20150602 verequest customer journey mapping
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© 2014-2015 VereQuest Inc.
All rights reserved
Visit www.verequest.com
Customer Journey Mapping
9 steps to understand what matters most
WHITE PAPER
by Sharon Oatway
President & Chief Experience Officer - VereQuest
MOST COMPANIES understand how their compa-
nies work. They have carefully mapped out in detail the processes that drive their businesses and ana-
lyzed them for greater efficiencies and productivity.
Every step has been counted and refined over the
years. Cost savings have been realized and em-
ployee productivity enhanced.
And yet when asked about how customers experi-ence the processes,
channels, policies and
procedures, very few
c o m p a n i e s k n o w .
Among mounds of con-
sumer research, there is very little insight into
how customers feel about these things.
Over the last few years, we have seen a growing in-
terest in the practice of ‘customer journey mapping’
— drawing out how a customer navigates an organi-
zation, decisions made and options available. For every company that creates journey maps, there is a
unique approach and design.
This paper highlights the key steps that form the
foundation to a successful mapping project. As you
will see, the process is based on building a funda-
mental understanding from the customer’s perspec-
tive and then drilling down to greater detail.
Making a decision to use internal resources or not is
not just about budgets. It’s about retaining the
value knowledge of the customer’s journey inter-
nally. That’s why it makes sense to work with an
internal team and an external facilitator/coach — as
opposed to a classic consulting engagement. While consultants are great to do the heavy lifting at the
outset, when they leave you want to make sure they
leave the insight and expertise behind as well!
Although much of the journey will be similar for
each customer segment, it will be important to
choose a single segment to begin the process. Spend
time to build a detailed profile of this segment to use
throughout the mapping exercise. Complete the mapping exercise using the customer persona devel-
oped … and then repeat for other key customer seg-
ments.
Although you may think the customer journey is a
simple one, it has many layers which must be un-
derstood for full appreciation. Given the complexity of a multi-channel, multi-touch environment, it is
important to break the customer journey into stages.
By focusing on one stage at a time, you will be able
to dig deep without getting caught up in a quagmire
of detail.
Before starting, it is important to know where you
have insight and where gaps exist. This includes gathering and reviewing all primary and secondary
research, speaking with stakeholders and interview-
ing front-line staff. This helps to identify areas
which may require further research.
If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to
bring in an external facilitator (like VereQuest). An
independent third party has no preconceived notions about how things should work or what barriers exist
to prevent the type of experience that customers may
expect. They can add important perspective.
Together with the facilitator, prepare a prototype — a
map of your understanding of the customer’s experi-
ence. This will be used as the jumping-off point for a Customer Journey Mapping Workshop, serve to
The Approach
2 © 2015 VereQuest Inc.
Develop a customer persona. 1
Identify the stages. 2
Gather what you know. 3
THINKING INVESTIGATING TEST DRIVING DECIDING BUYING WAITING RECEIVING/DRIVING
“I want a new car!”
“I LOVE my new car… or maybe not!”
Map it. 4
brief the facilitator and offer insight into gaps that
may exist within your organization about how you
think about the customer, internal processes and policies.
The next step is to take
your prototype into a
Workshop facilitated by
the external coach and a
few internal team mem-bers who have a broad
understanding of what customers experience. Typi-
cally this would include a tenured product manager,
frontline sales, customer service representative, re-
search analyst and customer experience leader. There is no magic number about how many partici-
pants to include but 6-8 tends to be a good size.
Depending on the amount of customer research you
have, it may make sense to ‘walk the map’. This will
give you an independent view of the experience from
a typical customer’s perspective. VereQuest will
typically engage individuals who meet your cus-tomer’s profile (many of who are experienced actors
and business coaches) to ‘walk the map’. This may
include a hands-on simulation across channels,
from internal to external resources and back. We
may visit branches/retail locations, call each service
and sales point, apply for and/or buy products or services. Whatever an actual customer does. In
some cases we will listen to live customer conversa-
tions, reading emails or blogs; in other cases we will
deploy our Customer Insight Specialists as ‘mystery
shoppers’.
As each step is evaluated and validated, observa-
tions are gathered about how the experience feels
© 2015 VereQuest Inc. 3
(e.g. I felt frustrated. I was pleasantly surprised.
etc.)
This stage can be the most labor-intensive — to
translate your post-it note diagram into a graphic
image you and others can understand. It makes
sense to engage a consultant to help you do this.
You will want to do this as soon as possible after your workshop, while things are still fresh in your
mind. The sooner you can start to share the map,
the sooner you can engage other groups to help fix
the experience.
With a detailed, graphic journey map in place, you
will now be in a position to understand how the ex-
perience works for a customer. You will likely see a
host of issues that may be concerning to and should
be fixed or refined.
It is important at this stage to understand what mat-
ters most to customers. Where are the ‘pain points’?
— those areas of the journey which are troublesome
or frustrating but not enough to stop or deter a cus-
tomer from proceeding. And where are the
‘combustion points’? — those areas of the journey where the customer cannot or will not proceed.
Some areas will be obvious and others you may want
to conduct some additional research.
Once you have identified where the high priority
gaps lie, measurement is critical. If you fixed this problem, how many customers or how much more
revenue would be generated or saved? This is the
Walk the map. 5 Determine what matters most. 7
Draw the map. 6
most challenging part of the entire journey mapping exer-
cise.
Whether you are trying to solve a single problem or need to
fix the entire end-to-end experience, it is critical that you
clearly define the problem that needs to be solved or the op-
portunity that needs to be exploited.
The most effective approach is to phrase the problem as a
question, starting with the words: “How to…” For example,
“How to rejuvenate spending among our high value custom-ers?” [For more information about this process, see Inno-
vative Intelligence by David Weiss & Claude Legrand.]
At this point you should know (a) how customers are interacting with your company, (b) how they feel about the interaction, (c) where the barriers/pain points are, (d) where
the opportunities lie and (e) where the greatest effort/reward lies. All this hard work will be for naught if
you don’t improve the experience. As we know only too well, it is one thing to have identified the customer
journey gaps and to have quantified the value to the company (and the customer) in closing the gaps — it is
another to know how to close them.
Now is the time to engage your team in a Problem Resolution & Innovation Thinking workshop. This Work-shop not only help you develop innovative and actionable solutions to close gaps but you and your team will
also be provided with the foundational tools and skills needed to innovate around other barriers going for-
ward. Given that creating great customer experiences takes time — and is ever changing — having the skills
to close gaps and map other experiences is critical to sustaining great results!
© 2015 VereQuest Inc. 4
VEREQUEST is a consulting firm specializing in customer experience diagnostics and transformation. We
help our clients, each a leading organization in N.A., to strive to win the hearts and loyalty of customers.
Through our unique team of customer experience connoisseurs, proprietary technology and wealth of exper-
tise, we provide clients with reality-based analysis and meaningful insight into their customer’s experience
with their organization. As our name suggests, wherever possible, we strive to tap into real experiences and
actual customer behavior. While we acknowledge the value of qualitative insight, we work to quantify each
element of the interaction so that they can be prioritized against the next. We are recognized for our high
quality work and great value. Our recommendations are grounded in practicality and ROI. Importantly, we
deliver results, cost effectively.
Let’s chat! Call us 1-866 -920-2011 or 416-362-6777 x222 or go to www.verequest.com
Innovate. 9
Understand the question. 8
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