Basically, all companies collect information about their customers with one degree or another. But data is just data; often real experience the client, his disappointments and problems remain a sealed secret. The history of the client’s interaction with the brand will help clarify the situation. In business, such a story isCustomer Journey Map, or customer journey map.
What is Customer Journey Map
This is a story about a customer's experience with a brand: from the very first contact, through the interaction process and to a long-term relationship. At its core, this is a graph that shows the customer’s points of contact with the brand, thus building his journey. And this very graph shows you the weak points and “failures” along this path.
CJM can like focus on a specific part of this path, and give an overview of the entire experience. But what is always in focus is identifying the key interactions that the customer has with the organization. It is important to identify the client's feelings, motives, and questions that arise at each of these sensory points.
The customer journey map can be designed in any form. There is no single design standard or any rules. Each organization creates a map in the way that is most convenient for them. Most often it is presented in the form of a diagram or infographic. But it can also be a table or graph, diagram.
But this is not the main thing. Whatever the form, the goal is the same: the organization must learn more about its customers.
The need for this tool arose at the moment when interaction with the client became systemic. Channels such as advertising, website, sales department do not work autonomously - all this forms unified system. As a result, brands realized that it is impossible to simply leave a client after the first contact with him: the client must feel taken care of, he must be taken by the hand and led from the very first point to the last, passing from department to department so that he does not feel discomfort or jumps.
It's no surprise that marketers are increasingly using customer journey maps in their work.
Why is CJM needed?
A customer journey map is a powerful tool that helps solve several important problems at once:
- makes the client loyal;
- provides comprehensive work with the client at all stages of interaction with;
- increases engagement.
The map will help the designer to see and understand the real aspirations of users.
CJM gives managers the opportunity to review the entire customer experience, to see the full picture. They see how customers move through the sales funnel. Visible weak spots, opportunities are open to improve user and customer experience.
A customer journey map helps identify gaps, points in the customer experience that are painful for people. There may be gaps between different interaction channels, for example the experience from social media to the website may be better.
First of all, this approach puts the user at the center of the company's thinking. Mobile, social media and the Internet have changed customer behavior. And every business needs to be able to adapt to these new realities and new channels.
This tool will address the user's feelings, questions and needs. This is especially important for digital products and services.
CJM has a lot of benefits and is truly a great tool. But where to start?
I suggest you first familiarize yourself with the examples and then understand how to create it.
Customer Journey Map Examples
Essentially, a customer brand journey map is an illustration, model, or diagram of all the touchpoints your customers come into contact with your company, online or offline.
Of course, this is a simple model, often primitive. Like a portrait target audience, funnels or any other diagrams, it is not 100% correct in reality. Rather, it is a model with which we try to reflect reality with a certain degree of accuracy.
It is unlikely that you will find two similar Customer Journey Map . The design depends on your product and your goals. Sometimes it is quite complex and detailed, as in this example:
The map could be much simpler, like here.
Here is an example of a CJM phone repair service. As you can see, this scheme is very different from the previous ones.
Check out more examples. Dapper Appsis an Australian company that specializes in developing applications for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and the web.
CJM Dapper includes 5 stages: research, comparison, workshop, questions and exit.
One more example -IdeaRocket LLC. The company develops animated videos for business. Most of their clients come from SEM.
Finally, a map of a company operating in the construction industry. It includes six distinct phases: design, financing, construction, leasing, model and completion.
There are many ways to explore the customer journey, as well as ways to create final product(the card itself). The result obtained can be used in certain areas. We hope these examples have inspired you to create your own.
How to Create a Customer Journey Map
The process of creating a map should begin with getting to know your clients. And you may already have some user information on hand. Start with this -collect information.
The most important thing you need to do is find out what groups of buyers you have and what questions they ask when they are at one stage or another of interaction with the company.
CustomerThink blog about how to map the customer journey. In the article, he identified the main components of the map and described them in nine points.
If you've been looking for information on how to create a customer journey map, you've likely found a wealth of information about a huge number of different approaches. After searching, you might have some questions, such as:
- Why are customer journey maps so different from each other?
- Where do I start if I want to create a journey map?
- How do I know which approach will be most effective for my organization?
- Are there map templates that you can use in your work?
In this article, I will identify the nine most common components of user journey maps. I hope this helps you create the most effective map that suits your needs.
1. Focus on the buyer
The first thing you need to decide is whose journey you are going to map. For example, you can map the movements of a specific type of buyer (ideal buyer persona), a potential (target) buyer, or an entire segment of buyers, depending on what your goal is.
In order to determine whose journey you want to map, it is worth identifying the business goal for which you are starting this research. Here are some examples of business goals you can achieve with mapping:
- Define a template path that can be applied to all or almost all customers and can be used across the company, for example, to create a shared understanding among employees of each stage of the buying cycle, buying goals, customer touchpoints, and so on. .
- Correlate the separate branches of the company and its structural units with key problem areas in the shopping experience.
- Make the planning process collaborative to experientially drive buyer growth.
- Practically implement new scheme customer segmentation.
- Optimize the shopping experience for a priority group of clients (high value clients).
- Understand how the user experience of a certain customer segment or a certain buyer persona differs from the experience of another customer segment.
- Expand your business by starting to work with new customers or those you haven’t fully engaged in attracting.
If we talk about attracting customers in B2B, then the customer journey map usually includes Various types employees of the acquiring company who perform different roles in the B2B buying process. In this case, it will be useful to include several types of buyers in the map and show how and when a particular type is involved in the main buying process.
Typically, buyer roles are defined using imagery. A buyer persona is a buying archetype that helps your organization understand customer needs, expectations, and behavior patterns. Images are very useful tool, which you can use to provide your customers with a positive and memorable shopping experience.
A buyer persona is a purchasing archetype that helps your organization understand customer needs, expectations, and behavior patterns.
Linking your buyer journey map to your customer persona definition can help establish and maintain a shared understanding of your ideal customer personas and their likely journey across the company. If you don't have personas defined, you might want to consider incorporating persona type development into your customer journey mapping process.
2. Creating a customer journey map with specific stages from the buyer’s perspective
Customer journey maps are made up of stages in the buying process (sometimes called phases). Each stage represents a meaningful goal that your buyer is trying to achieve as they progress through the journey.
The customer journey map must be built in accordance with the stages that will represent the path of the client purposefully moving towards achieving his goals. The map should not be focused on the stages of your internal processes.
