A Quick Guide to Customer Journey Mapping. How many funnels have you made over the years?
A dozen? Two dozen? More?! Same here. Funnels are what we do as marketers. BAM! Sound too good to be true? A customer journey map is a framework that enables you to improve your customer experience. Instead of a traditional marketing funnel, many customer journey maps are not, in fact, linear. This new approach to customer research is helping marketers everywhere better see the world through the customer’s eyes, which helps us serve them better. As mentioned above, traditional funnels tend to be very linear in nature. Every freaking thing. A customer journey map is rooted in research and provides us the freedom to explore new “truths” about our customers. Customer journey maps help us develop the best product roadmap.
When you map out how your customers explore your products, it becomes very evident where they are hung up and what they are missing. Who wouldn’t prioritize rubber ducks? Terrifying, right?! This is not linear. Using social media to map the consumer journey to the customer experience. Social media should not be just about listening and engaging with customers, but instead, should be about driving business through key performance indicators (KPIs) that map, measure and manage the customer journey from initial awareness to total engagement.
In turn the customer journey can be optimised, the customer experience enhanced, and the outcomes predicted in lock-step with corporate, sales and marketing goals. These are the outcomes that matter to executives, and in turn, denote the overall relevancy of your marketing content and campaigns. Companies have mainly used social media to listen and track customer sentiment, brand loyalty, measure campaigns, or to prevent a bad event from going viral on the web. Why “Social CRM” should be called “Social CEM”?
So, what has it got to do with renaming “Social CRM” to “Social CEM”?
Well, social is all about interactions while CRM is about transactions, so whoever came up with the name “social CRM” probably belonged to CRM camp or perhaps didn’t have much respect for “social is interaction/experience” mindset. Both are worrying thoughts but what’s really surprising is how popular the name “Social CRM” has become and nobody seems to have questioned the mismatch; maybe smart people do see the point that CRM in “social CRM” is going be actually practiced like CEM, so why bother about the name. But to me, it certainly looks like a fancy oxymoron. It’s almost like asking an accountant to do a marketer's job!! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Updated later: For my own reference, I'm copying Bob Thomson's reply to a comment I made on his blog regarding social CRM vs social CEM debate: Bob Thompson July 1, 2011 buzzword dynamics June 30, 2011.
Using Social Networks to Improve Operations - Gary Edwards and Mike Amos. By Gary Edwards and Mike Amos | 8:58 AM December 2, 2011 This post is part of the HBR Forum, The Future of Retail.
For decades the mystery shopper was the main way retailers assessed operations from a customer’s point of view. By sending in a fake shopper, typically once a month, an individual store essentially was buying a dozen performance snapshots per year. Then telephone surveys began to supplement mystery shopping. Today, digital technologies are supplanting both, with online customer surveys providing an exponentially greater number of performance snapshots per day. A well-managed loop that links customer experience feedback with recommendations on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, can boost service quality and operational performance, increase traffic and create more happy customers — people who crow about a retailer online for free, turning their friends into new customers too. Customer journey mapping: Mapping out customer experience excellence.
Customer journey mapping could hold the key to analysing and improving the customer experience.
Only recently a report from the Cabinet Office recommended CJM for authorities to provide a more efficient and cost-effective service. Arne van Oosterom outlines how it can help organisations - and lists the 10 key ingredents to a customer journey map. A product or service is merely a means to an end. The real deeper value lies in the story attached. I don’t want to own a coffee maker - I need to wake up early with a little help from a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, most organisations are not capable of listening to stories.
People-centred approaches like Design Thinking, Social Design and Service Design have emerged because it provides us with useful methods and tools to bridge the gap. Change causes friction Only those who are adaptable survive. And it’s exactly in this area where the biggest business opportunities lie. 10 steps to successful customer journey mapping. Is there something wrong with your customer journey mapping methodology?
Lior Arussy outlines 10 steps to help you get the biggest impact. A recent Forrester Research report discusses a customer journey mapping phenomena that Strativity Group has also experienced in recent years. Many companies show interest, jump on the bandwagon and create a map detailing the complexities of their customers’ journey. Then what? According the Forrester report, in most cases, little to nothing happens next. Why Customer-Centric Companies Should Welcome Smart Customers.