Journey Mapping Can Offer Holistic View of the Customer Experience

Walker journey mappingJourney mapping is a way to raise awareness to unite end processes while offering a holistic view of the customer experience. What’s more, customer engagement is critical in this process, according to officials at Walker Information.

Loyalty360 on Tuesday hosted a webinar titled, Customer Experience Journey Mapping: Delivering Optimal B-to-B Customer Experiences, which was hosted by Walker Information.

Michael Good, Vice President, Strategic Account Manager for Walker Information offered attendees a brief definition of journey mapping.

“A lot of people are talking about journey mapping,” Good said. “So, it’s best to begin by putting a definition around the concept.  In its simplest terms, customer journey mapping is a process for you.”

Good outline that process:

What do your customers truly value?

To find out what your customers truly value in their interactions and experiences with you

Journey mapping makes the customer experience visible: The benefits of this kind of discovery are numerous:

First, it makes the customer experience visible in your organization. It provides a way to communicate both the “existing” and the “ideal’ experiences your customers have with your company. And it informs your customer listening programs to ensure you are measuring the most relevant and critical components of their experience.

Journey mapping identifies the real moments of truth: It identifies the “moments of truth” within each stage of the experience – these are the most critical interactions – from all the important ways you touch your customers – that really determine value in their eyes.

Journey mapping helps educate and train employees: It serves as a living document to educate and train your employees – both current and new, both customer-facing and supporting – about the best ways to bring value to customers. Whether it is an onboarding program for new associates, or a specific training course for the development of your account teams, these moments of truth are brought to life by these individuals in your organization.

Journey mapping enhances your brand: It truly gives personality to your brand – what your company stands for, what you’re known as, what you’re goodWalker journey mapping at – better than others in the marketplace – and how you create value in ways customers can’t get somewhere else.

In the B2B world, there are basic stages of interactions with customers. From the earliest ones, such as how they learn about the alternative providers in your marketplace, and how they develop their consideration set of key options, through the purchase decision and process, starting the relationship, using your products and services, and on through the latter stages of paying for it as well as the continual maintenance and support interactions around ongoing usage.

This can be summarized with the following words: Learn, Purchase, Start, Use, Pay, and Maintain.

There are three primary points of view or perspectives:

First, the customers’ view: What are they thinking, wanting, and doing within each stage? What are all the ways they interact with you and among these which are the most critical – those moments of truth – that create the most value? Also, what differences exist, key customer types – such as, executives, users, technical – or key segments – groups by products, lines of business, or geographies?

Then the company’s view: How are you organized and resourced to serve customers? Is it optimal or are there gaps according to the customers’ perspective? What people, processes, products, and systems do you have to bring life to the interactions? Where are you uniquely strong and different from others, and conversely where are the opportunities to improve?

And in many B2B instances, there are other partners, channel providers, or affiliates that bring additional value to customers. What people and solutions do they provide to enable enhanced value to your customers? And what are their strengths and obstacles?

Companies that have worked with Walker Information have used journey maps in a variety of ways:

The foundation for your customer feedback system

To enhance their customer feedback programs, making them more relevant and aligned with customer expectations and linking the external to internal operating metrics.

A method to reduce silo conflict

As a powerful communication tool, both internally and externally, to build awareness, understanding, and buy-in of the customer information.

A living document for employees

To educate and train employees about the ideal ways to bring value to customers, which strengthens your employees and enables them to better serve your customers.

A strong reference for strategy and action planning

As a strong input into action and strategic planning to improve the customer experiences.

A source for enhancing  your brand

And lastly, as a way to reinforce your brand with customers and personify your company’s mission and vision.

Jeff Marr, Vice President Consulting Services, Walker Information said there are no two journey maps alike. Journey maps can target account size or vertical industry.

“Customers have their own ways of buying,” Marr explained. “Your selling approach should be integrated with how your customers buy. Some want to drill Walker journey mappingdown into just one customer interaction.”

Marr said the journey map process includes: Strategic goals, internal exploration, workshops, external validation, the journey map/recommendations.

“Frame the map at a high level,” he said. “Look at relative market research, and Voice of the Customer feedback to gauge the customer mindset. There are cross-functional dynamics involved. If you assemble the right cross-functional team, the dynamics can be powerful enough where you’ll see light bulbs go on.”

Workshops can be conducted with invited customer contacts, key influencers, and decision-makers and include six to 20 people.

“We’ve seen policies change immediately after these workshops,” he said. “Customers need to be a part of it. You have to hear from the source. How do various business unites get better aligned in addressing customers’ Moments of Truth?”

Brad Linville, Vice President, Strategic Accounts, Walker Information discussed a case study from a company where the CEO wanted a stronger customer focus.

It comprised building a foundation of ongoing listening, a loyalty program, and journey mapping. There were three journey mapping sessions (one day onsite, one video workshop, and seven hours of journey mapping).

Three internal perspectives and 11 customer perspectives were included in the process.

“Journey mapping depends on the business needs and goals of the company involved,” Linville said.

The results were as follows:

Informed the customer relationship survey draft resulting in a strong Loyalty model

Individual branches identified quick wins they could implement to alter their customer experience

Leveraged in training of new associates

“An infographic conveys the main information and key results from a journey mapping initiative,” he said. “A journey map report card represents an overview of what matters most to customers.”

Companies can glean critical action areas, secondary improvement opportunities, and leverageable strengths.

“The key is to have a complete package to review in its entirety or that can be broken apart to come up with strategic action planning,” he added. “We involved a wide variety of roles in the journey mapping process. It’s becoming more comprehensive and is being used in a more holistic way tied to measurement. As the industry evolves, journey mapping is a piece of that and how it plays in the overall architecture is changing. There is always something new and intriguing that comes out of these engagements that requires immediate action.”

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