Why can’t we establish correspondence between the stages of the customer journey and the stages of internal processes? It's a common misconception that this way you'll instantly turn your customer journey map into a graph of internal processes - this approach is usually called internal to external. As we'll learn later, you can map your internal customer journeys after you've built a customer-centric model of the stages of the buying process.
Stages can reflect general processes, such as a stage in the relationship between a customer and your brand. Or, on the contrary, more narrow ones - such as, for example, the “test flight” stage, which simulates the experience of the buyer’s first flight with the airline. How broad or narrow the stages are depends on which path you decide to map.
Each stage represents a meaningful goal that your buyer is trying to achieve as they progress through the journey.
This stage format is linear because one stage follows another. However, you can use visual design in your maps to show cyclical patterns of buyer behavior.
3. Identify your customers' goals
Your customer interacts with your brand to achieve their goals, also called wants, needs, or expectations.
Here are some examples of buyer goals:
- I want to know what my options are.
- I want to make sure the price is fair.
- I want to feel respected.
- I want to be productive while traveling.
By clearly defining the buyer's goals at each stage of the journey, you can evaluate how the shopping experience you provide is (or is not) helping the buyer achieve their goals.
And the value of your map as an auxiliary tool for making business decisions depends precisely on how correctly you define your goals. So try to clearly understand the buyer's goals.
4. Describe the touchpoints between the buyer and your organization
Touchpoints are the points of interaction between the buyer and the brand, or vice versa - the lack of interaction with the brand. More often than not, the value of customer journey maps comes from a clear understanding of the customer-brand touchpoints throughout the customer journey.
Touchpoints may occur in one or two channels, through tools or resources, but touchpoints and the tools and resources used are not the same thing. For example, if a customer visits a retail store's website to conduct research, the touchpoint is what the customer does to achieve their goal through the web channel. That is, the point of interaction is the intersection of the buyer’s actions with a specific tool or resource.
It's easiest to think of touchpoints as tools, resources, or channels. And that's okay. But these touchpoints themselves are not part of the user experience and they don't really tell you much information. In order for them to become part of a real shopping experience, they need to be used by a real buyer on the way to their goal.
Touchpoints are points of interaction between the buyer and the brand, or vice versa - the lack of interaction with the brand, while the buyer is looking for a way to satisfy his own needs or achieve goals
Some maps simply summarize all the tools and resources without describing what customers are doing at each touchpoint. This can be useful if there are multiple touchpoints at each stage of the customer journey and you need to understand what tools and resources your customer uses to achieve their goals, and their relative importance.
No matter what terminology you use when talking about touchpoints—or even if you implicitly describe key touchpoints in your map by mapping the actions and behaviors of your customers—be sure to use a customer-centric or front-end approach that describes how your customer uses them to achieve their goals.
5. Using a Journey Map to Visually Convey Emotions
Emotions cause much of human behavior - even if we don't realize it. The most rational-looking B2B purchasing decisions, even those backed by extensive questionnaires and multiple scoring matrices, are powerless in the face of buyer emotions.
Here's what we've learned over the past decade, and what thousands of buyer surveys I've conducted have confirmed: Emotions play a big role in B2B purchasing decisions.
- Tony Zambito in "The Role of Emotions and Goals in Business-to-Business Decision Making"
It's important to capture your customers' emotions (also called feelings) throughout their journey to gain a true understanding of their experience. It's important to understand both how your customer wants to feel at each stage of their journey and how they actually feel at each stage.
Regardless of the nature of the customer experience your organization provides, you will retain your customers and attract new ones if the service you offer brings value to people. positive emotions. In other words, you need to give the customer a memorable experience that they want to repeat.
Alexey Kopylov, UX expert at Kaspersky Lab, co-founder of UIDG, author of a training course on designing using Customer Journey Map, wrote an interesting guide to working with Customer Journey Map. With his permission, we present a version of this article on .
Introduction
When I'm asked to design the user interface for a website, I immediately ask the question - do I also need to design the interface for mobile devices and, as a rule, I get an affirmative answer. The fact is that modern sites and programs, which can be called digital products, are, as a rule, part of a larger service. And the further, the more digital products (websites, applications) will be involved in interaction with the user.
Let me give you an example of a fairly popular service - listening to music. I listen to music on a personal computer running OS X, on a smartphone (iOS), and on Apple TV. Apple has gotten pretty good at consuming music: I can buy an album on my iPhone, and then I can listen to that album on my Apple TV, which I have large speakers connected to. However, I can’t start listening to a certain song on the iPhone and then continue listening to it on the Apple TV - to do this, I have to look for the desired album in the Apple TV menu, this procedure cannot be called simple. That is, in Apple no one cared about such a possibility and did not implement it. At the same time, both the designer of the iPhone and Apple TV did their job well. The functionality that I need is located on the border of two devices and it is not clear who should be responsible for designing such connections.
This example shows that in our time it is not enough to think through in detail the user interface of one digital product in isolation from interaction with other products with which they are located in a single infrastructure. We need a tool that allows us to identify problems at the interfaces, and also allows us to design connections between products. As usual, the need provoked the creation of a wonderful new technique called “Customer Journey Map”.
Customer Journey Map is, perhaps, best tool User Experience over the last 10 years (after personas).
What is a service?
What is a service? For those who like strict definitions, I will quote from GOST-9000-2008:
A service is the result of at least one action, necessarily carried out during the interaction between the supplier and the consumer, and, as a rule, is intangible.
Let's remember the word “result” - this is what is most important for any consumer.
As I've previously reported, today's consumers interact with mobile devices, web browsers, people, environments and spaces, and so on. Each act of interaction between a consumer and a service is called a “touch point.”
Contact points can be not only digital, but also analog or offline.
Take, for example, a modern bank. What points of contact can we highlight here?
- bank website;
- web service “client-bank”, where the user can carry out transactions with his account and bank cards;
- mobile application “client-bank”;
- a physical bank branch, which can also be considered a product. Just like with websites, a bank branch has its own navigation system.
Suppose you came to the bank with some purpose and are not yet very familiar with the rules of its work. If your navigation was poorly designed, you may be confused about who exactly to contact to solve your problem. You have to contact the girl at the reception, who may have a separate queue of clients.
With this example, I wanted to illustrate the simple idea that bank branches can and should be designed similarly to websites.
What is a Customer Journey Map?
