Times are challenging for companies aiming for higher customer satisfaction — customers have never had so many ways to express themselves about brands, products, and services. Unprecedented growth of communication technologies make it difficult for companies to clearly visualize and handle the flow of customer communications and sentiment that are spreading on the web. 

In the Internet of Things era, online forums, social media channels, mobile applications, and connected devices are all shaping new channels that companies have to master in order to manage their brand effectively. Every single business or organization is affected — be it healthcare provider for seniors, recycler of light bulbs, or seller of aircraft equipment — they all have customers to serve and engage.

In this hyper-connected digital milieu, how do leading organizations engage and satisfy their customers? How do they align themselves internally? An effective way to gain deep insight into customer behavior and experience is to map what we call the customer journey. 

A customer journey is defined as the sequence of interactions an organization has with its customers, or simply put, your customers’ holistic experience with your brand. In this two part series, I’ll divulge a seven-step approach to integrate this initiative in your organization.

1. Take inventory of all customer touchpoints
   Chances are, your customers interact with your organization in myriad ways. The first course of action is to find all the points at which your organization interacts with customers. Interactions can be in the form of face-to-face meetings, product demos, phone calls, emails, or discussions via social channels. They can also be physical sales or legal documents, marketing events, web portals and web sites, or assets, blog posts, and other informative content.

   A single touchpoint can also contain multiple versions. Take for instance a company website. With the rise of mobile devices, most organizations need a mobile-optimized version of their site that’s different from the desktop version. In order to understand your customers’ holistic experience, it’s imperative to fully map out every encounter they have with your brand.

2. Take a walk in your customer's shoes
   Every identified touchpoint has to be defined in terms of customer expectations and objectives. Why did the customer (or why should they) want to interact with you?

   Customers are people, not transactions. Empathy is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, when designing any process. See your organization from your customers’ point of view; your customers don’t care about your internal structure or departmental silos. Understand that their experience with your brand is like seeing your company through a keyhole. Make sure what they see is the best possible view of your organization. 

3. Place touchpoints into your customer's lifecycle
   Touchpoints are dispersed throughout the customer relationship lifecycle. A touchpoint sequence has to be drawn to form a process or use-case. A process has steps, which includes both mandatory and optional steps, and oftentimes sub-steps too. In any process, identify the key customer moments and focus on optimizing those.

   With this sequential approach, it becomes possible to pinpoint the customer’s position in their lifecycle for any given touchpoint. Are you meeting a potential customer for the first time? Or interacting with a returning customer who is ready to purchase? Or are you engaging with a customer who has already purchased? Assessing the customer’s level of familiarity with your organization is essential to delivering a quality and consistent experience.

4. Define who acts and how
   No single department or function owns the customer journey. At different points in time, and with different tasks, different employees own the unique customer moments that make up the customer journey. Work to ensure all employees are empowered and contributing to the process in a way that serves the customer: the legal department drafts contracts that will be reviewed by clients; the technical teams produce account reports that will be sent or used by a sales representative for a client; and so forth. It is crucial to provide a holistic and transparent view of all the interactions a customer has had with different teams in your organization in order to provide a relevant and truly exceptional experience.

Stay tuned for the second installment of this blog series to learn more about optimizing your customers’ experience to drive deeper engagement. In the meantime, feel free to contact us or Tweet me @QuentinLamare to continue the conversation.