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The Experience Matters To Airline Customers Just As Much As The Destination

A customer journey mapping strategy enables airlines to identify the desires and expectations of individual travelers and provide appropriate products and services at each touchpoint throughout their journey.

By Julie Dent I Ascend Contributor

A Walk In Customers’ Shoes

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illions of customers have boarded airplanes this year and have embarked on a physi-cal journey to a destination for multitudes of reasons — busi-ness travelers, families with

children, couples traveling on adventure vacations, guests with special needs. Each one of these, and myriad other travel “per-sonas,” has a very different expectation of the brand promise that an airline presents.

An airline’s brand exhibits its commit-ment to customers so they know what to expect. However, for many, the first time customers interact with an airline’s brand in person, when it feels real, is when a gate agent or a flight attendant greets them as they are boarding the aircraft.

Based on this reality, how do you know if your customers have the same expecta-tions of your brand at this touchpoint as they did when they were searching for the best itinerary, making their reservation or attempting to check bags? Are you willing to take the chance that you did not meet their needs and they are sharing their less-than-desirable experience with others?

Social media allows customers to share the good and the bad with the world. Customers advocate when things are good, and they promote your product to others through recommendations. They also have a story to tell when things do not go so well.

A bad customer experience posted on twitter, Facebook and various other social media channels can be very detrimental to your brand. In fact, statistics show that: It takes 12 positive experiences to make

up for one negative one. 91 percent of unhappy customers will

not return to your airline after a bad experience.As an airline executive, do you know

what your customers expect from your company from the moment they are inspired to travel through to the end of the journey when they are reminiscing with their friends and family? How many oppor-tunities has your airline had to interact with customers before they get to the end of their journey? How important are your customers to your airline, and how do you recognize the needs of each one?

Airlines today are clearly starting to “organize” around the customer. Titles such as vice president of guest experience and chief customer experience officer, which have existed in many industries since the 1990s, are now emerging in the

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airline world. Airlines realize that “owner-ship” of the customer has become just as important as operations.

Understanding who your customers are and why they do business with your airline supports your longer-term vision for the business and the goal of keeping custom-ers for life (lifetime value). However, to solidify your customer experience strategy and then fulfill that strategy, it is vital to take a walk in your customers’ shoes. How you treat each customer should be different once you know his needs. This is established through customer journey mapping.

Customer Journey MappingCustomer journey mapping is the pro-

cess of tracking and describing all the experiences customers have as they encounter a service or set of services, taking into account not only what happens to them, but also their responses to these experiences. It is about knowing what happens to customers when they do busi-ness with you, how they react, and how it makes them feel — every step of the way.

Customer journey mapping can also uncover transitions between interdepen-dent channels that are not comfortable to customers as well as processes where the airline needlessly repeats an action. It can uncover a variety of points of stress to customers throughout their journey.

There are clear benefits of customer journey mapping … both for the airline and its customers. Using this approach, airlines can identify data hand-off points to better understand the role that each department plays in the overall customer-focused strategy.

Used well, customer journey mapping can reveal opportunities to create customer delight and improve the end-to-end travel experience, acting as a strategic tool to ensure every interaction with the customer is as positive as it can be. Understanding which touchpoints are most important to the personas that are critical to your airline’s success provides insights into where your company should be investing to improve the customer experience. It also helps determine which touchpoints require less focus.

To really have a meaningful impact on customer experience, personas and cus-tomer journey maps have to be firmly integrated into decision-making processes. That is why customer experience profes-sionals should build personas before or with journey maps.

Developing PersonasBefore beginning the process of cus-

tomer journey mapping, it is important to

identify customer personas. Who are the various types of customers? What value does each persona bring to your company? Using each of the personas, we identify the steps in the journey, the touchpoints of interest to each persona in each step of the journey, the relative importance of each step to each persona and the overall impor-tance of each step weighted by importance of each persona.

In the airline industry, if you try to be all things to all people, you will rarely end up fully satisfying anyone. That is why it is important to focus on understanding your customers by persona and serving each persona’s specific needs. So, the recommendation to “take a walk in your customers’ shoes” really means

to take a walk in the shoes of the different personas that you identify.