So, what is a Customer Journey Map (for short, simply CJM)?
CJM is a directed graph on which the path of the consumer of the provided service is mapped using contact points. CJM records details of interaction with the service.
That is, CJM reflects exactly how a consumer interacts with a service — what touchpoints exist, through which channels the interaction takes place (web, mobile app, offline point of presence, etc.), as well as what happens inside each touchpoint.
Here are examples of typical CJMs (pay attention only to the outside of the diagram for now):
Let's look at a simplified CJM example:
You see three representatives, each representing a different consumer group. In the process of consuming a service (achieving a goal), they have to interact with different products. At each point, an act of service occurs with a certain level of quality:
The overall service experience typically depends on the quality of service across all touchpoints. The principle of the weak link applies - one unsuccessful interaction casts a shadow on the entire service. Therefore, it is very important that every touchpoint is handled with maximum quality.
However, it happens that all interaction points are implemented just perfectly, and problems are hidden at the borders of transition from one point to another. That is, it may turn out that all the company’s employees serve customers well, but some consumers still do not achieve their goal:
Let me illustrate this with a simple example: many online stores require you to go through the registration procedure and, often, there is such a step as confirming registration by clicking on a special link that comes to your Mailbox(this is necessary to prove that a living person is registering and not a robot). In this case, the likelihood increases that the user will not be able to complete this step: perhaps the letter with the link ended up in spam, perhaps the user made a mistake and entered gmail.ru or another non-existent address instead of gmail.com, perhaps he completely forgot that he needed to confirm registration. In the examples known to me, user losses at this step reached 70%!
How could we reduce these barriers? For example, you can control what exactly the user enters as an email and offer to correct obviously erroneous addresses. Next, if the user has not clicked on the link from the email message within several days, then you can resend him an email with the link. But the best thing, of course, is to abandon this step altogether - to use other methods of protection against robots!
In general, you should always implement the system so that any point of contact motivates the consumer to move to the next step (the “push” principle), and the next point pulls the consumer from the previous point of contact (the “pull” operation). The push-pull principle promotes a smoother consumer interaction with the service.
Let's remember the example of listening to music. In fact, Apple has a way to transition from listening on iPhone to listening on Apple TV, namely AirPlay technology. However, not all consumers are aware of magic technology and therefore cannot use it. There is a rule that functionality that users cannot find does not exist for them. It would be possible to implement the “push-pull” principle this way: as soon as the user finds himself in an area where Apple TV is available, he immediately receives a message (without interrupting listening) that he can turn on the audio system (connected to the Apple TV) and continue listening on her. Conversely, as soon as the user turns on the TV, he sees a message about what song is playing on the iPhone and what needs to be done to redirect the sound to the audio system (by pressing one button).
So, CJM allows you to take control of the process of designing services that are implemented using various interactive products, as well as clearly visualize the process of executing the service itself.
Problems solved by CJM
I will list all the tasks that CJM solves:
- Creating a continuous UX throughout the entire service consumption.
Remember the aforementioned push-pull. - Increased consumer conversion.
By reducing barriers, as well as by reducing losses during the transition from point of contact to point of contact, more consumers reach the target. - Increasing consumer loyalty.
Retention rate — the number of returning consumers increases if we designed and implemented a service without barriers. - Increasing the responsibility of company specialists.
Each touchpoint has its own responsible employees on the company side. After we have mapped all touchpoints, all employees in the company can see who is responsible for what and how they cope with their responsibilities (if we set up KPIs for each point). This in itself increases the level of responsibility. - Accelerate the development of omnichannel services and products and improve the quality of development.
Due to the fact that all parties involved in the development see more fully how the service is implemented, and also see all the potential weak points of the service and can intervene in their development in a timely manner. - Create new and exciting interactions.
It becomes possible to come up with and implement new innovative features (remember the example about continuing to listen to an audio recording when moving from one device to another).
Everything looks great, but how to create CJM?
Creating CJM, step-by-step instructions
Step #1. We identify all points of contact and channels of interaction
We map all the points of interaction of a typical consumer with a service. Let's not forget anything! It may turn out that there are hidden points of interaction that you were not aware of. For example, you may find that some problems are solved informally by consumers. way — with the help social networks (which happens often). That is, one of the company’s employees contacts the consumer directly within the social network and helps him achieve his goal. Everything needs to be recorded, including touchpoints like these!
To avoid missing anything, use the mystery shopping technique, that is, go through all the steps of a typical service consumer yourself. You can also find an external company that will professionally identify all touchpoints using a large number of respondents.
Remember that one CJM diagram is drawn per target group (or per character if you are using the persona technique)!
Next, it is important for each point to determine all possible channels of interaction. That is, to determine which devices are used to interact, for example, it could be web browsers, mobile applications, phone calls, Skype calls, email, social networks. Don’t forget about offline channels - visiting offices, meetings with couriers, meetings with agents, and so on. Again, unexpected channels may emerge; for example, you may find out that a huge number of consumers access from mobile devices. And it may turn out that your website design does not take this interaction channel into account.
Graphically, CJM can have a different appearance - the diagram can be linear if the nature of interaction with consumers is also linear:
Can be branched if consumers have multiple alternative interaction scenarios:
May have a temporary form — suitable for displaying interaction with the service during the day:
We can make several CJM charts for different consumer groups and for different purposes.
Step #2. We describe the points of contact
Now every touchpoint and every channel needs to be described.
Here is the typical information we need to capture:
- Interaction channel
Points can have several channels; we list all channels. - Target action, scenario, success criteria
We describe what the consumer wants to achieve in this interaction. We also describe how the ideal interaction scenario occurs, as well as what needs to be done if the consumer has problems. We describe specific criteria for the success of passing the scenario - we need this to collect statistics on the quality of passing each point of contact. - Point/channel criticality
Helps you concentrate on the most critical points. - Barriers
We list all the problems that consumers may encounter within this touchpoint. - Ways to reduce barriers
For each barrier, we define countermeasures that we must implement when optimizing the service. For example, as in my registration confirmation example, we can control which emails the consumer enters and offer to correct errors in the spelling of the address. - Conversion and ROI optimization
We count the number of consumers who came to a given point to the number of those who successfully reached the next point of interaction. Ideally, if all consumers have reached the next point (coefficient = 1.0). This is the main KPI of the point of interaction and the company employee who implements this interaction. Conversion will allow you to calculate the economic effect of reducing a particular barrier. For example, you can calculate that lowering the barrier within a certain touchpoint will increase conversions by 20%. By tracing this 20% further down the CJM chain and reaching the point where the consumer brings in money, you can fairly accurately determine how much money optimization of this point will bring. If at the same time you also estimate the costs of reducing the barrier, then you have a value for the ROI (return on investment) coefficient. Having the ROI value, it will be quite easy for you to prove to top managers the benefits of such optimization. - Other KPIs (for example, retention rate, time per contact, etc.)
