From the first Google search to the final invoice, do you know what it’s like to do business with your business? Your customer journey can cover a lot of ground: recognizing a need and identifying solutions; learning about your company; purchasing, re-purchasing, and recommending your business to others. Think of your customer journey as a story that has a timeline connecting all of the “touch points” with your business before, during and after the actual purchase transaction. These might include responding to a banner ad, going to your website, seeing your storefront or entering your office, reading reviews, placing an order, and using the product or service. After buying and using the product, what happens? Is she happy? Does she keep doing business with you? Does she refer others to you? It is important to understand and document your customer journey You’ll learn more about your customers, what they expect from you, and what impediments they may find in doing business with you. By looking at the customer experience as a whole, the exercise forces you to think less like a business owner and more like a customer. The exercise highlights the weak links in your “story,” such as gaps in service, a ho-hum website, or poor product quality. So you’re in a better position to detect possible issues and make improvements. It shows what you’re doing right, too. Maybe you aren’t aware, for example, how much customers appreciate your hassle-free ordering process. How do you go about documenting the customer journey? Basically, you want to get inside the customer’s mindset. Big companies do this with full-blown research efforts. You can do it on a much less expensive, smaller scale. Start by: Learning what you can from website analytics—such as what pages they visit and how long they stay on those pages Informally surveying customers by phone or email Sending thank you cards to customers after each transaction, along with a request for their feedback Making a point to ask new customers how they encountered your business and what their impressions have been so far Asking repeat customers what they value, any hassles they’ve had, and how you can improve Interviewing your entire customer-facing team and gathering their experiences Next, create a simple customer journey map, keeping in mind that every customer’s journey will be a little different. Take what you’ve learned from your information-gathering above and draw one or more “roadmaps” of all the touch points. The diagram will help you visualize how a customer finds you, decides to try doing business with you, uses your product for the first time, and ultimately becomes a loyal customer who values your offering (or turns to a competitor). Now, make use of what you’ve learned. Try to remove all barriers to a positive experience that a customer may encounter—such as internal fumbles between departments or sales channels. Also, brainstorm with your team how to make the customer’s journey shorter and more pleasant.
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