Small Business Brief

Customer Service

What Is a Customer Journey Map and Do You Need One?


The advent of technology in the modern world has resulted in one worrying trend for many businesses: increased competition.

Now more than ever, the barrier to entry in virtually every industry seems lower than ever. So how do you as a business compete for customers with the other seemingly endless options in your market?

Simple: Instead of differentiating yourself with your product, differentiate yourself with customer experience. Research shows that positive customer experiences are a leading indicator of a company’s financial success.

To ensure excellent experiences, you need a customer journey map. What is a customer journey map? We’re glad you asked!

Read on to learn how to map out your customer’s experience in a few simple steps.

Understand the Top of the Funnel

The first part of the customer journey map is the top of the sales funnel. The sales funnel is the progression of steps that your customers experience as they learn about your business and finally purchase your product or service.

The top of the funnel is thus the first step of the process—building brand awareness.

Creating a positive customer experience starts with a positive introduction to your brand. What channels are you leveraging to bring leads into your sales system? What are the touches that those leads first experience? Is it a marketing email, or a personalized 1:1 message from a dedicated sales rep?

The more personalized you can make the top of the funnel, the better your customer experience journey map will form.

Focus on a Value-Based Sales Process

The next part of a simple customer journey map is the actual sales process. At this point, the customer knows about your brand. They may even know about other competitors in the space.

They are evaluating whether or not to continue going down the road with your brand, or if they should go with one of your competitors. In order to stand out from the rest of the bunch, focus on value-based selling.

Don’t talk about your product’s features. Instead, understand your customer’s problems first and present them with the solutions that your product enables.

Turn Happy Customers Into Diehard Advocates

The customer experience doesn’t end when they convert into a paying customer. Instead, this is only a tipping point. From here, you should experience that every step of the way, you are working on turning happy customers into diehard advocates.

Provide exemplary customer service. Check in with them proactively to ensure that they are getting good value out of your product. 

If you do this, then you can ensure that your customers will refer their network to your brand, and you can soon watch referral business pour in.

What Is a Customer Journey Map? Answered

There you have it. 

Now that you know the answer to the question of what is a customer journey map, all that remains is for you to start building out one of your own that’s tailored to your business’s audience!

For more business advice, check out the rest of the articles on the website.



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