We can come up with a large number of KPIs that more fully characterize the quality of service at a given point. - Psycho-emotional state, degree of frustration and stress
We can obtain this data by looking at consumer complaints or using qualitative methods research (interviews, field observations). As well as the degree of criticality of the contact point this information helps to concentrate on the most important points of service implementation.
Important tip
When describing touchpoints, use consumer language, not your professional language.
Below are examples of descriptions of interaction points. I mapped a loyalty program for an oil company.
Step #3. We find out who is responsible for what within the company
For each point and channel, we add the name of a specialist or group of specialists, on whose actions the success of interaction with the consumer depends.
Depending on the level of development of the company, this task can be very simple, or, on the contrary, very difficult. The more opaque a company is, the more difficult it is to collect such data.
The situation gets worse when employees find out that you are going to record KPIs for the quality of their work. Some employees may begin to sabotage the KPI collection process; they simply will not give you the necessary data. First, it is necessary to convince all employees that fixing KPIs will help improve the quality of the service, which, in turn, will contribute to promotion career ladder. But typically, there will always be a couple of bad apples who will stand in the way of increased transparency — and you'll need support from senior management to overcome that resistance.
Attention, ethical question!
Not everyone works strictly according to work instructions. Some employees may bypass them to improve efficiency. In this case, anonymize the sources of your information as much as possible.
Step #4. We optimize the most critical points/channels
We take the most critical points interactions and reduce barriers within these points.
Let’s take the example of an oil company — barrier #2 of step #3:
This barrier can be reduced by competently presenting information in the form of a sequence of actions (using graphics similar to comics). You just need to remember that any optimization must be checked after implementation — is it really a new version does the contact point work better than the previous one?
Also consider whether you were able to implement the push-pull principle to motivate consumers when promoting CJM?
A more radical way to optimize is to remove unnecessary touchpoints. The figure below shows the CJM diagram before and after optimization. In the right diagram, unnecessary levels of hierarchy were removed and the chain of interaction as a whole became shorter.
Step #5. Taking control of the optimization process
We make the optimization process regular. After fixing the most critical touchpoints, we begin to progressively optimize the less critical touchpoints. At the same time, we organize regular collection of KPIs (including conversion). We constantly check all changes in the UX of services and products against KPIs.
Thus, we consistently improve the quality of service and earn credibility within the company. It is important to start with the most critical ones, in this case it will be easier for you to get approval and budget for other service improvements. Taking on everything at once is expensive and time consuming and risks concentrating on unimportant problems.
Tools for creating CJM
Post-It notes
Use Post-It notes to start working on CJM, for brainstorming, to build hypotheses and record preliminary results. Leaflets promote group work and are probably the cheapest tool and the most in a fast way CJM fixation.
Beautiful schemes
At an advanced stage, you can draw a sexual diagram in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, in which all points of contact are presented as deliciously as possible. Such schemes are suitable for presentation to various top managers to obtain additional funding. However, these diagrams are static and inconvenient for development, and they lack most of the descriptive information. Do not abuse such schemes!
Excel + diagrams
I currently work using two tools: Flying Logic to draw the diagram and Excel (or Google Docs) to enter information for each touchpoint. Flying Logic is quite well suited for such diagrams, as it was originally made for constructing theory of constraints diagrams, which interfaces quite well with CJM. The disadvantage of this method is that you have to constantly synchronize the chart and table to keep the information up to date.
Touchpoint Dashboard web service
This is the only web service I know of that is specifically designed to work with CJM. You can not only record CJM, but also create cross-tabs like importance/ease of implementation/effect or time to fix/cost of fix/effect. Such cross-tabs will help you decide on the procedure for optimizing the service.
It all looks very nice, however, the cost of the service looks like this (per month):
- $175 per user
- $625 for 5
- $950 for 10
In my opinion, this is still too expensive for most teams — we’re waiting for a competitor to appear, I’m sure after that the cost will drop.
Results
Finally, I will briefly list the benefits of using CJM when redesigning a service:
- CJM allows you to spread knowledge about the real state of affairs with consumers in your company.
- Helps bring top managers' attention to glaring facts or potential growth opportunities.
- Helps calculate the ROI of CJM optimization.
- Contributes to the development of a development strategy for services and products that include them.
- Improves communications within the company.
- Increases the level of staff training (we go beyond pure UX).
- Improves the organizational culture of your company.
- Most importantly: it improves the quality of service, which contributes to the loyalty of your consumers!
Afterword: what to read?
On the Internet you will find many articles on keywords this article.
There are also a couple of books on this topic:
This is Service Design Thinking
An excellent, fresh book, completely relevant — I highly recommend it!
. I also conduct trainings for companies ( write to me at [email protected]).
Introduction
When I'm asked to design a user interface for a website, I immediately ask the question whether I also need to design a user interface for mobile devices and usually get an affirmative answer. The fact is that modern sites and programs, which can be called digital products, are usually part of a larger service. And the further, the more digital products (websites, applications) will be involved in interaction with the user.
Let me give you an example of a popular service - listening to music. I listen to music on a personal computer running OS X, on a smartphone (iOS), and on Apple TV. Apple has gotten pretty good at consuming music: I can buy an album on my iPhone, and then I can listen to that album on my Apple TV, which I have large speakers connected to. However, I can’t start listening to a certain song on the iPhone, and then continue listening on the Apple TV - to do this, I have to look for the desired album in the Apple TV menu, this procedure cannot be called simple. That is, no one at Apple was concerned about this possibility and did not implement it. That being said, both the iPhone designer and the Apple TV designer did a good job. The functionality that I need is located on the border of two devices and it is not clear who should be responsible for designing such connections.
This example shows that in our time it is not enough to think through in detail the user interface of one digital product in isolation from interaction with other products with which they are located in a single infrastructure. We need a tool that allows us to identify problems at the interfaces, and also allows us to design connections between products. As usual, the need provoked the creation of a wonderful new technique called “Customer Journey Map”.
