Customer journey mapping visually represents a customer’s journey with a business. From the initial awareness stage to the post-purchase stage, it includes everything. This map can look like a diagram that includes every touchpoint and channel the customer uses to interact with your business. It also includes needs, requirements, emotions, behaviors, preferences, etc., at each stage of their buying journey. It is a crucial tool to understand your customers. This will help you identify the areas that lack conviction and lead to fewer conversions. You will also discover at what stage your customers bounce off and do not buy from you.

This article will discuss how customer journey mapping can help you enhance your customers’ user experience. We will also learn the best tools for implementing your plans. So, let’s dive right in.

Why is Customer Journey Mapping Important? 

A customer journey map is a storyboard for your customer’s experience of your brand. It can enable businesses and organizations to take the perspective of their customers and then see the whole process. This perspective is crucial because it identifies pain points customers find uncomfortable avoiding. This mapping reveals the reasons why your customers find it difficult to continue using your product/service. It can also determine consumers’ behavior and match marketing campaigns with your consumers’ expectations.

What are the Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping? 

It is important to learn why we are doing what we are doing. Customer journey mapping has many advantages, like:

• It offers a deeper insight into your customers’ needs and preferences before purchasing.
• It offers a seamless user experience by getting rid of the pain points.
• It increases the efficiency of your marketing campaigns by streamlining your processes and eliminating redundancies.
• You will be equipped with all the necessary tools and information to make better and more informed decisions.
• It will boost customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Now, let’s talk about how customer journey mapping is done.

What are the Key Components of Customer Journey Mapping? 

You must know the three main components of customer journey mapping, which are the backbone of your marketing campaigns.

1. Customer Personas 

The customer personas you create will reflect information about your ideal customers. They will include demographics, behavior patterns, interests, likes and dislikes, etc. Remember that your goal is to meet your customers’ expectations. So, you must tailor your marketing strategies to meet their needs and offer a smooth customer experience.

Here are four ways you must follow to create accurate customer personas.

• Use surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather information about your potential customers.
• Segment your customers into different groups and subgroups based on demographics, preferences, behavior, etc.
• Create a detailed profile for each segment, including age, gender, income, interests, pain points, etc.
• Compare your customer personas with actual customer feedback to validate your personas.

2. Touchpoints and Channels

Touchpoints are the interactions your customers have with your business throughout their journey. So, once you learn about the touchpoints, you will learn how your customers engage with your brand. The touchpoints include websites, social media accounts, customer service, point of purchase, feedback forms, etc. Whereas channels are the platforms through which your customers can communicate with you. They include social media platforms, website chatbot, email, in-store inbox, etc.

3. Customer Emotions and Pain Points

To map customer emotions, you need to understand how customers feel at each stage of their journey. Emotions can be good and bad for your business. Your customers may be happy or angry and excited or frustrated. So, to enhance the positives, you need to get rid of their pain points. The pain points could be:

• Difficulty to navigate through your website.
• Slow response times for their queries.
• Confusing communication.

What are the Criteria for Selecting Customer Journey Mapping Tools?  

Before you choose your customer mapping tool, here are three questions you need to find answers to.

1. What are its key features? 

Your customer mapping tools should inhibit key features that will help your business grow.

• The ability to show robust visuals so that everyone can grasp the information in a quick time.
• Drag and drop features to easily create customer maps.
• It should offer customizable templates for quick creation.
• The tool must easily integrate with 3rd-party tools and platforms.
• It should offer real-time collaboration so that everyone on the team can learn about the progress of your projects.
• The mapping tool must offer flexibility and scalability to align with your business goals.

2. Is it budget-friendly?  

Ensure that your selected tool fits into your marketing budget.

• Check out whether this tool offers monthly or annual subscriptions.
• For a small business just starting out, you can choose free or freemium tools to check whether you really need them.
• You must also bear training costs to inform your team how to use the tool effectively.

3. Can it integrate with my existing system? 

The tool you choose must integrate effectively with your CRM system.

• It will give you valuable information about your customers, such as their purchase history, interactions with your business, and preferences.
• Your customer-mapping tool must also seamlessly integrate with the marketing automation tools like HubSpot, Marketo, Mailchimp, etc.
• You also need web and social media analytics to be a part of your customer mapping tool.

Top Tools for Customer Journey Mapping

1. Smaply 

Smaply is a user-friendly and robust tool for customer journey mapping. Here are its key features.

• Smaply has a drag-and-drop interface.
• You can create detailed customer personas for each.
• It has a unique feature that adds stakeholders to each customer journey.
• You can also create storyboards to illustrate customer interactions and experiences.
• You can onboard your team for easy collaboration.

2. UXPressia 

UXPressia is known for its versatility and ease of use. Here are its key features.

• It offers customizable templates and intuitive design tools.
• You can develop detailed customer personas.
• You can figure out the impact of different touchpoints.
• You can have multiple users to collaborate and work on the same project.
• You can also generate customized reports.

3. Touchpoint Dashboard 

Touchpoint Dashboard is an all-in-one tool that helps businesses create visual representations of their customers’ journeys. Here are its key features.

• The maps generated are interactive and customizable.
• You can integrate data from various sources like CRM, social media, analytics tools, etc.
• You can also generate reports and share them with the stakeholders with just a click.

4. Custellence 

Custellence is a powerful journey mapping. It is simple yet effective. Here are its key features.

• It offers a drag-and-drop user interface.
• It has collaborative workspaces where multiple users can interact and communicate in real-time.
• It has multiple customizable templates to suit different needs and requirements.
• It offers deeper insights into your customers’ buying behavior and their preferences.

5. InVision 

InVision is a new-age design and prototyping tool used for customer journey mapping. Marketers and designers can use it easily without much technical knowledge. Here are its key features.

• The prototypes created are very interactive and dynamic.
• InVision supports collaborative features.
• You can create a detailed journey while segmenting your audience based on their likes and dislikes, demographics, behaviors, interests, etc.
• You can also collect and respond to feedback and comments from your team members in real-time.
• It can integrate with multiple third-party platforms with ease.

Key Takeaways 

We can conclude that customer journey mapping is not just an instrument but a necessity in the contemporary environment. Experts at Mavlers reveal that touchpoint mapping enables a business to capture the full experience that a customer goes through in their interaction with this business. Mavlers is a new-age digital marketing agency with talented individuals. They have years of experience working with businesses and helping them create their customer journey mapping. They highlight the importance of knowing which areas need improvement and then working towards achieving the collective goal.