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What is Customer Journey Mapping and How to Create it?

12 minutes
Author Image By Ashish Dwivedi

Last Updated: December 18, 2023

12 minutes

If today businesses know the strategies of improving Customer Experience and still not going for it means killing your business with your own hands. The first thing we want to ask from you: your motive is just to share your brand or product in the market? We don’t think so it is the only aim. Everyone today is running to meet customer needs and looking to improve their experience. This would be possible if you step up and optimize Customer Journey Mapping. Let’s shed some light on “What is Customer Journey Mapping”.

What is Customer Journey Mapping? 

The Customer Journey Mapping curates visual representations that guide you to know what your customers go through the brand or magnetic products that you shared with them. The Pain Points of Customers and Customer Interactions will be at your fingertips when you go for Customer Journey. 

Like if you avail CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and you want to give a seamless experience to your customer then all you have to do is entail Customer Journey strategy in your business. 

Real Facts of Customer Journey Strategy

What is it? 

86% of the Senior Marketers said that it is beneficial or important for every business size to create a Customer Journey for everything. 

An Intriguing fact about the customer journey is 67% of buyer’s journey has gone digital. It is time-saving for many of you. 

63% of Marketers use journey mapping concepts for their customers. 

This Customer Journey Mapping is the essence of improving the business with an astonishing speed. Also, as a great way to get a complete insight into customer behavior, pattern, or we will say everything. Leverage this strategy and insist others do the same. 

How to Create a Customer Journey Map? 

We guess understanding the steps of creating it might entice you all to use this strategy for improving customer experience. Have a look-

  • Clear with your goals of Map Journey

You are going to plunge into the mapping of the customer journey so we guess you made plenty of goals? If not, then stop going to make a journey because there is a need to set the objective first. Some questions should strike in your mind such as why you are going to make a journey, what experience you will gain from it or what is the first goal you will achieve from this? 

If you are under the CRM Customer Journey map then these questions should be answered. You are going to make the buyer’s persona so such questions are important to be answered by yourself. After that, you can make a fascinating persona of every customer and it aids you to get a clear picture of how to interact with them and what is best to share. 

  • A complete Questionnaire to understand their goals

Why don’t you build up a questionnaire to know who are actual customers or prospects for your business? There is a need to Research on this and make the questionnaire later on. You only want valuable customers so you can write questions such as whether our website is easy to navigate for you or not, which product you like the most from us, how many purchases you made, etc. Make the customer Feedback goal a priority. 

customer journey benefits
  • Make a Route for them to get engaged with you

Before going to explain this, let us inform you that Don’t ever think of making Personas of numerous customers in one journey. It can’t reflect the actual or you can say the right customer experience the way you wanted. Make a route for every persona separately. Suppose if you create the first map of the customer then you should choose your previous client here first and make a route for them which aids them to get engaged with your business promptly. 

  • Identify the TouchPoints now

The next step for the business to follow is about identifying the “TouchPoints”. Do you know what it is? It is considered as a place in your website that you made for your audience and you will get to know how they interact with you. Make a proper list and see which touchpoint the customer and prospects are using. Before going on a journey of a customer, first, understand the touchpoint because it helps to know the actions of every customer performing. 

  • You should be aware of Types of Customer Journey Map

There are four types of mapping journeys of customers and the names are: Current State, Day in the Life, Future State, and Service Blueprint. 

1: The Current State visualizes the emotions and actions of your customers with your company interactions.

2: Days in the Life shows the real pain points that they are facing daily.

3: The Future State helps to illustrate every business vision and assist to set goals.

4: Service Blueprint helps to check out the problems of customers and identify the steps that will assist them.

  • Just determine the Resource and Analyze the result

Suppose if your journey map is not offering the best result to your customer for their services. It’s like your team has no such compelling tools for improving the customer experience. The Map should make you realize that there is a need for customer service tools as such resources are significant. And after that, your task should be “Analyzing the result”. 

Hope the question strikes in your mind: where customers are facing issues or people visit a website but don’t close deals, why? Analyze properly and make sure to provide them the best or valuable experience from your journey mapping. 

  • Necessary Changes are required

If you are not going on the path of removing obstacles and unnecessary steps in your customer journey then your business is not going in the right way. Removing these steps is very much profitable for you. Changes are required in your journey map and entail engagement points here which are important. 

Remember: A/B Testing is required here and Data-driven insight to gain more into your customers. 

What are the Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping CRM?

We have some strong reasons why you should keep a close eye on the benefits of the CRM customer journey. These solid benefits lists can robust every business size. Here we go-

  • Interactions of Customers with your products

Every document should be framed with the customer journey so that not only you, even the team of your business can access the information. Like, suppose you are running your business by selling the best SugarCRM plugins in the market. 

customer journey benefits

You want to get aware of how your valuable customers and prospects interact with all such plugins that you made for their CRM businesses. You can understand the process of how they interact with your products of SugarCRM now. 

  • Making different stages notes for understanding them

We will tell you in-depth about every stage of journey mapping in the next section. But first, if you make proper notes of your customer journey of every stage then you can understand what your customer wants from you at any cost. 

When understanding the stages of your client’s army you can strengthen your communication with them. Like if they like SuiteCRM Twilio SMS product from your website. You can get to know about their business work, how they get into your website, how they purchase, etc. A proper way to run business. 

  • What’s the actual motivation behind purchasing?

Another effective or you can say one of the superfine benefits of customer journey mapping for your CRM business. You see that one of your client’s purchases products that you have. When you set the goal of curating the custom journey for your organization, it will be an easier process for the business to get an understanding of customer motivation to buy from you. 