Customer Journey Map is perhaps the best User Experience tool in the last 10 years (after personas).
What is a service?
What is a service? For those who like strict definitions, I will quote from GOST-9000-2008:
A service is the result of at least one action, necessarily carried out during the interaction between the supplier and the consumer, and, as a rule, is intangible.
Let's remember the word “result” - this is what is most important for any consumer.
As I've previously reported, today's consumers interact with mobile devices, web browsers, people, environments and spaces, and so on. Each act of interaction between a consumer and a service is called a “touch point.”
Contact points can be not only digital, but also analog or offline.
Take, for example, a modern bank. What points of contact can we highlight here?
- bank website;
- web service “client-bank”, where the user can carry out transactions with his account and bank cards;
- mobile application “client-bank”;
- a physical bank branch, which can also be considered a product. Just like with websites, a bank branch has its own navigation system.
Suppose you came to the bank with some purpose and are not yet very familiar with the rules of its work. If your navigation was poorly designed, you may be confused about who exactly to contact to solve your problem. You have to contact the girl at the reception, who may have a separate queue of clients.
With this example, I wanted to illustrate the simple idea that bank branches can and should be designed similarly to websites.
What is a Customer Journey Map?
So, what is a Customer Journey Map (for short, simply CJM)?
CJM is a directed graph on which the path of the consumer of the provided service is mapped using contact points. CJM records details of interaction with the service.
That is, CJM reflects exactly how a consumer interacts with a service — what touchpoints exist, through which channels the interaction takes place (web, mobile app, offline point of presence, etc.), as well as what happens inside each touchpoint.
Here are examples of typical CJMs (pay attention only to the outside of the diagram for now):
Let's look at a simplified CJM example:
You see three representatives, each representing a different consumer group. In the process of consuming a service (achieving a goal), they have to interact with different products. At each point, an act of service occurs with a certain level of quality:
The overall service experience typically depends on the quality of service across all touchpoints. The principle of the weak link applies - one unsuccessful interaction casts a shadow on the entire service. Therefore, it is very important that every touchpoint is handled with maximum quality.
However, it happens that all interaction points are implemented just perfectly, and problems are hidden at the borders of transition from one point to another. That is, it may turn out that all the company’s employees serve customers well, but some consumers still do not achieve their goal:
Let me illustrate this with a simple example: many online stores require you to go through the registration procedure and, often, there is such a step as confirming the registration using a special link that comes to your mailbox (this is necessary to prove that a real person is registering and not a robot) . In this case, the likelihood increases that the user will not be able to complete this step: perhaps the letter with the link ended up in spam, perhaps the user made a mistake and entered gmail.ru or another non-existent address instead of gmail.com, perhaps he completely forgot that he needed to confirm registration. In the examples known to me, user losses at this step reached 70%!
How could we reduce these barriers? For example, you can control what exactly the user enters as an email and offer to correct obviously erroneous addresses. Next, if the user has not clicked on the link from the email message within several days, then you can resend him an email with the link. But the best thing, of course, is to abandon this step altogether - to use other methods of protection against robots!
In general, you should always implement the system so that any point of contact motivates the consumer to move to the next step (the principle "push"), and the next point pulled the consumer from the previous point of contact (operation "pull"). The push-pull principle promotes a smoother consumer interaction with the service.
Let's remember the example of listening to music. In fact, Apple has a way to transition from listening on iPhone to listening on Apple TV, namely AirPlay technology. However, not all consumers are aware of the magic technology and therefore cannot take advantage of it. There is a rule that functionality that users cannot find does not exist for them. It would be possible to implement the “push-pull” principle this way: as soon as the user finds himself in an area where Apple TV is available, he immediately receives a message (without interrupting listening) that he can turn on the audio system (connected to the Apple TV) and continue listening on her. Conversely, as soon as the user turns on the TV, he sees a message about what song is playing on the iPhone and what needs to be done to redirect the sound to the audio system (by pressing one button).
So, CJM allows you to take control of the process of designing services that are implemented using various interactive products, as well as clearly visualize the process of executing the service itself.
Problems solved by CJM
I will list all the tasks that CJM solves:
- Creating a continuous UX throughout the entire service consumption.
Remember the aforementioned push-pull. - Increased consumer conversion.
By reducing barriers, as well as by reducing losses during the transition from point of contact to point of contact, more consumers reach the target. - Increasing consumer loyalty.
Retention rate — the number of returning consumers increases if we designed and implemented a service without barriers. - Increasing the responsibility of company specialists.
Each touchpoint has its own responsible employees on the company side. After we have mapped all touchpoints, all employees in the company can see who is responsible for what and how they cope with their responsibilities (if we set up KPIs for each point). This in itself increases the level of responsibility. - Accelerate the development of omnichannel services and products and improve the quality of development.
Due to the fact that all parties involved in the development see more fully how the service is implemented, and also see all the potential weak points of the service and can intervene in their development in a timely manner. - Create new and exciting interactions.
It becomes possible to come up with and implement new innovative features (remember the example about continuing to listen to an audio recording when moving from one device to another).
Everything looks great, but how to create CJM?
Creating CJM, step-by-step instructions
Step #1. We identify all points of contact and channels of interaction
We map all the points of interaction of a typical consumer with a service. Let's not forget anything! It may turn out that there are hidden points of interaction that you were not aware of. For example, you may find that consumers solve some problems in an informal way — using social networks (which is often the case). That is, one of the company’s employees contacts the consumer directly within the social network and helps him achieve his goal. Everything needs to be recorded, including touchpoints like these!
To avoid missing anything, use the mystery shopping technique, that is, go through all the steps of a typical service consumer yourself. You can also find an external company that will professionally identify all touchpoints using a large number of respondents.
Remember that one CJM diagram is drawn per target group (or per character if you are using the persona technique)!
Next, it is important for each point to determine all possible channels of interaction. That is, to determine which devices are used to interact, for example, it could be web browsers, mobile applications, phone calls, Skype calls, email, social networks. Don’t forget about offline channels - visiting offices, meetings with couriers, meetings with agents, and so on. Again, unexpected channels may emerge; for example, you may find out that a huge number of consumers access from mobile devices. And it may turn out that your website design does not take this interaction channel into account.
