Each journey will be bounded by a finite amount of time (e.g.1 week or 1 year) or variable phases (e.g. awareness, decision-making, purchase, renewal)
• Emotion: Typically a visual depiction of the changing levels of positive and negative emotion or experience across the timeline
• Touch points: Customer actions and interactions with your organisation. This may include a visual flow of what your customers are actually doing across the map.
• Channels: Where interaction takes place and where they engage your organisation (e.g. website, app, social media, call centre, retail store, aftersales, support)

You may also look to highlight:

• Findings and Opportunities: Summarises key findings from the experience mapping process, whether strategic, design-based or more detailed next steps. Useful capture of opportunities as you work.
• Moments of truth: Also known as 'moments that matter' these are positive interaction (s) that leave a lasting impression; often planned for a touch point known to generate customer frustration
• Supporting actors: Other individuals (e.g. friends, colleagues, third parties) who may contribute to the experience
• Customer goals: Definition of customer goals at that stage of the journey
• ‍Business goals: Business goals (and / or key performance indicators) at that stage of the journey and organisational accountabilities to deliver
• ‍Weaknesses: How does your organisation let the customer down at this stage?

Creating the customer journey map

The customer journey map is a visual narrative of the customer journey. A well crafted output is typically a visually engaging infographic that is easy to understand. It visually illustrates customer's approach, needs and perceptions throughout their interaction and relationship with your organisation. Needs are functional and emotional.

An experienced facilitator is usually important to get the most out of a customer journey mapping session. They can help ensure that the right tools and method are applied and be a neutral member of the group with no agendas other than ensuring the right outputs. Get in touch with us if we can help you map the customer experience of your customers (or employees).

Deliver a better customer experience

We built On My Way to allow customers to see all the information they need to know about their planned service appointment. This includes appointment address, time and delivery window, technician name and their badge ID and photograph alongside the real-time location of the service engineer shown graphically on a live map.

On My Way also lets you get direct feedback from customers who have used the service. This feedback is taken during the service transaction itself, whilst the customer is viewing and interacting with On My Way and waiting for their service engineer to arrive.

Why not take a look and speak to us for more information.