What Are the Benefits of Customer Journey Maps?

Customer Journey Maps have been around for some time but for the last few years, they have become a favorite technique to follow for obtaining successful results. The starting point of the customer journey maps is the vital point of successful marketing campaigns: Empathy. This technique follows all of the steps of the process of your customers’ buying journey so that you can see their needs, wants, and complaints more clearly and in great detail and use them in your future campaigns to make the necessary adjustments.

What Is A Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a tool that closely follows your customer from the moment they identify the problem in their life (i.e. needing your product or service) to the moment they buy it from you. The steps in these journeys can differ depending on the techniques you use while preparing it, the industry your brand is in, and the preferences of the digital marketers but there are some basic steps that are the same in every map. We can summarize these steps as follows:

Identifying the problem: In this step, the customer starts needing the product or the service you are providing. For example, a person who decides on eating more healthily is going to start looking for a door-to-door fresh food delivery service.
The research phase: The customer spends time researching the product (or service) and the provider brands on this second step. Search engines play a big role in this part so make sure the content on your website is optimized.
Evaluating the options: Chances are you are not the only brand in your industry and there are many other brands that sell the same. The potential customers are going to carefully examine all the brands, read the customer reviews, and make their decisions.
Buying: The last step is where the customer chooses your brand, for its low-value, popularity, or quality, or for something else.

What Are the Benefits of Customer Journey Maps?

They Help You Empathize With Your Customers

You may make estimations and guesses depending on the data you have about your customers but still, you should be understanding what they are thinking or feeling. Customer journey maps will help you to base them on a cause-and-effect relationship.

Örneğin yukarıda bahsettiğimiz adımlardan üçüncüsü olan seçeneklerin değerlendirilmesi aşamasında müşteri adayının uzun süre geçirdiğini görüyorsanız bu diğer markalarla kıyaslama aşamasında zorlanıldığı anlamına gelebilir. Rakipleriniz arasından sizi çok daha çekici kılacak kampanyalar ile bu süreci kısaltabilir, dönüşüm oranlarınızı artırabilirsiniz.

For example, the third step where the customer evaluates the brands we have mentioned above can take a little too long. If that is the case it might mean that your customer is having a hard time deciding. You might want to offer some attractive promotions to shorten that time.

2. You Will Spot Your Faults and Gaps In Your Customer Experience

It becomes easier to spot the gaps in your strategy and customer experience. To name one, if the customers are spending too much time on the research phase or if you are receiving too many calls or emails at your customer service the reason might be the fact that the information about your brand and product is insufficient.

3. Know More About Customer Behavior

You can step inside your customers’ minds with customer journey maps. This will help you to make more educated guesses about their next steps. Think about the second step. If a potential customer is checking your social media accounts right after visiting your website through search engines you might want to liven up the content on your website.

4. Improve the Customer Journey Further

Now you can create your campaigns in sync with the customer journey map you have prepared and improve the customer experience even further. You will become extra sensitive about your customers’ needs, attract more customers and prepare strategies with more conversion.