Graphically, CJM can have a different form - the diagram can be linear if the nature of interaction with consumers is also linear:
Can be branched if consumers have multiple alternative interaction scenarios:
Alexey Kopylov, 2013
May have a temporary form — suitable for displaying interaction with the service during the day:
We can make several CJM charts for different consumer groups and for different purposes.
Step #2. We describe the points of contact
Now every touchpoint and every channel needs to be described.
Here is the typical information we need to capture:
- Interaction channel
Points can have several channels; we list all channels. - Target action, scenario, success criteria
We describe what the consumer wants to achieve in this interaction. We also describe how the ideal interaction scenario occurs, as well as what needs to be done if the consumer has problems. We describe specific criteria for the success of passing the scenario - we need this to collect statistics on the quality of passing each point of contact. - Point/channel criticality
Helps you concentrate on the most critical points. - Barriers
We list all the problems that consumers may encounter within this touchpoint. - Ways to reduce barriers
For each barrier, we define countermeasures that we must implement when optimizing the service. For example, as in my registration confirmation example, we can control which emails the consumer enters and offer to correct errors in the spelling of the address. - Conversion and ROI optimization
We count the number of consumers who came to a given point to the number of those who successfully reached the next interaction point. Ideally, if all consumers have reached the next point (coefficient = 1.0). This is the main KPI of the point of interaction and the company employee who implements this interaction. Conversion will allow you to calculate the economic effect of reducing a particular barrier. For example, you can calculate that lowering the barrier within a certain touchpoint will increase conversions by 20%. By tracing this 20% further down the CJM chain and reaching the point where the consumer brings in money, you can fairly accurately determine how much money optimization of this point will bring. If at the same time you also estimate the costs of reducing the barrier, then you have a value for the ROI (return on investment) coefficient. Having the ROI value, it will be quite easy for you to prove to top managers the benefits of such optimization. - Other KPIs (for example retention rate, time per contact, etc.)
We can come up with a large number of KPIs that more fully characterize the quality of service at a given point. - Psycho-emotional state, degree of frustration and stress
We can obtain this data by looking at consumer complaints or using qualitative research methods (interviews, field observations). As well as the degree of criticality of the point of contact, this information helps to concentrate on the most important points of service delivery.
Important tip
When describing touchpoints, use consumer language, not your professional language.
Below are examples of descriptions of interaction points. I mapped a loyalty program for an oil company.
Alexey Kopylov, 2013
Step #3. We find out who is responsible for what within the company
For each point and channel, we add the name of a specialist or group of specialists, on whose actions the success of interaction with the consumer depends.
Depending on the level of development of the company, this task can be very simple, or, on the contrary, very difficult. The more opaque a company is, the more difficult it is to collect such data.
The situation gets worse when employees find out that you are going to record KPIs for the quality of their work. Some employees may begin to sabotage the KPI collection process; they simply will not give you the necessary data. First, you need to convince all employees that fixing KPIs will help improve the quality of service, which, in turn, will contribute to career advancement. But typically, there will always be a couple of bad apples who will stand in the way of increased transparency — and you'll need support from senior management to overcome that resistance.
Attention, ethical question!
Not everyone works strictly according to work instructions. Some employees may bypass them to improve efficiency. In this case, anonymize the sources of your information as much as possible.
Step #4. We optimize the most critical points/channels
We take the most critical interaction points and lower the barriers within these points.
Let’s take the example of an oil company — barrier #2 of step #3:
This barrier can be reduced by competently presenting information in the form of a sequence of actions (using graphics similar to comics). Just remember that any optimization must be tested after implementation — does the new version of the contact point really work better than the previous one?
Also consider whether you were able to implement the push-pull principle to motivate consumers when promoting CJM?
A more radical way to optimize is to remove unnecessary touchpoints. The figure below shows the CJM diagram before and after optimization. In the right diagram, unnecessary levels of hierarchy were removed and the chain of interaction as a whole became shorter.
Alexey Kopylov, 2013
Step #5. Taking control of the optimization process
We set the optimization process to be regular. After fixing the most critical touchpoints, we begin to progressively optimize the less critical touchpoints. At the same time, we organize regular collection of KPIs (including conversion). We constantly check all changes in the UX of services and products against KPIs.
In this way, we consistently improve the quality of our service and earn credibility within the company. It is important to start with the most critical ones, in this case it will be easier for you to get approval and budget for other service improvements. Taking on everything at once is expensive and time consuming and risks concentrating on unimportant problems.
Tools for creating CJM
Post-It notes
Use Post-It notes to start working on CJM, for brainstorming, to build hypotheses and record preliminary results. Leaves encourage group work and are probably the cheapest tool and fastest way to fix CJM.
Beautiful schemes
At an advanced stage, you can draw a sexual diagram in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, in which all points of contact are presented as deliciously as possible. Such schemes are suitable for presentation to various top managers to obtain additional funding. However, these diagrams are static and inconvenient for development, and they lack most of the descriptive information. Do not abuse such schemes!
When I'm asked to design a user interface for a website, I immediately ask the question whether I also need to design a user interface for mobile devices and usually get an affirmative answer. The fact is that modern sites and programs, which can be called digital products, are usually part of a larger service. And the further, the more digital products (websites, applications) will be involved in interaction with the user.
Let me give you an example of a fairly popular service - listening to music. I listen to music on a personal computer running OS X, on a smartphone (iOS), and on Apple TV. Apple has gotten pretty good at consuming music: I can buy an album on my iPhone, and then I can listen to that album on my Apple TV, which I have large speakers connected to. However, I can’t start listening to a certain song on the iPhone and then continue listening to it on the Apple TV - to do this, I have to look for the desired album in the Apple TV menu, this procedure cannot be called simple. That is, no one at Apple was concerned about this possibility and did not implement it. At the same time, both the designer of the iPhone and Apple TV did their job well. The functionality that I need is located on the border of two devices and it is not clear who should be responsible for designing such connections.
This example shows that in our time it is not enough to think through in detail the user interface of one digital product in isolation from interaction with other products with which they are located in a single infrastructure. We need a tool that allows us to identify problems at the interfaces, and also allows us to design connections between products. As usual, the need provoked the creation of a wonderful new technique called “Customer Journey Map”.
Customer Journey Map is perhaps the best User Experience tool in the last 10 years (after personas).
What is a service?
What is a service? For those who like strict definitions, I will quote from GOST-9000-2008:
A service is the result of at least one action, necessarily carried out during the interaction between the supplier and the consumer, and, as a rule, is intangible.