You get to know how they purchased and it solves your problem as you will follow those steps to get crucial leads in your hand. Harness the power of this journey-making strategy to streamline business workflow. 

  • Are you sharing the Cumbersome process?

It’s the worst situation when one of your loyal customers finds difficulty in reaching your business brand and product. Just one intertwine process and they will leave your website and find your competitor. Like if they meet with this situation, why don’t you catch all these early and give them the right way promptly? 

Here mapping is required of every customer. How is it going to assist you? It can help you to share the myriad of pain points that you and your team can resolve swiftly. We have been watching this in the market since an epoch that less entrepreneurs focus on the pain points. Keep a bird’s eye view here to turn those audiences into potential customers soon. 

  • Good job for improving Customer Retention Rate

We shared above that if you make a simple process for them to reach you and solve their pain points then it’s the right way to run the business. One more goal is achievable here. Do you know what it is? You will improve the customer retention rate that is always at the priority of big businesses. 

customer journey benefits

But it is only possible when your customer has no issue when dealing with your organization. Remember: one poor experience can make them feel like you are not good enough so it’s time to move somewhere else. Just around a 5% increase in retention and opens the door of gaining profit between 25% to 95%. 

 Crucial Stages in Customer Journey

Every stage is different regarding the Sales and Marketing approach. Make sure to use every stage and not to miss any point given below. 

  • Awareness

Suppose a user is running his Real-Estate CRM business and he is looking to get some superlative SuiteCRM plugins to run the business. The user will research while taking the assistance of Google. Your role is to aware them via SEO that you have similar bundles of products and services that they are searching for. 

This is the awareness stage where you should keep a bird’s eye view on every channel. There is a requirement for some content from your side. We are talking about the Checklist, E-Guide, Whitepaper, Industry Research reports, videos, and much more. The quite simple strategy now to measure the traffic via customer journey mapping. 

  • Consideration

Don’t think that you are the only fish in the pond who will get everything. There are many. If understanding it from a business perspective then let us inform you that the next stage of journey mapping of CRM customers is Consideration. Suppose they like your SuiteCRM Mailchimp product features and all. 

But they will also see the competitor’s website who is selling the Mailchimp software product. They will check your website and your competitors one also. They will focus on activities such as reviews, in-depth functions, offers about this product, etc. What you have to do here? Deliver Content like Demo videos, Product Webinars, and Case studies. In fact, why don’t you add FAQ also? It is also helpful. 

  • Sale/Purchase

The third stage which is very crucial and that is Sale/Purchase. After getting aware of innumerable websites about the product and they like to purchase from your business only, your job is to satisfy their primary questions. If they are stumped about their buying decision and want reviews of previous clients then please share with them. 

Furthermore, you should deliver content like Coupon, Free Demo, Customer Review, etc. If you have CRM software that is superior in deal monitoring, nurture sales deals via SMS or Email then you have the right CRM to run your customer journey strategy. 

customer journey mapping
  • Service

Now finally a product is sold to your customer. So, your job is over now with that customer? Not now because you have several steps to follow in a meticulous way. There is a need to share an incomparable experience to them to make your relationship better. 

It’s not like a customer can purchase only one product from your business. Some responsible services are required from your sides such as Follow up calls, Feedbacks from them, experience when using the product, and much more. 

  • Loyalty

While reading out the magnetic benefits of Customer Journey Mapping above, we already told you that retaining customers is a daunting task than selling something to customers. You hit the mark correctly on your sales goal, but it doesn’t mean that the task is over. 

There is a requirement from your side to win the heart of your customer. Maintain your relationship with them for lifelong. The content that you must share with your customer: Survey, Coupons, and Requests for Testimonials. 

Top Customer Journey Tools with some Surprising Features

In this guided tour, we explained everything about mapping from creating a process to the stages. Let’s dig a little deeper to know the tools of it. 

Many don’t have much understanding of diagrams. This software can be a helping hand for your business. Use Microsoft Visio for making the flowchart much better for the journey mapping.

While using it, you get numerous features such as built-in shapes, stencils, objects, and much more for your work. The only aim is to make your diagram content more compelling and easier like you want. 

customer journey tools

One more tool to improve the customer journey goal and the name is UXPressia. A better way for the business to visualize and present the journey.

Also, syncing with other data sources can be possible with this vigorous tool. While using it, two more essential functionality is here: Flexible Buyer persona and Impact Map Builder. There is also a free plan if small businesses want to use it or any business size wants to operate it from the starting stage. 

customer journey tools

Users are allowed to make customer journey maps, stakeholder maps, and more importantly, personas in a creative way. Thanks to Smaply for bringing advanced features like we can visualize the map via channels, storyboards, backstage process, etc.

Suppose you want to share the crucial map journey with plenty of customers then you can do this and also commenting is possible here. You can visualize the product ecosystem when going for a stakeholder journey map. 

customer journey mapping tool

A requirement of many users is to edit or create diagrams. Endeavor for Gliffy tool- one of the most exceptional ones for this purpose. Many of you do the highlighting technical diagrams to fetch customers. This tool is a profitable one for you.

You can effectively make a company networking map because it gives multiple features for your assistance. You will also get features like Venn Diagram and Organizational Charts. Here is a Free plan also for your business activities. 

customer journey map tool

Parting Words: Mapping the Customer journey is a pinnacle of business success as there is no need to use finicky hardware, primitive tools, or something else for improving customer experience. A business should try this strategy which is utmost important to gain a good amount of profit and can see sales goal increasing. Don’t make journey mapping inundated for you and for your customers because your one mistake sabotages all credibility. Get aware of every piece of information above and share it with your business team to flourish the organization in the future. 

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