Whether a marketer, UX designer or developer – understanding the user experience to engage and drive conversions is crucial. There are many ways to gather information to better understand the user, especially as we place greater importance on UI/UX. Simply understanding a user’s basic needs is no longer sufficient. A site must cater to the actions and perceptions that occur at all touchpoints.
Understanding Customers Across Channels with Journey Mapping
To grasp customers’ behaviors across different channels (cross-channel) and through all their interactions with your brand (omnichannel), the customer journey map is an ideal tool.
Though the use of customer journey mapping can seem cumbersome and time-consuming for some, it has become a necessity due to the increasing importance placed on user experience and expectations. In reality, it’s a valuable hands-on exercise that allows a team to gain a new level of understanding about their user – both the positives and negatives.
The Limitations of Data Alone
Traditionally, data provides high-level insights necessary for conversions and offers increased detail as technology advances. Despite this readily available information, customer experiences often remain unremarkable because most data cannot communicate the true feedback and emotions of the audience.
Analytic data, while useful, tends to be fragmented. This fragmentation makes it difficult to draw actionable items from. Without continuous, deep monitoring, organizations can only make incremental improvements to their user experience through data alone.
The Power of Customer Journey Mapping
Understanding the subtle ways a user interacts with an interface is crucial for creating an optimal experience. These insights are most effectively found through customer journey mapping.
These small interactions decide the longevity of user engagement and the ultimate satisfaction of the relationship. While seemingly rudimentary compared to analytics alone, the process of customer journey mapping delivers insights necessary for creating storytelling opportunities and perspectives.
A journey map offers an overall view of an individual’s relationship and lifecycle with a brand, service, or product. As such, all forms of user research should be leveraged to compile the most information possible.
Creating the Map
Once the user research is compiled, the map creation process can begin. Whether using mapping software or a more manual approach (like post-it-notes and a sketchbook), consider the point of view of all users instead of adopting a ‘one size fits all’ mentality.
One key takeaway from a mapping exercise is the opportunity for personalization. Upon building and reviewing the initial map, work with both creative and strategic team members to identify missed and potential opportunities. Analyze pain points to uncover ways to create a newly optimized landscape, thereby delivering a better experience for customers.
Customer Journey Mapping in the Digital Age
Though customer journey mapping isn’t a new concept, its widespread adoption in the digital realm has been slow. However, it’s a tried-and-tested tool that enables organizations to evolve beyond a simple ‘sell’ and establish meaningful, long-term customer relations. Now, interaction designers are implementing journey maps in search of deeper connections between business goals and user experiences.
For organizations aiming to gain a deeper understanding of their user to leverage new business, the process of creating a customer journey map is highly recommended. It does require a time commitment and the collected data must be crafted into a brief and built into a strategy to be actioned. But the process of journey mapping can also serve as a team-building strategy, helping creative teams to unify their understanding of a client or their own company, achieving ‘same page’ clarity.