Understanding the increasingly complex customer journey is a challenge facing many CX leaders as businesses are realizing that their organization creates silos—and therefore barriers—to a great customer experience.
Customer journey mapping has become very popular with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting people’s expectations, preferences, and behaviors at an unprecedented speed. Even brands with the most mature customer experience programs are being forced to reexamine their goals and actions required to deliver an exceptional experience for customers.
In general, many CX initiatives don’t meet their full potential—or worse, fail completely—because companies don’t have a complete picture of what the customer experience actually entails and the complex dynamics that shape it.
Those dynamics are clearly illustrated when customers receive different experiences within the omnichannel. Consider the dilemma of one of our retail clients where pricing on the website differs from pricing in stores. That difference creates confusion, undermines trust, and actually increases costs with more calls to the contact center.
Other clients have extended lifecycles with touchpoints that may cover years. In retail banking, touchpoints include not only the marketing touches to set expectations, but experiences with the teller, financial advisors, contact center, application development, and others who will at some point interact with the customer.
Finally, touchpoint models can assess what happens in a given location. Location-based services like cameras and beacons track entry and exit, dwell time, queuing, and other ways in which products, merchandise strategy, and service touch clients.
What to Expect From a Customer Journey Map
Customer journey maps are created using both qualitative and quantitative research. It should accomplish five things:
- Clarify organization goals
- Expose root causes of CX problems
- Create “line of sight” across silos (like digital, in-person, social, and third party) to understand how one department affects experience in another
- Identify and streamline gatekeeping functions
- Enlighten employees and partners about their crucial roles
The goal?
A seamless, exceptional customer experience across all touchpoints in your organization.
For more information about Market Force’s capabilities in this area, please
