Q 444. What is a Customer Journey Map? Elaborate its usage in Design Thinking by an example.

 

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A customer journey mapping is an important strategic approach to understand our customer better and optimize customer experience. This mapping is a simple but effective way of creating a visual story of a customer interacting with our product or services. This helps us understand the customers motivation to purchase our product or services and the various touchpoints where we can influence the customer. This helps us understand business from the customer perspective and gather insights about the customers pain points and how to improve them.

This is an important tool of Design Thinking that helps us unlock the unarticulated needs of the customer and their expectation along their buying lifecycle, which in turn help us develop innovative new products and services.

 

Methodologies like Six Sigma, Agile or Design Thinking always helps the project and program teams to focus on customer priorities and needs.  When targeting potential customers during the design thinking process, it's important to figure out the customer journey since facts and Data at times may miss to reveal the actual behavior, expectation, or frustrations of a customer. Customer Journey Map is of the best story telling tools that can trace all the interactions of the customer with respect to the product/ service offered.

A customer journey map is a very simple idea or a research-based tool which examines the story of how a customer relates to the, brand or product or business over time and illustrates the steps the customer(s) go through in engaging with your organization. It could be sketching the customer interaction whether it be a product, an online experience, retail experience, or a service, or any combination. It is widely used design teams use to reveal typical customer experiences over time and visualize the many dimensions and factors involved and see how customer experiences meet customer’s expectation and find areas where design improvements are required. Customer journey maps however can be helpful beyond the UX design and marketing teams by helping to facilitate a common business understanding of how every customer should be treated across all sales, logistics, distribution, care or channels which in turn can help break down organizational silos and perceptions  and start a process of wider customer-focused communication in a business. The tool can also help educate stakeholders as to what customers perceive when they interact with the business, explore what customers think, feel, see, hear and do and also raise some interesting “what ifs” and the possible scenarios to them.

For creating the customer journey the team usually identifies steps a potential customer (preferably, in the form of a concrete persona) experiences before, during, and after using a product or service. It is important to create a description of the target person using the Persona method, and supplement it with an empathy map.  The team members also examine all possible tasks and questions including the what if scenarios and how product/ service design meets /fails customer needs and ensures to include the tasks and subtasks including the timeline. The goal of a customer journey map is provide an understanding of how the customer experience develops over time and depict it in a way everyone in the organization can understand and work towards improvements and allows to identify  all possible problems and improve the design so it’s more likely to exceed customers’ expectations across all touchpoints.

Customer Journey Map Components 

1. User Persona Identification  

2. Timescale – Defined journey period with selected areas from awareness to conversion and beyond (1-week etc)

3. What if Scenarios – the context and sequence of events in which a user/customer must achieve a goal (e.g., a user wants to buy a ticket from Web), from first actions (problem identification) to last actions (e.g., subscription renewal).

4. Touchpoints – what customers do while interacting and how they do it.

5. Channels – where they perform actions .

6. Thoughts and feelings -what the customer thinks and feels at each touchpoint (Empathy Map can help bring clarity)

 

Steps for Customer Journey Map Creation :

1. Business Goal for the Customer Journey Map / Purpose – The team is required to understand who will use your map and what user experience it will address.

2. Research – Use customer research to determine customer experiences at all touchpoints for user personas identified

3. Align with analytical/statistical data and  anecdotal evidence to understand customer expectation  e.g., customer interviews, surveys, social media listening and competitive intelligence.

4. Map Touchpoints and Channels – List customer touchpoints (e.g., pay a bill) and channels (e.g., online)

5. Make an empathy map – helps to understand what the customer does, thinks, feels, says, hears, etc in each scenario , determine his/her needs and how he/she feels throughout the experience. Understand the source of frustration

6. Sketch the Journey – Sketch or put together all of the above (touchpoints, timescale, empathy map output, new ideas, etc.) this will depict the  customer’s course of motion through touchpoints and channels across the timescale, including his/her feelings at every touchpoint.

