Charting the journey to customer conversion is never smooth sailing, with so many channels and potential snags in the experience that could steer sales off course. Creating better customer experiences is priority number one for many businesses and according to research, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable.
As Steve Jobs once said, you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology. If you want to create better customer journeys, you need to accurately map them, every step of the way. Customer experience mapping does just that.
In this blog, we’ll guide you through the how and why of customer experience mapping, from the benefits to your business right through to how different forms of data can enhance your mapping.
What is a customer experience map?
Before we get into the nitty gritty of talking customer experience maps, we need to take a moment to ask ourselves, what’s the difference between a customer experience map and a customer journey map? While they are similar, they provide different intel. A customer journey map outlines the key touchpoint, from their first interaction with your business to final conversion, and even post-sale interactions.
Customer experience (CX) mapping takes it one step further. It visualises the complete journey, bringing an extra level of insight into how and why your customers make a purchase. A customer experience map images every type of interaction may go through when interacting with your brand – and how they feel about it – to give you the full picture.
Simply put, once you start to layer customer data and experiences onto a customer journey map, you’ve got yourself a customer experience map. They’re more concerned with human behaviour rather than key customer journey milestones, and they make it possible to understand the thoughts and experiences of your customers. When it comes to CX, there is no limit to the level of detail you can include. In fact, the more, the better.
Why is it important to create a customer experience map?
Customers expect more from the brands they choose to do business with. According to one study, companies that take the time to map and optimise the customer experience see a 25% year-on-year increase in marketing revenue and a 21% reduction in service costs. If your bottom-line isn’t enough of a reason to start caring about customer experiences, also known as CX, we don’t know what is.
Plotting out a customer experience map is a valuable way of understanding where you stand as a business, any strengths or weaknesses, and of course, opportunities on the horizon. The benefits of customer experience mapping include:
- Accurately tracking, measuring, and eliminating touchpoints as needed
- Shining a spotlight on the moments of truth in customer interaction
- Identifying and finding solutions to pain points that can steer a purchase off course
- Collecting data about online and offline behaviours that can focus your efforts
- Refining your campaign planning and operations based on real insight
How to build a customer experience map
If you’re brand new to customer experience mapping, there’s a chance it might feel overwhelming. That’s because a customer experience map is taking data for multiple sources to consider every variable, channel, and path that a customer might take to purchase. We’re not just talking touchpoints; we’re telling a story.
Before you dive in to building a customer experience map, it’s worth setting yourself some clear goals to guide your mapping and help you understand the kind of data you need to include (and potentially collect). Link these goals directly to the business problem or opportunity you’re trying to address.
Once you’ve identified those goals, it’s time to start plotting the phases of the customer journey. Because customer experience mapping focuses on a multitude of marketing channels, you need to make sure you’ve included both the channel itself and any associated intel you have. For example, if a common touchpoint for your business involves a call to your contact centre, making sure you’re logging calls and any associated outcomes in the customer experience map is key.
When building your customer experience map, consider including the following information:
- Customer journey phases
- User needs or triggers – ideally based on buyer personas
- Common pain points or barriers to purchase
- Key customer channels and touchpoints in the journey
- Customer feedback or reactions at different touchpoints
- Data points that can inform your CX mapping
As discussed, a customer experience map can contain as much or as little detail as you need. The point is to create a pro-active document that allows you to listen to customer, and adjust your strategy as needed to provide more satisfying outcomes. Starting with these building blocks will help you see the full picture and continue to develop over time.
How can call data enhance customer experience mapping?
Customer experience mapping is all about getting insight into the customer journey and understanding what drives or stall that all-important purchase. Infinity’s speech analytics suite, Conversation Analytics, enables contact centres and marketers to capture the data needed to build smoother customer journeys, reduce average handling times, and improve first call resolution. Customers get the experiences they want, and your conversion rates get a healthy boost.
With Conversation Analytics, you can develop CX maps based on real data from your customers. It monitors conversations to understand why people are getting in touch, it flags keywords or trends before you’re even aware of them, and it uses speech analysis to monitor sentiment during calls, to help you nail what makes a call a positive or a negative experience for your customers and adjust for better results.
Call tracking can help you build better customer experience maps by discovering the campaigns, channels and keywords that are persuading your customers to pick up the phone. This intel can reduce your customer acquisition costs and lead to more effective revenue generation. If you can pinpoint the action that triggers customer calls, you can double your efforts or even cut spend on activities that aren’t delivering.
When you put Conversation Analytics and Agent ID together, things get even more interesting. You can gain actionable insights in to how well individual agents are handling the calls coming in, and going out, of your contact centre are. You can uncover the best calls to use for training, rapidly upskill your teams and decrease average handling time, all while increasing conversion rates and ensuring that your customers are truly satisfied.
Plus, Conversation Analytics integrates seamlessly with many contact centre technologies and CRM systems. This allows you to harness rich data automatically and draw links between marketing data and customer data.
Every conversation matters. Start one with us today to unlock the benefits of Conversation Analytics for your business.
