May 9, 2024
Look no further, the first step begins with mapping your Customer Journey or CJM in short.
Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) is the heart of digital transformation. If the basis of a business is customer relationship management (CRM), the first step towards it is mapping the customer journey.
Unquestionably, customer expectation is undergoing a major transformation and customers are demanding an omnichannel approach to customer service. An exceptional way to ensure a smooth and optimized journey for the customer is through a process called Customer Journey Mapping (CJM). Customer journey mapping has become as important for small and medium-sized businesses as it is for larger companies.
Customer experience has gained publicity in the last decade or so. A quick search for the term ‘customer experience (CX)’ will reveal that it has become one of the business buzzwords of recent times.
CJM represents customers’ expectations and experiences and the stages of their journey over time across different touchpoints while they use a product or service. Customers expect relevant content anytime, anywhere, and in the format and on the channel and device of their choice.
And it is their journey that dictates your digital strategy. Further, the Covid pandemic has forced companies and customers to move towards isolation economy with remote Customer Experience (CX). For this, remote service management means transforming towards digital customer experience (dCX) capabilities.
Raman Sapra, (Senior VP and NTT DATA’s digital business services, global head) suggests a holistic approach towards CX to make the best of digitization. The key to it is powerful data collection and analytics that can provide deeper insights for performance through digital transformation.
It helps take the strategic approach to understand customer expectations and CX optimization. CJM maps out customer engagement and interactions across all touchpoints, (website, social media) with marketing and sales teams. User journeys are created for each of them. Customers can be made aware of a product on social channels; they can research it on the mobile version of your site if they want, and finally purchase on your e-commerce page. Each CX is included in the CJM, with its pain points, customers’ movement, and your brand response.
In the process of enhancing digital user experience, digital transformation creates a DNA change in an organization by bringing sea changes to its employee engagement.
Customer Journey Mapping is important because it is a strategic approach to simply understanding your customers behavior better. The better you understand their expectations, the more you can tailor the offerings and customer experience to suit their needs.
What do you need for successful customer journey mapping? The numerous ‘to dos’ are interconnected:
To listen and understand who your customers are you must follow their digital footprints. It is primarily data collection. Digital tools not only help in information collection but also turn them into actionable insight. Data analytics can help determine customer expectations and predict probable customer churn.
Customer engagements are used for creating user profiles by using pre-defined rules and logic. These can be interpreted for decision making and reach out to customers with the right products and services. Digital customer engagement solutions can help in profiling and convert them, create lead, persistence, and cross and up sale value.
CRM solutions respond to the customers at the right time and in a highly personalized way through their preferred channels. To keep the customers “always connected”, businesses must adopt digital technology to deliver a unique customer experience.
Customer engagement must be complemented with apt employee engagement. Therefore in essence it requires a deconstruction of employee efficiency. As customers are engaging remotely and 24/7, the employees need to engage with them too. Empowering your remote employees with the right CRM tools will help you create loyal customers by also identifying their pain points.
Today, customer-centric business strategy equals digital transformation. According to an IDC report, by the end of 2021 two-thirds of the CEO’s of Global 2,000 companies are set to take on state-of-the-art digital strategies to improve the CX.
DBP is not only fully equipped to take you through your customer journey. It has its own successful customer experiences to prove its capability.
Interested to discuss more please visit us at www.dbppl.com or write to us at ashish.bhalla@dbppl.com
Ashish has almost over 30 years of industry experience in a wide range of business solutions primarily focusing on end-to-end customer experience management. He is the founder and CEO of Digital Business People (DBP), an Omni-channel customer experience management company headquartered in Singapore with its development and delivery centers in India.