7. Iterate and Refine – Revise and transform your map to best depict the ideal customer journey.

8. Share with Stakeholders – Ensure all stakeholders have your map, understand it and appreciate how its use will bring beneficial changes to customers and across the organization.

 

Online Shopping Company trying to Understand the online purchase experience of the customers during festive season

 

1.User Persona Identification – Online Shopping User – retailer or wholesaler etc.

2.Business Goal for the Customer Journey Map -  Online Shopping Company trying to Understand the online purchase experience of the customers during festive season

3.Research – Online Purchaser trying to access site and purchase a product 

4.Align with analytical/statistical data and  anecdotal evidence to understand customer expectation 

E.g., Gather and analyse data on Page Hit Rates/ Sales volume turn over , Payment failures etc, competitor turnover , search data basis Facebook/ Instagram suggestions erc,, Payment Gateway failure data etc)

5.Map Touchpoints and Channels – List customer touchpoints (e.g., pay a bill) and channels (e.g., Mobile, Web online etc)

6.Make an empathy map – helps to understand what the customer does, thinks, feels, says, hears, etc in a given scenario Then, determine his/her needs and how he/she feels throughout the experience. Understand the source of frustration

7.Sketch the Journey – Sketch or put together all of the above (touchpoints, timescale, empathy map output, new ideas, etc.) this will depict the  customer’s course of motion through touchpoints and channels across the timescale, including his/her feelings at every touchpoint.

8. Iterate and Refine and Share with Stakeholders for driving improvements across the organization.

 

Thus customer journey map is a very insightful way through which businesses steps into their customers' shoes to gain a view of product/ brand performance from  customer's perspective. Once the business gets insight from customer pain or joy points, they can work on how to keep working on improving the customer experience continuously.

 

 

 

 

Customer Journey Maps

CJM is a visual depiction to understand what motivates and demotivates the customer. It looks at their needs, hesitations, and concerns. CJM moves the experience from a transactional process to building a relationship with the customer. CJM helps understand the way the consumers live and help to use this knowledge to design the right user experience for the customer. This is a view that is consumer-centric, covering the entire spectrum of the value chain such as the supply chain, operations, marketing, technology, hence an entire ecosystem that puts the consumer at the very focus

CJM can also be described as a visual storytelling tool that maps out the relationship between the customer and the business over time. It depicts the engagement of the brand at various touchpoints with the customer. CJM is thus the customer's perspective as to how he/she engages with the business at various touchpoints. Businesses that do not give cognizance to this experience of the customer in the design of their process in customer engagement are more likely to fail.

Major touchpoints can be purchases, orders, inquiries, or browsing of your online store. It could arise from traditional advertisements on TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc, or online digital marketing such as the use of Facebook Ads, Google Ads, etc.

Advantages of CJM

The Advantages of the CJM are numerous. It provides 30,000 feet view of the entire journey with the customer, it helps identify and sort out the customer's problems, it helps to build quicker and higher customer conversion rates and improve customer retention, it helps focus on the experience of the customer in each channel, it helps identify the progress and fallout points of the customer, it helps to prioritize the areas requiring improvement and it can help reveal the gaps between the departments and various marketing channels.

Design Thinking

Design thinking was an innovative approach to problem-solving that was predominantly used by the design community. It gained popularity in other domains after the publication of the Harvard Business article in 2008 “Design Thinking by Tim Brown.

Wikipedia has defined design thinking as “a set of cognitive, strategic and practical processes by which design concepts are developed. Many of the key concepts and aspects of design thinking have been identified through studies, across different design domains, of design cognition and design activity in both laboratory and natural contexts. Design thinking is also associated with prescriptions for the innovation of products and services within business and social contexts”.

CJM, Design Thinking and the Social Context

Important to note in this definition is not only the key concepts of design thinking being identified from across different design domains but its application across various domains. Also of note in this definition is its association with prescriptions/innovations of both products and services with business and social contexts.

The social context of the customer is becoming increasingly more important in the customer's journey towards the selection and use of a product and service. Social issues such as human rights, animal rights, global warming, etc. are becoming increasingly more important to the customer.

