Customer journey mapping is a key part of any business looking to identify its target audiences—and optimize the customer experience (CX). But this tool amounts to hardly more than dreaming if it isn’t supported by voice of the customer (VoC) research. That’s because data about actual customers is needed to accurately visualize these maps.
For businesses looking to enhance their customer journey mapping—and support their bottom line—VoC research must be properly incorporated into the process. This article covers everything needed to make the most of this corporate exercise. First, it will examine the correlation between customer journey mapping and VoC research. It will also include a step-by-step guide that shows how these pieces interconnect. Finally, there is a list of valuable VoC tools that can provide added support.
With that said, let’s begin this journey into the customer experience.
What Is Customer Journey Mapping?
The concept of customer journey mapping is fairly straightforward. Essentially, it’s a reliable way for businesses to better understand the data on their target audiences.
To do so, they create an image of a fictional customer and detail every touchpoint they would theoretically have with the company—from first impression to final purchase and beyond. Often, it’s helpful to map multiple personas with different journeys to see the variety of their most popular customer archetypes. This personification of data helps executives identify with and cater to real people in campaigns, service offerings, customer support, and more.
For example, say a popular women’s retail store wants to use customer journey mapping to improve their marketing. They create three maps, one for each of the following personas:
- Anna, the teenage girl whose parent or guardian will do the actual purchasing
- Krissy, the trendy young professional who works in an office building
- Louise, the stay-at-home mom who wants to look good without being uncomfortable
By creating maps for each of these personas, the business can target marketing campaigns to each—and optimize their efforts in these sub-groups.
This practice has solid applications for building, refining, and growing a business’s marketing and CX strategies.
Why Customer Journey Mapping Requires VoC Research
The challenge is that the visualizations generated from customer journey mapping must be based on actual data—gathered from voice of the customer research. Otherwise, executives are simply wasting time chasing after idealizations that don’t match up with who their audience is.
VoC data comes from surveys, focus groups, online chatter, and mystery shopping. Through analysis, this data provides insight into what types of customers are actually shopping at the company—as well as who they are, what their motivation is, how they shop, and more. It allows for a more accurate picture of customer archetypes based on real experiences.
When VoC is coupled with customer journey mapping, it can reveal new opportunities for growing and even adding audience bases. This opens up a lot of new business for this company—if they pay attention to their data and implement strategies accordingly.
Customer Journey Mapping Plus VoC Research: A Guide
Now that the connection is clear, let’s take a closer look at the customer journey mapping process in conjunction with voice of the customer research.
1 – Set the Scene
Before the characters in the customer journey mapping story take the stage, it’s important to set the scene—with goals and data. Many companies skip this step, but it’s like putting on a play with no stage or direction. It can work… but it’s more likely to fall flat.
First, define the scope of the mapping session. Is the goal to create a map for just one persona, or the top five customer characters? Will the outcome be a diagram, a list of issues and opportunities to work on, or a certain number of concrete strategies to implement? Outlining this up front will allow participants to know when they’ve achieved their objective.
Next, gather and synthesize all the data available on who the most typical customers are. Don’t just smash generalizations together. Start piecing together potential personas based on cross-sections of data—and real-life people—with information from customer interviews, mystery shops, online reviews, and CX touchpoints.
2 – Build a Persona
For this step, it’s time to turn all that data into something fictional yet authentic and relatable: a customer persona. After studying the information from the previous step, it should become clear what the most common customers look like. Take this guidance and turn it into a character who could blend right into this crowd. If the goal is to create several top personas, repeat this step as many times as needed.
Here is a quick template to help executives build a persona fit for mapping:
- Name. Usually, a first name is fine. If there will be multiple personas in use, it’s recommended to have each persona’s name start with a different letter. This makes it easier to keep track of them.
- Basic Demographics. Age, gender orientation, relationship status, ethnicity, occupation, education, and financial status are good starting places.
- Character Traits. Give this individual some personality with a few fun, memorable traits related to your VoC research. Perhaps they love taking cute pictures of their pets or often do the shopping for their family.
Lastly, it’s critical to include a description of this persona’s core desires and pain points, and what motivates them to search for a solution. How can the company’s offering solve their problems or serve their goals? Put it in writing to keep everything clear and organized.
