A customer journey map is a visual representation of the ways a customer interacts with your brand before and after they make a purchase. Creating a customer journey map helps you understand the decisions a shopper makes so you can remove any friction or obstacles that prevent them from buying from you.
Here’s how to build a customer journey map that can help you increase sales and improve loyalty.
What is a customer journey?
A customer journey is similar to a sales funnel. It describes the experience a customer has with your brand. Mapping each touchpoint can help your company better understand the problem your customers are trying to solve. It also helps you provide the right information and incentives at the right moment to convince someone to buy from you.
Broadly, there are three stages of the customer journey to consider: before purchase, purchase and usage, and after purchase. A customer journey doesn’t end once they’ve clicked “Buy” or tapped their card.
The follow-up of helping someone understand how to set up or use your product or service is equally important. This stage includes responding to customer reviews, managing returns and refunds, and providing customer support.
Across these three stages are key moments when your brand can foster loyalty.
Creating a customer journey map helps you understand the decisions a shopper makes so you can remove any friction or obstacles that prevent them from buying from you.
Common stages in a small business customer journey
Let’s dive in to see more specifically what a typical customer journey looks like.
Before purchase
Most customer journey maps start with the awareness phase. This is when someone discovers your company. Awareness can be sparked by word of mouth, a targeted marketing campaign, or the customer’s own research. “Paying attention to how your target audience grows their awareness of your brand enables you to optimize your marketing approach, budget, and channel prioritization,” wrote Miro.
Once a customer is aware of your business, the next step is consideration. The customer is considering whether your product or service solves a problem they have. This stage typically involves research and comparison with other competitors. They may also be comparing prices, reading online reviews, and getting internal feedback from other stakeholders.
Purchase and usage
Once the customer decides to make a purchase, they move into the acquisition stage. They may not complete a purchase, which means your company should focus on improving the prepurchase process. Or, they may go with a competitor — this is also valuable feedback.
If the customer purchases from your business, you still gain valuable insight. Retail locations, for instance, can gather data on the payment type used in each transaction and tailor their in-store tech accordingly. It’s also the moment to ask customers to sign up for your loyalty program.
It’s not enough to know which phase someone is in once you’ve created your customer map. “I want to know if they’re downloading an ebook, watching a demo video, or clicking through every photo in a product gallery,” wrote Diego Alamir, a CX professional at HubSpot. “I like to track things like page-view sequences, CTA clicks, and email engagement because each action tells a story.”
For instance, after a customer completes a purchase, do they interact with customer service? What’s the rate of returned items? Are there specific items that are getting returned more often than others? Usage is an important aspect of acquisition.
Post-purchase
Finally, you may decide to track retention as a key post-purchase phase. The famous marketing adage that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers means this stage cannot be ignored. What can you do during this stage that encourages customer retention?
The last stage of the customer journey is engagement or advocacy. “Consider using email, social media, in-product messages, and personalization to make your customers’ experience more enjoyable,” wrote MailChimp. “Make your customers so happy that they’ll recommend your brand to others.”
These stages vary by industry, whether you sell a product or service, and by the monetary value of each purchase. For instance, a small-ticket item that’s widely available doesn’t require the customer to spend a lot of time in the consideration phase. Someone shopping for an important piece of expensive equipment, however, will spend much more time in the consideration and post-purchase stages. You need to understand your customers inside and out to build a customer journey map that’s accurate and useful.
Best tools for creating a customer journey map
There are dedicated tools that can create complex customer journey maps, such as UXPressia or Smaply. However, if you’re not ready to invest in a stand-alone product, consider using free or paid templates from sites like Miro or Mural.
You can do your own customer map on a whiteboard by putting yourself in the role of your ideal customer and going through each phase. Or, you can simply use a survey tool such as SurveyMonkey to gather intel on your customers’ paths to purchase.
Customer journey maps should be living documents. As your company grows and your customer base expands, it’s worth revising your map to see what other touchpoints are working, determine if any competitors are stealing market share, and make sure your post-purchase follow-up delivers loyalty. Bear in mind that customer journeys are rarely linear; gathering data along the way can help you spot patterns and adjust your go-to-market plan as needed.
How to collect the right customer data to inform your journey map
Broadly, there are two types of data that you need to inform your customer journey map: solicited and unsolicited data.
Solicited data comes from direct customer feedback. Surveys, focus groups, and online reviews can help you form a picture of how your customers experience your business. This type of data is highly useful, but it comes with some caveats.
“It’s what customers say they think, not what they actually think: You’re relying on your customers to accurately reflect their sentiments and intentions in their responses, which isn’t always the case,” wrote Qualtrics.
Unsolicited data can give you a more well-rounded data set to create your journey map. Draw this data from your social media channels, sales and customer service calls, employee feedback, and more. Market research from sites like Forrester and Mintel can also help you understand your target customer on a deeper level.
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