Five Steps to Uncovering the Real Customer Experience Journey
When I was growing up, a 50-cent, bottomless cup of coffee was the norm. People would have laughed at the thought of a five-dollar cup of joe, and yet how many of us drive out of our way to find a Starbucks to start our day? In the case of Starbucks, it is not even about the quality of their coffee. You can go to the grocery store and purchase the same coffee there, yet people flock to Starbucks stores because they provide an experience and not just a cup of coffee.
Today, the coffee shop is an iconic gathering place. From the moment you walk in, the aroma of the coffee surrounds you. The environment in the store is calm, relaxing and inviting. The store invites you to stay and relax for long periods, and many people stay to study, work, check their e-mail, update their social media account, surf the web, or share some time with friends. The servers are not called servers; they are “baristas,” adding to the sense that you are doing more than just grabbing an ordinary cup of coffee. Each cup is prepared individually and the customer’s name is written on the cup to personalize the experience.
In other words, the product is not the focal point; rather, the focal point is the experience that the company delivers.
Successfully delivering a good customer experience requires a comprehensive orchestration of a great many things. One of the most essential to the backbone of your CX program is a thorough understanding of the customer and his or her experience with your brand, people, product and service — a process popularly known as customer journey mapping.
Starbucks knows its customers well. It has a well-mapped journey of what the experience will be like from the moment the customer walks into the store. By selling more than just a product, the company is able to charge 5-10 times what a competitor could and still attract more customers. Starbucks clearly understands that focusing on the customer experience is not just a corporate tagline for shareholders. It is a business strategy.
What Is a Customer Journey Map?
A customer journey map is a visual representation of the journey a customer has with your brand, products, services and people. It is important to note that journey mapping is not an appropriate replacement for quantitative efforts, but rather a good starting point or supplement to quantitative programs. It includes multiple touchpoints from the customer’s point of view, such as:
Key moments and evaluation points in the process
Positive and negative components of the experience
Attitudes and emotions that may come into play
Step One: Build the Company View of the Journey
Mapping the customer’s journey starts with identifying and building out the steps of the journey from the company’s point of view, from beginning to end. Start by identifying the key moments a customer has with the company. Getting agreement on the discrete steps a customer takes can be difficult, as each functional area and stakeholder will bring a unique perspective to the table. It is critical for the organization to work off a common vision of the journey, so measurements, improvements, and enhancements must be created using a shared framework.
Building out the steps
Once the steps of the journey are identified, build out the experience of each step, including the following elements:
Customer’s desired outcomes
Time or duration
Attitudes and thoughts
Emotional responses
Emotional needs
Customer pain points
Areas of weakness
Areas of strength
Importance of the step
Satisfaction with the step
Though some might argue that this process is overkill for organizational stakeholders to go through, the elements of this process enable a more educated approach to the secondary probing and qualitative research phase. Additionally, the process of including all stakeholders embeds customer journey mapping within the cultural framework of the organization. As stakeholders help build the journey, hear different perspectives from their peers, and eventually see the customer’s perspective of the journey, they are more likely to understand and accept the final product. Finally, it is very insight-provoking at the end of the process to highlight the differences in what the customer sees as critical moments and evaluation points in the journey compared to company stakeholders.
The following illustrates how the downstream impact of improving the customer experience is mapped.
