In the first installment of this two part series aimed at helping organizations better engage and satisfy their customers, I outlined four initial steps to gain insight into customer experiences by mapping out the holistic customer journey. By taking inventory of all customer touchpoints and then integrating them into the customer lifecycle, companies are much better equipped to engage personally and relevantly with their customers at any point of the lifecycle.

Now, let’s dive into more sophisticated steps to improve the customer journey and align your organizations' process to better serve and engage customers.

1. Evaluate touchpoint quality.
   Each customer touchpoint must be evaluated through the lens of customer experience and satisfaction: Is the experience seamless and consistent with the brand? What can be improved or optimized? Grade the quality of each touchpoint on a five-point scale — and make sure to reevaluate on an ongoing basis.

   In my previous post, I discussed the importance of empathy in designing processes that treat customers like people, not transactions. Empathy is also a key factor in the evaluation process. Your organization can provide a plethora of resources — but ultimately, quality is all about customer perception: what counts is what the customer feels.

   It is difficult to provide an honest evaluation — but it has to be done. Beyond your own metrics for customer satisfaction, make sure you are getting evaluation directly from your customers. Put in place initiatives such as ongoing customer satisfaction surveys to measure quantitative and qualitative customer feedback.

2. Evaluate how empowered your employees are.
   Examine a touchpoint from a resource readiness standpoint. Do all employees have the necessary tools and training to address customer challenges in a personalized and timely manner? If not, this may be an explanation for low touchpoint quality.

   This issue should be addressed from multiple perspectives:

   Do your employees have enough knowledge about the customer?
   Do they have a single, unified view of said customer? 
   Is their data quality up to par?
   Do employees collaborate and share knowledge across their teams and across departments?

3. Make customer experience a company-wide initiative.
   Mapping the customer journey requires a transversal effort across your organization. To truly maximize its potential, it should not be limited to a single project team. Long-term relationships with customers must be considered at a company level; that's a primary reason why customer journey mapping should be integrated into company-wide strategy. Capitalizing on localized opportunities for improvement is good, but improving the customer journey as a whole is the way to realize ROI and deliver business outcomes. 

Every company initiative must be tied to a tangible business outcome. Customer journey mapping is no exception. With a good understanding of your customers' holistic lifecycle, you can diagnosis issues and trigger change the right way. You'll be able to better identify customer behaviors patterns, understand your customer's expectations, anticipate their reactions, and pinpoint your weaknesses and areas for improvement. This can directly result in higher customer retention and acqusition rates, as well as lower customer servicing costs from improved process efficiency.

What does the customer journey look like in your organization? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or get in touch with our experts to learn more about optimizing your customer journey.