Finding the key to improving customer experiences may seem like magic, but it is as simple as looking back in time.
Do you remember sitting in history class reviewing events that happened thousands of years ago? Without the dedication of our ancestors to record these events for future generations, we would only be able to speculate what happened. Knowing the exact details helps us learn from our past experiences and prevents us from making the same mistakes in the future, showing us the great importance of learning from the past.
While knowledge of history helps prevent catastrophic events, it can also help with customer experiences. This history lesson comes in the form of data and information you collect as potential customers interact with your brand and build a relationship after purchase. Just like those timelines in history class, you can create a timeline called a journey map to look back at customer experiences to see what needs improvement or what should remain the same.
Learn how these precious recordings can improve your customers’ experiences or be used in your marketing and PR plans.
Journey Map
On the surface, your customer’s journey may appear to be very simple. From this perspective, your customer determines that they need something, you offer what they are looking for to fulfill that need and the customer makes the purchase. We all know it is not that simple, which is where a journey map can come in handy.
A journey map shows a record of every touchpoint your business has had with a single customer. This includes your marketing and public relations outreach that introduces your business to audience members when they visit your website or social media, stop by your retail location, see your business’s promotions and the list goes on.
The journey map is especially important because it makes the customer’s journey visual, enabling you to see each step the audience member took before committing to purchasing your product or service or deciding to go somewhere else. The visualization makes determining what you got right or where you went wrong much easier. You can determine the customer’s pain points, targeting exactly what will cause certain kinds of customers to make the purchase.
Not only does the journey map enable you to see what has happened in the past, it also enables you to build a relationship with the customer, even after the purchase. Based on their past experiences, you can determine what they like and dislike to keep them coming back.
Benefits:
- Helps see which mediums are working for you
- Homes in on customer needs at each stage of the experience
- Enables you to see from the customer’s perspective
- Ensures the process is happening in the correct order
- Shows what customers are looking for versus what they are getting
- Shines a light on what your priorities should be
- Highlights what you need to be focusing on
Customer Experience
While knowing each step the potential customer takes gives great insight into their journey, their experience at each step is instrumental, as well. The customer may see a newspaper article about your company, and they may visit your retail location but turn away. Here, you know the actions that were taken, but not the reasons behind them.
By keeping track of the customer’s experience in addition to the actions, more insight can be gained into what must be done to attract and keep more customers. In this example, the customer may have had a poor experience with an employee, had trouble finding a specific product or maybe they had to wait too long in line. Knowing what caused them to turn away will help to fix the issue for future customers.
Learn from Experience
Using the combination of your customer’s journey and their experience, you can make changes to your business based on current customer interactions. You can enhance what customers like about your offerings and service and cut back on what they haven’t responded well to without having to guess what is working well and what isn’t. These improvements make the experience your customers have with your brand even more powerful. History can teach us so much. Whether you are going back centuries or just a few weeks, knowing what has happened in the past makes for a better future.