How to Map the Modern, Non-Linear Customer Journey
A step-by-step framework for understanding your customer's experience and identifying opportunities for optimisation. Build better experiences that drive conversions.
The modern customer journey is a far cry from the simple, linear funnel of the past. Today's customers are empowered, they are connected, and they are in control. They interact with your brand across a multitude of touchpoints, from your website and your social media channels to your email newsletters and your in-store experiences. Their journey is not a straight line; it is a complex and a winding path, often doubling back on itself, with multiple moments of influence along the way. To create a truly effective marketing strategy, you need to move beyond simplistic models and to develop a deep, empathetic understanding of this modern, non-linear customer journey. A customer journey map is a powerful tool that allows you to do just that. It is a visual representation of your customer's experience with your brand, from their initial awareness to their post-purchase loyalty. It is a tool for seeing your business through your customer's eyes, for identifying their pain points and their moments of delight, and for uncovering the hidden opportunities to create a more seamless, a more personalised, and a more high-converting customer experience.
This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step framework for creating a detailed and an actionable customer journey map. We will cover the key components of a successful map, from creating your customer personas and to identify your touchpoints to mapping out the stages of the journey and to uncover your opportunities for improvement. We will also demonstrate how our performance-based model at 3P Digital is built on a foundation of deep customer understanding and a relentless focus on optimising the entire customer journey for conversion and for long-term profitability.
1. Define Your Goals and Your Scope: What Do You Want to Achieve?
Before you can start mapping, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve. Are you trying to improve your conversion rate? To increase customer satisfaction? To reduce churn? To identify new product opportunities? Your goals will determine the scope of your map and the level of detail you need to include.
Best Practices for Goal Setting
- Be Specific: Instead of a vague goal like "improve the customer experience," aim for a specific goal like "reduce shopping cart abandonment by 10%" or "increase our Net Promoter Score (NPS) by 5 points."
- Focus on a Single Persona and a Single Scenario: Do not try to map the journey for all your customers at once. Start with a single customer persona and a single scenario, such as a first-time purchase or a customer service interaction.
The 3P Digital Advantage
We will work with you to define a clear set of goals for your customer journey mapping project. We will help you to identify your key customer personas and to choose the most important scenarios to map, ensuring that your efforts are focused on the areas that will have the biggest impact on your bottom line.
2. Create Your Customer Personas: Bringing Your Customers to Life
You cannot map the journey if you do not know who your customer is. Customer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on real data and research. They are the foundation of a successful customer journey map.
Best Practices for Creating Personas
- Use Real Data: Your personas should be based on real data from your web analytics, your CRM, your customer surveys, and your customer interviews.
- Go Beyond Demographics: Do not just focus on demographics like age and gender. Include information about your customers' goals, their motivations, their pain points, and their preferred channels of communication.
- Give Your Personas a Name and a Face: Give your personas a name and a photo to make them more relatable and more memorable.
The 3P Digital Advantage
We will help you to create a set of detailed and an actionable customer personas that will bring your customers to life. We will use a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods to ensure that your personas are a true reflection of your target audience.
3. Identify and to Map Your Customer Touchpoints
Your customer touchpoints are all the different places where your customers interact with your brand. It is important to identify all your touchpoints, both online and offline, so that you can get a complete picture of the customer experience.
Common Customer Touchpoints
Online Touchpoints:
- •Your website
- •Your blog
- •Your social media channels
- •Your email newsletters
- •Your online ads
- •Your review sites
Offline Touchpoints:
- •Your physical store
- •Your events
- •Your direct mail
- •Your customer service calls
- •Your sales team
The 3P Digital Advantage
We will work with you to identify all your customer touchpoints and to map them out across the different stages of the customer journey. This will give you a clear understanding of how your customers are interacting with your brand and where the opportunities for improvement lie.
4. Map Out the Stages of the Customer Journey
For each of your customer personas, you need to map out the different stages of their journey with your brand. The specific stages will vary depending on your business, but a typical customer journey includes the following stages:
The Stages of the Customer Journey
Awareness:
The customer becomes aware of a problem or a need and to start researching their options.
Consideration:
The customer evaluates different solutions and to compare different brands.
Decision:
The customer chooses a solution and to make a purchase.
Retention:
The customer uses your product or your service and to have a positive or a negative experience.
Advocacy:
The customer becomes a loyal advocate for your brand and to refer others to you.
The 3P Digital Advantage
We will work with you to map out the stages of your customer journey and to identify the key questions, the emotions, and the actions that your customers are taking at each stage. This will give you a deep and an empathetic understanding of your customer's experience.
5. Identify Your Opportunities for Improvement
Once you have mapped out the customer journey, you can start to identify the opportunities for improvement. Where are the points of friction? Where are the moments of delight? Where are the opportunities to create a more seamless and a more personalised experience?
Best Practices for Identifying Opportunities
- Look for Pain Points: Where are your customers getting stuck? Where are they getting frustrated? These are your biggest opportunities for improvement.
- Look for Moments of Delight: Where are your customers having a great experience? How can you replicate these moments of delight across the entire customer journey?
- Look for Gaps: Are there any gaps in your customer journey? Are there any places where you are not meeting your customers' needs?
The 3P Digital Performance-Based Advantage
At 3P Digital, we are obsessed with optimisation. Our performance-based model means that we are constantly looking for ways to improve the customer journey and to increase your conversion rates. We use a data-driven approach to identify the biggest opportunities for improvement, and we use A/B testing and other optimisation techniques to systematically improve your customer experience over time. With our 24/7 real-time performance dashboard, you will always have a clear view of how our optimisation efforts are impacting your bottom line.
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