The customer journey, or CJM, is like a navigator for a driver: it helps a marketer understand which route will lead the buyer to the goal faster.
What is a customer journey map?
What is CJM used for?
The stages a customer goes through on their way to a purchase
Structure of a customer journey map
How to Map a Customer Journey
Tools for building CJM
Expert advice
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What is a customer journey map?
Table of Contents
CJM (from English customer journey map) reproduces the path that the client goes through from realizing the need for a product to purchasing it, and sometimes even after it. All this time, he interacts with the product and the company and makes a decision based on the experience gained. Marketers analyze the client’s experience and draw conclusions: what to do at each stage so that the client is satisfied and comes again.
For example, after the first visit to a laser hair removal studio, the client is offered a discount on the next appointment or a subscription for a series of services with a good discount.
The customer journey mapping method is the study of the customer’s motives, needs and emotions in order to improve their experience of interacting with a product or company.
Besides CJM, other cards also help with this:
● UJM (user journey map)
is a map of the path of an online user within a product when he is on a website or in an application.
● LXM (life experience map)
a map of the life path of potential clients. It helps to understand how the target audience of the product lives, what these people are interested in, what problems and needs they have. This is necessary to improve the product and each stage of interaction with it for those who do not know about it yet.
What is CJM used for?
The CJM customer map in marketing is needed to record the customer’s actions and problems they encounter, and to help them make a choice faster and order more conveniently.
Here are the main tasks that CJM solves:
1. Find out what stages a client goes through on the way to a purchase.
2. See barriers and understand how to overcome them
For example, clients contact the sales department to find out the price, but a commercial offer is sent to them only two weeks later. As a result, clients lose interest and go to competitors.
3. Identify weak points and eliminate them
Let’s say a customer comes to a store to buy a washing machine. It’s hard for him to choose between different brands, so he turns to a consultant. If the consultant doesn’t know the features of different models, their disadvantages and advantages, the customer will most likely go to another store. Or he will independently study the product characteristics on the Internet and buy online. To solve the problem, you can conduct training and improve the dialogue scenarios for managers.
4. Assess the quality of service and speed up processes
To do this, use Service Blueprint — a map of the company’s business processes, which is superimposed on the CJM. With its help, you can understand which departments of the company are responsible for different stages and points of contact with the user, where it is worth changing the process or adding a new one to improve interaction.
5. Launch a new product or service
In this case, there is no real customer experience yet. Therefore, you need to go through the entire journey instead of the client yourself and create a detailed scenario of actions.
6. See the points of interaction between the consumer and the company
Often, when choosing a product or service, the consumer interacts with different advertising messages and parties of the company. For example, a client chooses an accounting service. At first, he may see an advertisement on banners or ask colleagues. To make a decision, he studies the information on websites and compares it with other offers. During the purchase, he interacts with the manager. After the purchase, he uses the application, asks questions to the support service, subscribes to the newsletter or reads the blog.
7. Develop a communication strategy
Based on the CJM, you can build a communication plan for each stage of the path, describe in detail the interaction channels and advertising tools in order to successfully promote your product or service.
The stages a customer goes through on their way to a purchase
To create a map, a marketer needs to understand what stages a user goes through from realizing a need to purchasing. There are six of them, let’s look at each of them in detail:
1. Awareness of need.
This is influenced by many factors: from cultural traditions and upbringing to emotions and weather conditions at a particular moment. For example, in the cold, a visitor to a cafe is likely to order a hot drink. Marketers can additionally form a need for this product: place a banner with a discount on cocoa with marshmallows.
2. Search for information.
Having realized the need, the client begins to search for the product and information about it: ask friends, read reviews on the Internet. The marketer’s task is to make sure that the product is well-reviewed.
3. Search for alternatives.
The client has found several options and compares them by price, quality, design and other parameters. Here it is important to show the specific advantages of the product or service over the others.
4. Purchase.
Here the client makes a choice inside the store, website or sales office. But even if he came for a specific product or service, he can still be persuaded by discounts, promotions or a conversation with the seller.
5. Consumption.
The customer has already bought the product and started using it. He pays attention to the product’s properties – for example, taste or packaging design – and decides whether he will buy it again or not.
Many people ignore this stage and end the CJM at the purchase stage, but this is a mistake. If the product leaves a positive impression, the customer will return. If he is not satisfied with something, he may not buy the product again and leave a bad review on social networks.