Once the key player—or players—are finalized, it’s time to put them in motion.
3 – Start Mapping the Customer Journey
This is where the mapping actually happens. While each map is different for every business and customer persona, there are a number of standard elements to capture.
Describe What Happens
What does this persona’s experience with your business look like? Start with their very first interaction with—and impression of—the business. Then, depending on the goals outlined in Step 1, follow them all the way through conversion.
Create Branches for Decisions
Any time the persona has to make a decision, mark it down on the map. For example, they might choose to leave the store to think about the purchase overnight before closing a deal. Or they might have to decide between yellow, blue, or pink. Making note of these branches creates a more comprehensive image of what happens.
Capture “Frontstage” Touchpoints
Every time the persona encounters the business, it’s an opportunity to make another pitch. This could be ads, intentional marketing, in-store interactions, and more—each time the persona re-encounters the company.
Include Systems and Processes for “Backstage”
Although the persona might not know it, there is typically a lot of work going on in the background to move this story along. For example, while this potential customer is mulling over their decision, the company is working on sending them an automated, personalized email with custom recommendations based on their unique needs.
Create a Single, Discrete End-to-End Journey
Once the team has mapped out every possibility and identified all the moving parts, it’s time to create a distinct timeline. Instead of branching in different directions, put your persona through the “story” and have them make concrete decisions at each step—all the way until the end. This journey can then be written down or turned into an infographic that is easy to share and communicate among different teams and departments so that everyone is on the same page.
Flag Opportunities and Pain Points (Without Looking for Solutions—Yet)
Having gone through the full story, it should now be clear if there are potential friction points in the customer experience or opportunities for optimization. Tag these for future investigation, perhaps by flagging them with different colored sticky notes. But don’t start delving into a strategy session just yet. Customer journey mapping is about visualizing CX. A team can easily get derailed with a desperate search for a solution before they’ve reached their objective.
Make Final Changes and Solidify the Map
Finally, it’s time to put ink to the page. Take some time for one last review of the entire customer journey map, then turn it into a concrete and shareable visualization that can be distributed company-wide.
4 – Take Action
This is where customer journey mapping—supported by VoC data—really earns its keep. With the issues and opportunities in mind, start strategizing potential improvements. For friction points, examine and implement possible solutions that can keep this persona moving toward a conversion. And for opportunities, explore how the company can capitalize on this additional chance to improve this customer’s lifetime value (CLV).
5 – Verify with New VoC Research
Finally, it’s time to see what results came from the customer journey mapping session. Investigate every data point that went into Step 1 to identify any significant changes based on new initiatives. Make sure to compensate for any other factors that may contribute to these changes—like holiday pricing, staffing changes, and shipping delays.
If new initiatives have made a clear positive impact, that’s a win! Repeat the process and refine the customer journey map for relevant personas to reflect that. On the other hand, if the results are less than conclusive or outright negative, it may be time to roll back and do more investigation. Don’t scrap the whole map—but consider whether the data or the story might be flawed in some way, or otherwise not representative of customer realities. Do more research, then try again.
The Ultimate VoC Partner for Better Customer Journey Mapping
If your company is struggling to get a handle on VoC research—and thus is having problems with customer journey mapping—there is a solution: partnering with an experienced CX agency like IntelliShop.
With our network of over 1 million skilled mystery shoppers and over 25 years of experience in CX research, we can help you get a better picture of your customer journey. We’ll leverage our leading-edge analytics and proven strategies to uncover data-driven insights that can elevate your company to the next level. You won’t find a better CX partner anywhere.
Learn how we can help you achieve your ultimate business goals—and contact us today for more information.
Synergize Solutions with Customer Journey Mapping and VoC Data
Customer journey mapping is a classic corporate exercise for a reason. It’s a powerful way of visualizing and identifying with typical customer types—and creating strategic solutions to improve and capitalize upon findings. With the steps outlined in this article, businesses can leverage this practice to elevate their own success.
Of course, voice of the customer research—and, in turn, customer journey mapping—is an ongoing practice. The best companies keep their research and development teams running these investigations constantly, often employing a trusted partner like IntelliShop to boost results. That’s how they refine and continually optimize their CX, driving higher customer satisfaction, increasing growth, and improving profitability.
