Before a customer acquires a product or a service, he will normally go through a series of interactions with the company. In advertisement, specialists used to talk about “the final drop” that will convince the consumer to buy. But before he gets to it, there is a whole journey, which implies many more touch points than before. Controlling the relationship at all of those stops, is crucial. Here is why a company has to understand customers needs and fulfill them throughout their journey.
What does a Journey Map look like?
From the initial meeting between brand and potential customer, to the moment they finally buy one of the products or services, there are touch points where they will interact. Customer journey mapping is meant to illustrate all those points by placing them on what looks like a path. Each stage of the road is different, yet requires to be analyzed by asking the same questions. It will enable the management team to understand how the customer feels and reacts, at all time. Depending on the product or service, the map may look differently. However, they normally start by defining the motivation of the customer, its search for the product and the moment of acquisition. It should continue, in order to view how the relationship is maintained (or not) afterwards, and to analyse the client’s reaction through the comments he leaves along the way.
How can Journey Maps improve Customers Experiences?
Improving customers experience is the goal of journey mapping. At each touch point it aims to understand how satisfied the customers are. To do so, it analyzes emotions that they feel. Are they happy, satisfied, unsatisfied or literally unhappy? To do so, they will look at the experience the consumer is going through, at each step. Of course, it needs to be compared to something, in order to understand the level of satisfaction, and that is the client’s expectations.
It can be useful in terms of understanding the way clients feel in the relationship with the brand, but also in regards to the process that takes the consumer from A to Z. If the analysis, at any point, comes back negative, journey mapping will enable the management team to find solutions for each particular problem, found along the way.
Why does it help to create Tools adapted to the Consumers Needs?
Once you import the data collected in the study of journey mapping, you have to make them go through analytics. There are software that are especially made for this, which will then be able to identify problems and create solutions, precisely adapted to the consumers that went through a touch point unsatisfied. It usually leads to the creation of new tools, which will be helpful to customers, or ones that will enable the company to identify better the frustrations felt, so that it makes the journey more agreeable for future consumers. It will also help retain more of them, in the long run.
A company that doesn’t worry about what their customers feel, is bound to have issues along the way. Having a great product or service is good, but delivering one that answers consumers needs is simply better.
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