Let's remember the word “result” - this is what is most important for any consumer.
As I've previously reported, today's consumers interact with mobile devices, web browsers, people, environments and spaces, and so on. Each act of interaction between a consumer and a service is called a “touch point.”
Contact points can be not only digital, but also analog or offline.
Take, for example, a modern bank. What points of contact can we highlight here?
- bank website;
- web service “client-bank”, where the user can carry out transactions with his account and bank cards;
- mobile application “client-bank”;
- a physical bank branch, which can also be considered a product. Just like with websites, a bank branch has its own navigation system.
Suppose you came to the bank with some purpose and are not yet very familiar with the rules of its work. If your navigation was poorly designed, you may be confused about who exactly to contact to solve your problem. You have to contact the girl at the reception, who may have a separate queue of clients.
With this example, I wanted to illustrate the simple idea that bank branches can and should be designed similarly to websites.
What is a Customer Journey Map?
So, what is a Customer Journey Map (for short, simply CJM)?
CJM is a directed graph on which the path of the consumer of the provided service is mapped using contact points. CJM records details of interaction with the service.
That is, CJM reflects exactly how a consumer interacts with a service — what touchpoints exist, through which channels the interaction takes place (web, mobile app, offline point of presence, etc.), as well as what happens inside each touchpoint.
Here are examples of typical CJMs (pay attention only to the outside of the diagram for now):
customerexperienceplanning.com
thebridge.nl
Let's look at a simplified CJM example:
Mel Edwards, 2011
You see three representatives, each representing a different consumer group. In the process of consuming a service (achieving a goal), they have to interact with different products. At each point, an act of service occurs with a certain level of quality:
Mel Edwards, 2011 & Alexey Kopylov, 2013
The overall service experience typically depends on the quality of service across all touchpoints. The principle of the weak link applies - one unsuccessful interaction casts a shadow on the entire service. Therefore, it is very important that every touchpoint is handled with maximum quality.
However, it happens that all interaction points are implemented just perfectly, and problems are hidden at the borders of transition from one point to another. That is, it may turn out that all the company’s employees serve customers well, but some consumers still do not achieve their goal:
Mel Edwards, 2011 & Alexey Kopylov, 2013
Let me illustrate this with a simple example: many online stores require you to go through the registration procedure and, often, there is such a step as confirming the registration using a special link that comes to your mailbox (this is necessary to prove that a real person is registering and not a robot) . In this case, the likelihood increases that the user will not be able to complete this step: perhaps the letter with the link ended up in spam, perhaps the user made a mistake and entered gmail.ru or another non-existent address instead of gmail.com, perhaps he completely forgot that he needed to confirm registration. In the examples known to me, user losses at this step reached 70%!
How could we reduce these barriers? For example, you can control what exactly the user enters as an email and offer to correct obviously erroneous addresses. Next, if the user has not clicked on the link from the email message within several days, then you can resend him an email with the link. But the best thing, of course, is to abandon this step altogether - to use other methods of protection against robots!
In general, you should always implement the system so that any point of contact motivates the consumer to move to the next step (the principle "push"), and the next point pulled the consumer from the previous point of contact (operation "pull"). The push-pull principle promotes a smoother consumer interaction with the service.
Let's remember the example of listening to music. In fact, Apple has a way to transition from listening on iPhone to listening on Apple TV, namely AirPlay technology. However, not all consumers are aware of the magic technology and therefore cannot take advantage of it. There is a rule that functionality that users cannot find does not exist for them. It would be possible to implement the “push-pull” principle this way: as soon as the user finds himself in an area where Apple TV is available, he immediately receives a message (without interrupting listening) that he can turn on the audio system (connected to the Apple TV) and continue listening on her. Conversely, as soon as the user turns on the TV, he sees a message about what song is playing on the iPhone and what needs to be done to redirect the sound to the audio system (by pressing one button).
So, CJM allows you to take control of the process of designing services that are implemented using various interactive products, as well as clearly visualize the process of executing the service itself.
Problems solved by CJM
I will list all the tasks that CJM solves:
- Creating a continuous UX throughout the entire service consumption.
Remember the aforementioned push-pull. - Increased consumer conversion.
By reducing barriers, as well as by reducing losses during the transition from point of contact to point of contact, more consumers reach the target. - Increasing consumer loyalty.
Retention rate — the number of returning consumers increases if we designed and implemented a service without barriers. - Increasing the responsibility of company specialists.
Each touchpoint has its own responsible employees on the company side. After we have mapped all touchpoints, all employees in the company can see who is responsible for what and how they cope with their responsibilities (if we set up KPIs for each point). This in itself increases the level of responsibility. - Accelerate the development of omnichannel services and products and improve the quality of development.
Due to the fact that all parties involved in the development see more fully how the service is implemented, and also see all the potential weak points of the service and can intervene in their development in a timely manner. - Create new and exciting interactions.
It becomes possible to come up with and implement new innovative features (remember the example about continuing to listen to an audio recording when moving from one device to another).
Everything looks great, but how to create CJM?
Creating CJM, step-by-step instructions
Step #1. We identify all points of contact and channels of interaction
We map all the points of interaction of a typical consumer with a service. Let's not forget anything! It may turn out that there are hidden points of interaction that you were not aware of. For example, you may find that consumers solve some problems in an informal way — using social networks (which is often the case). That is, one of the company’s employees contacts the consumer directly within the social network and helps him achieve his goal. Everything needs to be recorded, including touchpoints like these!
To avoid missing anything, use the mystery shopping technique, that is, go through all the steps of a typical service consumer yourself. You can also find an external company that will professionally identify all touchpoints using a large number of respondents.
Remember that one CJM diagram is drawn per target group (or per character if you are using the persona technique)!
Next, it is important for each point to determine all possible channels of interaction. That is, to determine which devices are used to interact, for example, it could be web browsers, mobile applications, phone calls, Skype calls, email, social networks. Don’t forget about offline channels - visiting offices, meetings with couriers, meetings with agents, and so on. Again, unexpected channels may emerge; for example, you may find out that a huge number of consumers access from mobile devices. And it may turn out that your website design does not take this interaction channel into account.
