Posted by on March, 2 2020 8:29 pm
Customer experience is something that most people in the customer service industry are aware of. But what about the customer journey? Is the journey your consumers are going on a pleasant one - and are you making it harder or less enjoyable than it ought to be?
Here, we’ll dive into the details of the customer journey in your contact center, whether you partner with other companies to provide third-party service and support or are an all-in-one business. Either way, there are ways you could be providing a better journey for your customer- and making them want to take that trip again and again!
The customer journey is the map of experiences and interactions your consumer has with your brand. This may mean a literal journey - such as a set of memorable experiences they have - or simply a list of data sets. Regardless of what you take it to mean, the customer journey is critically important to your success as a customer service provider.
One of the reasons it is important to map the customer journey is the capability to predict future stops - even for future consumers. By gaining a better understanding of this virtual road map, you can help guide consumers along on their journey to create a better and more fulfilling one for every customer.
Besides helping to predict how a consumer might act or what they should expect at the next point in their journey, mapping the customer experience and analyzing it has numerous other benefits.
The two primary goals of analyzation include:
Before you can hope to effectively analyze any customer’s journey through the process of interacting with your brand, though, it pays to have a basic understanding of the journey’s expected pattern. This should be akin to a graphic you can present new hires with to memorize or post up in their office for future reference - something that follows a formula that can be learned.
Because every brand and every experience is different, it can be difficult to create a template that is general enough to fit all scenarios that might be encountered during a customer journey. Thankfully, what’s easier is creating a formula for map creation.
When you’re ready to make a map, start with hard and fast facts. Just as you would in the real world - start with places you know exist and distances that are not variable - you should start with figures that aren’t likely to change.
Some examples of these figures include:
Only once these facts are identified can you move forward with analyzing them to make the predictions that will make up your road map.
If hard and fast facts make up the base of your roadmap, less formal information can help to flesh out the details. Anecdotal evidence - based on how consumers think and feel about their brand experiences and interactions - is a useful tool for doing this. However, it can be difficult to collect this information. To do it accurately, you’ll need proper planning and tools.
One of the most important parts of the creation of these journey maps is to understand the role of the consumer. This can be difficult for call center agents and other customer service providers; they are so used to being on the other end of the process that it can be difficult to understand the other perspective. However, putting yourself into the virtual shoes of your consumer will help you determine whether your website is easy to navigate, your product provides what they are looking for, or your service is up to par.
Instead of literal stops on a journey, your customer roadmap is made up of the many points at which your consumer’s experience intersects your brand. This could be advertisements, purchase points, post-purchase feedback opportunities, and more. Knowing how many times your consumer comes in contact with your brand will help you determine how many opportunities you have to make a positive impression - and how to better serve these consumers along the way.
Once you have everything in place, it’s time to make your map. This doesn’t involve the drawing prowess of a real cartographer, but it certainly should involve some careful graphic planning.
A good customer journey map should show the various stops along the way of the average consumer’s experience, as well as what your agents or employees can do to streamline and simplify each of these steps to improve the process. The graphic could be as simple as multiple circles in a line or raised points on a chain, but regardless of style, it should be easy to understand and replicate so it can be used to train new agents - and ensure a great journey for every customer you serve in the future.
When you’re ready to make your customer journey one worth booking a trip to, give the industry experts at ChaseData a call. We have the tools and technology to help you improve your approach to serving consumers, solving problems, answering questions ,and generally making the entire customer journey one worth taking. Don’t settle for just a great experience when your consumer deserves more. Give them what they’re hoping for and exceed their expectations. To find out more, give us a call today!