Towards the complex

Every customer journey, however simple it may feel the time is actually made up of a whole range of complex supporting processes, systems and people.

Excellent customer experiences are founded in the tangible building blocks of your business, usually elements within your control. They might be your digital channels such as your website, social media, the apps your customers use to pay a bill, or your contact centre and field service employees.

Each channel adds complexity and potential friction to the customer experience. That's why when mapping your customer experience journeys it's always good practice to evaluate other organisational aspects that may impact the customer experience (whether directly or indirectly). This might include your people and their capabilities; your systems; your market propositions; your brand positioning; your operational processes. Where you evidence areas that are performing properly call them out to help flesh out understanding of issues and resulting opportunities.

Assembling the big picture of how and why your customers are interacting with different channels, touch points, products and services is
where your customer experience journey begins.

Even for a simple customer journey, several people in your business will have had to interact with digital tools and physical elements in order to access work instructions, to confirm their part of the process is completed, and to hand over to the next person or system taking care of the next step along the customer journey.

Clearly too much detail can bog down a customer journey mapping workshop but there is a balance to find. Often it is all of these handoffs between departments, teams, systems, suppliers, products and services, online and offline channels that can impact your customer experience.

Don't just focus on the moments that matter

When thinking about your customer experience touchpoints are important. They are the many important moments when customers interact with your organisation and its products and services. These touchpoint are important customer actions and interactions. On a journey map you may include a visual flow of what your customers are actually doing across the map.

Often when completing a journey map you will think about the "moments that matter" or the "moments of magic"- the aspects of the journey that are imperative to most effectively impact customer happiness. They are the things you can accentuate to create a differentiated experience for your customers and increase your competitiveness.

Now we're not here to tell you these moments aren't important - they really are! Some organisations make a real difference to their customer experience just focusing on moments that matter.

But it's easy to only focus on these moments at the expense of all of the rest of your customer experience. In reality there is no one right path that a customer will take through your touchpoints. You may have identified the wrong moments that matter, or focused in on the ones that you subconsciously feel you can impact rather than the ones that your customers really need you to address.

Also don't overlook complexity in the rush to trying to find solutions and prioritise opportunities. Again we do advocate that you focus during your customer experience mapping. You should consider carefully how you deliver against each of the identified customer journey pain points and the items you have identified as moments that matter. Ensure you think about your most valuable customers and their expectations.

Keep adding detail

Don't forget however that as you review the moments that matter and the journey as a whole you need to look for gaps and differentiators along the customer journey against items that might be missed by your competitors.

Keep adding detail. As you walk in your customers'shoes be critical and honest. Consider adding more detail (whether through additional research or via engaging your front-line staff to evidence real examples) to uncover your customers' true functional and emotional needs. The more you can step outside your team perspective the more that your customers'challenges with their experience will become obvious.

Customer Experience includes virtually everyone in your organisation. Sales, Marketing, Technology, R&D, Engineering, Operations, Service, and Finance should all have some involvement or at least a shared understanding of the customer journey. Your HR, Finance and Operations teams may need to be part of the design process as transformation happen.

How we can help

Leadent Digital helps organisations to achieve transformational change. We love developing apps that transform customer experience and help you deliver a more frictionless service experience across all of your contact points and channels. Why not get in touch to tell us more about your current CX priorities?