Graphically, CJM can have a different form - the diagram can be linear if the nature of interaction with consumers is also linear:
desonance.wordpress.com Can be branched if consumers have multiple alternative interaction scenarios:
Alexey Kopylov, 2013 May have a temporary form — suitable for displaying interaction with the service during the day:
customerexperienceplanning.com We can make several CJM charts for different consumer groups and for different purposes.
Step #2. We describe the points of contact
Now every touchpoint and every channel needs to be described.
Here is the typical information we need to capture:
- Interaction channel
Points can have several channels; we list all channels. - Target action, scenario, success criteria
We describe what the consumer wants to achieve in this interaction. We also describe how the ideal interaction scenario occurs, as well as what needs to be done if the consumer has problems. We describe specific criteria for the success of passing the scenario - we need this to collect statistics on the quality of passing each point of contact. - Point/channel criticality
Helps you concentrate on the most critical points. - Barriers
We list all the problems that consumers may encounter within this touchpoint. - Ways to reduce barriers
For each barrier, we define countermeasures that we must implement when optimizing the service. For example, as in my registration confirmation example, we can control which emails the consumer enters and offer to correct errors in the spelling of the address. - Conversion and ROI optimization
We count the number of consumers who came to a given point to the number of those who successfully reached the next point of interaction. Ideally, if all consumers have reached the next point (coefficient = 1.0). This is the main KPI of the point of interaction and the company employee who implements this interaction. Conversion will allow you to calculate the economic effect of reducing a particular barrier. For example, you can calculate that lowering the barrier within a certain touchpoint will increase conversions by 20%. By tracing this 20% further down the CJM chain and reaching the point where the consumer brings in money, you can fairly accurately determine how much money optimization of this point will bring. If at the same time you also estimate the costs of reducing the barrier, then you have a value for the ROI (return on investment) coefficient. Having the ROI value, it will be quite easy for you to prove to top managers the benefits of such optimization. - Other KPIs(for example retention rate, time per contact, etc.)
We can come up with a large number of KPIs that more fully characterize the quality of service at a given point. - Psycho-emotional state, degree of frustration and stress
We can obtain this data by looking at consumer complaints or using qualitative research methods (interviews, field observations). As well as the degree of criticality of the point of contact, this information helps to concentrate on the most important points of service delivery.
Important tip
When describing touchpoints, use consumer language, not your professional language.
Below are examples of descriptions of interaction points. I mapped a loyalty program for an oil company.
Alexey Kopylov, 2013 
Step #3. We find out who is responsible for what within the company
For each point and channel, we add the name of a specialist or group of specialists, on whose actions the success of interaction with the consumer depends.
Depending on the level of development of the company, this task can be very simple, or, on the contrary, very difficult. The more opaque a company is, the more difficult it is to collect such data.
The situation gets worse when employees find out that you are going to record KPIs for the quality of their work. Some employees may begin to sabotage the KPI collection process; they simply will not give you the necessary data. First, you need to convince all employees that fixing KPIs will help improve the quality of service, which, in turn, will contribute to career advancement. But typically, there will always be a couple of bad apples who will stand in the way of increased transparency — and you'll need support from senior management to overcome that resistance.
Attention, ethical question!
Not everyone works strictly according to work instructions. Some employees may bypass them to improve efficiency. In this case, anonymize the sources of your information as much as possible.
Step #4. We optimize the most critical points/channels
We take the most critical interaction points and lower the barriers within these points.
Let’s take the example of an oil company — barrier #2 of step #3:
This barrier can be reduced by competently presenting information in the form of a sequence of actions (using graphics similar to comics). Just remember that any optimization must be tested after implementation — does the new version of the contact point really work better than the previous one?
Also consider whether you were able to implement the push-pull principle to motivate consumers when promoting CJM?
A more radical way to optimize is to remove unnecessary touchpoints. The figure below shows the CJM diagram before and after optimization. In the right diagram, unnecessary levels of hierarchy were removed and the chain of interaction as a whole became shorter.
Alexey Kopylov, 2013 Step #5. Taking control of the optimization process
We set the optimization process to be regular. After fixing the most critical touchpoints, we begin to progressively optimize the less critical touchpoints. At the same time, we organize regular collection of KPIs (including conversion). We constantly check all changes in the UX of services and products against KPIs.
In this way, we consistently improve the quality of our service and earn credibility within the company. It is important to start with the most critical ones, in this case it will be easier for you to get approval and budget for other service improvements. Taking on everything at once is expensive and time consuming and risks concentrating on unimportant problems.
Tools for creating CJM
Post-It notes
Use Post-It notes to start working on CJM, for brainstorming, to build hypotheses and record preliminary results. Leaves encourage group work and are probably the cheapest tool and fastest way to fix CJM.
Beautiful schemes
At an advanced stage, you can draw a sexual diagram in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, in which all points of contact are presented as deliciously as possible. Such schemes are suitable for presentation to various top managers to obtain additional funding. However, these diagrams are static and inconvenient for development, and they lack most of the descriptive information. Do not abuse such schemes!
Excel + diagrams
I currently work using two tools: Flying Logic to draw the diagram and Excel (or Google Docs) to enter information for each touchpoint. Flying Logic is quite well suited for such diagrams, as it was originally made for constructing theory of constraints diagrams, which interfaces quite well with CJM. The disadvantage of this method is that you have to constantly synchronize the chart and table to keep the information up to date.
Alexey Kopylov, 2013 Web service Touchpoint Dashboard
This is the only web service I know of that is specifically designed to work with CJM. You can not only record CJM, but also create cross-tabs like importance/ease of implementation/effect or time to fix/cost of fix/effect. Such cross-tabs will help you decide on the procedure for optimizing the service.
touchpointdashboard.com It all looks very nice, however, the cost of the service looks like this (per month):
touchpointdashboard.com - $175 per user
- $625 for 5
- $950 for 10
In my opinion, this is still too expensive for most teams — we’re waiting for a competitor to appear, I’m sure after that the cost will drop.
Results
Finally, I will briefly list the benefits of using CJM when redesigning a service:
- CJM allows you to spread knowledge about the real state of affairs with consumers in your company.
- Helps bring top managers' attention to glaring facts or potential growth opportunities.
- Helps calculate the ROI of CJM optimization.
- Contributes to the development of a development strategy for services and products that include them.
- Improves communications within the company.
- Increases the level of staff training (we go beyond pure UX).
- Improves the organizational culture of your company.
- Most importantly: it improves the quality of service, which contributes to the loyalty of your consumers!