6. Disposal.
Once the customer has used the product, the interaction does not end. They can throw away the packaging or the product itself or resell it.
Structure of a customer journey map
To create a CJM, you need to develop a framework and then collect data for each of its elements. You can include each of them in the marketing map, or some of them, depending on who is studying the customer experience and for what purpose.
Points of contact
These are all the moments when the customer interacts with the product. The touchpoints can be online or offline. The company can influence some, but not others.
Thoughts and actions of the client
Here you need to understand what the potential client thinks at each point of contact and what he does. Surveys, web analytics systems for sites or customer observations will help with this.
Client’s pains
Customer pain points can become barriers that complicate the path to ordering. For example, a user saw a product on sale, put it in the basket, and at the checkout stage found out that delivery would cost half the purchase price.
Emotions that the client experiences at each stage
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How to Map a Customer Journey
There are six steps to creating a CJM:
1. Study the audience.
Marketing research, market analysis and surveys will help here. The result will be a generalized image of a potential client: for example, a woman from 25 to 35 years old who is interested in nail design.
2. Create portraits of typical clients.
Now the client image needs to be specified. To do this, the target audience is segmented – divided into groups, for each of which a portrait is created. Basic parameters are used for segmentation: gender, age, region, family composition, profession, income, hobbies. For example, women from 25 to 30 years old who work in an office, raise children and like to order fresh products with home delivery. At the next stage, you can add details that are related to a specific product. For example, when choosing plastic windows, some people pay attention to the shape and color, while others – to the price and quality.
3. Conduct interviews.
At this stage, you need to talk to potential clients to understand what their journey looks like. Interviews are usually conducted with three groups:
1.● customers – those who use the product or have purchased it in the past;
2.● non-users – those who have not yet dealt with the product or do not even know about it;
3.● experts – those who know the niche and products of the company and competitors best. For example, for decorative cosmetics, these would be makeup artists, and for wine, sommeliers.
The interview itself can be conducted in two ways, or better yet, using both:
● Ask the client about their experience with the product or brand.
● Go through all the stages of CJM with the client and find out what emotions they experience and what problems they face. For example, go to the store, walk around inside, ask questions at the exit and record comments on a voice recorder.
In doing so, you need to ask leading questions: How do you do it? Why exactly like this? What do you like or, on the contrary, upset you about it? How can this be fixed?
For example, ask a restaurant customer to tell you about their last visit, their expectations, and feelings from the moment they booked a table to paying the bill. You can ask about the convenience of booking, the atmosphere and navigation inside the restaurant, the service and staff, the experience of receiving the dish, and the dish itself. Based on the answers, create an empathy map: what the customer thinks, feels, does, and says. This information will help improve touchpoints and make the user journey comfortable.
4. Identify key stages.
The interview results will show what steps the client goes through, what he/she thinks and feels at each stage. These steps may differ from the basic elements in CJM development discussed above.
5. Select stories.
Based on interviews with customers, you can write real stories of their interactions with the product. This will help identify problems that were missed in the previous stages.
For example, one client orders plastic windows on the company’s website, and another goes to the office to do so. Each will have their own path and points of contact with the business. Therefore, the marketer will study both stories, create a map for each and identify problem areas.
6. Record everything on the map.
In the end, the marketing map should include:
1.● portraits of typical customers and their motives when choosing a product;
2.● their stories and the stages they go through on the way to purchase;
3.● emotions and problems they face;
4.● solutions for each problem or barrier.
When the CJM map is ready, it is presented to the team and they decide how to eliminate the client’s barriers on the path to purchase, which stage should be worked on.
Tools for building CJM
To draw a user journey map and present it to a client, management or team, you can use different tools:
● Google Sheets or Excel
A tool that doesn’t require paid subscriptions or special skills. Ideal for small and intermediate maps that need to be discussed with the team and finalized.
● Online boards and special services
Among them are Miro, which in Russia is only available for personal accounts, UXPressia, Canvanizer.
● Design programs and editors
If creating a CJM requires visualization, such as icons, logos, or a design layout, you can hire designers to draw the map in Figma (available only for personal accounts), Adobe Illustrator, or Photoshop.
● On a regular whiteboard
In startups and small teams, CJM can be built on an office whiteboard using sticky notes and a marker.