Design Thinking Steps and CJM

MIT in their article Design thinking, explained by Rebecca Linke, has indicated that the steps involved are “to fully understand the problem; explore a wide range of possible solutions; iterate extensively through prototyping and testing, and implement through the customary deployment mechanisms. As part of understanding the problem, the author brings out the importance of involving the end-users in understanding the problem and design of the solution. The Customer Journey Maps would go a long way in helping in understanding the problem and design of the solution.

Visual Paradigm (visual-paradigm.com) has recommended six steps in creating the Customer Journey Map. These are defining the persona of the customer you are going to map. This may include their goals, motivations, pain points, etc. The next step is to define the customer's stages through which the customer will journey. These would be the major goals they are trying to achieve at that given phase. The third step is the touchpoints the customer is going to use to engage you. This is followed by the conduct of research, determining the friction points, and finally resolving the issue. Integrating design thinking and CJM would go a long way in preventing the design team working in silos and bringing innovative products and services to market that are lead to customer delight.

References

https://www.ey.com/en_us/consumer-products-retail/experience-led-consumer-journey?WT.mc_id=10649218&AA.tsrc=paidsearch&s_kwcid=AL!10073!10!72224410603189!72224849702987&msclkid=6e959f1441fe1f26d6a1fd108fa97139

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking

https://www.visual-paradigm.com/guide/customer-experience/what-is-customer-journey-mapping/

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/design-thinking-explained

Customer Journey Map is a powerful method for understand what motivates your customers - what their needs are, their hesitations are, and concerns. While most organizations are practically good at collating data about their customers, data alone fails to give insights about the frustrations and experiences the customer experienced. We can provide this view using customer journey map.

 

What is Customer Journey Map ?

Customer journey map uses storytelling and visuals to show the connection a customer has with a business over a period of time. The story is built from the viewpoint of customer, which gives insight into the total experience which the customer has under undergone. This helps your team to understand and address customer needs and pain points as they experience your product or service. In other words, mapping out the customer journey gives your business the chance to see how you company first engages a potential customer, and then moves through the touchpoints of the entire sales process.

 

Usage in Design Thinking:

It is essential to understand the customer journey in detail from beginning till the end of customer services. Usage of this method is practical and helps to understand the different steps which customer undergoes to get the required services, which in turn helps to identify the areas which needs to be improved to deliver better.

 

Example

 

Research

Find suitable stay

Negotiation

Proceed to book the stay

Check in

During the stay

Check out

Let us first understand what both actually mean:

Design thinking helps stakeholders and product teams in providing a deep understanding of their user's requirements so that they can ideate prototypes, and test user-centred solutions.
This means the success of any design thinking session is based upon a solid understanding of user requirements. Failure to identify whom you are solving for, what solutions they use today, and what touchpoints motivates and inhibits them. 

Now let us understand Customer Journey mapping.
It is a tool or system used to map the relationship between the organisation and customers over time and across the channels on which they interact with the business. 

 

Hence just from their definition, it is quite evident that the Customer Journey Map is an important tool that will help the team in providing key insights to see how customer experiences meet customers’ expectations and find areas where they need to improve designs.

 

Let me give you a classical example of Nokia phones. 
Nokia was a dominant brand of phones in India till 2007 and started declining since then and out of the race somewhere in 2015.
Despite Nokia coming up with unique phones with high specs, one thing they were not listening were their customer feedback which resulted in their downfall.
Customers started using Android-based phones, which was faster, smoother, application and had many other benefits over Nokia OS. Customer and other brands started asking for Android OS, but Nokia did not listen to it and hence started introducing new phones which customer was not asking.

 

Similarly, the case for Windows phones, Nano cars promotion, etc. 

 

Hence not knowing your customer requirement not only fail your product or service in the market, sometimes it can be doom for the entire organisation.
 

The opportunities now can be picked up basis how the customer felt, most of the time not expressed through the typical journey. 

 

Beautiful explanations and some amazing examples for Customer Journey Maps. 

 

The best answer has been provided by Roshini Vijayan. Johanan's answer is a must read for the various formats in which CJM can be done.