It is possible that an airline may identify numerous personas. The excessive granular-ity that is encouraged by the goal of creating relatable personas can cause airlines to miss types of customers who do not fit the molds represented by personas. However, in trying to cover every possibility, customer experi-ence teams are tempted to create too many personas. To start with, an airline should create between four and seven different personas.

For the purpose of this article, we will introduce four travel personas including: Business — A customer traveling on

business,

Limit Number Of Personas When creating personas to support a customer journey mapping strategy, airlines should limit the number of personas (special needs travelers, family travelers, leisure travelers, business travelers, etc.) to between four and seven.

Impacting The Customer Experience There are several steps that make up a customer’s end-to-end air travel journey, from the time she begins thinking about taking a trip through to the end of the trip and beyond. Taking a customer journey mapping approach, airlines can focus on the touchpoints most important to individual customers based on their identified persona.

Special Needs Travelers

Family Travelers

Leisure Travelers

Business Travelers

Inspiration Planning Booking Purchase Pre-Trip Departure In-Flight Post-Trip

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Leisure — A couple traveling on an adventure holiday,

Family/group — A family of two adults and two children under 10 traveling to visit friends,

Special needs — A customer who is trav-eling alone and requires a wheelchair.

The Business TravelerThis customer is likely to have a com-

pany travel policy that dictates the airlines on which he can travel and the fares that he can book. Therefore, he is more focused on ease of check-in, swift transfers when connecting, perks that are available to him and access to additional options, such as in-flight Wi-Fi, so he can remain constantly connected.

Couple’s Adventure HolidayThese leisure travelers place more

emphasis on the planning phase, taking time to shop online or through a travel agent. They typically seek advice from peo-ple with similar likes and dislikes that they may discover on travel advisory websites.

Two Adults, Two ChildrenFamilies traveling with children have

similar needs to the leisure couple but have more expectations of the in-flight experience and also seek a stress-free check-in process.

Special NeedsSpecial needs customers, such as

someone traveling with a wheelchair, are concerned with connections and the physical movement through the process of checking in and getting through security. In flight, they expect crew awareness of their special needs.

Identifying Steps In The JourneyHaving created the personas, the next

task is to identify the steps in the air travel journey from the perspective of the differ-ent passenger personas. The outcome of this will reveal the touchpoints within each step that impact the customer experience for each persona. It will identify the relative importance to the customer experience for each persona of each step in the air travel journey. Additionally, it will indicate the relative importance of each touchpoint within the steps each persona found to be the most important.

Last year, customer experience lead-ers at Sabre Airline Solutions® conducted research, organized workshops and validat-ed initial findings that have revealed how customer journey mapping can identify the most important touchpoints for customers.

For each step in the journey (our research revealed as many as 26 steps), we identify

the different elements within that step. For example, a customer could be concerned about items that fall within the “in-flight” step. Will the airline feed me? What type of entertainment will there be for the chil-dren? Is there on-board Internet access?

Within the step, consider the types of interaction your airline could have with each of the different personas. Interactions

happen directly with airline employees, over the phone, through mobile phones, at self-service kiosks, on the airline’s web-site, and through social media and various other channels.

Identifying the most important touch-points and associated interactions to focus on is derived by combining the weighted importance of the persona to the airline

Importance To Personas When considering the “in-flight” step of the customer journey, business travelers and families traveling with children indicated that in-flight services and amenities were more important than other aspects of their trip. However, leisure travelers and those with special needs did not rate the in-flight portion of their trip as high when weighed against other touchpoints throughout the travel journey.

Importance Of Personas To determine the importance of each persona, an airline must determine how many elements in each step of the travel journey are important to each persona. In this case, the business traveler indicated that 13 elements were important, compared to three areas of importance for the special needs traveler, five for families traveling with children and eight for leisure travelers. It is, therefore determined that regarding this particular step in the journey the business traveler persona has the highest level of importance.

...rest of the journey

...rest of the journey

(P) On the Tarmac

Departing

(Q) In-Flight 21

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8

3

0

Traveling with kids

Persona Importance

Leisure traveler

Special needs traveler

Business traveler

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at that step (determined by the amount of elements in the step) with the weighted importance to the persona of each step.

For example, a customer traveling on business indicated that 13 different ele-ments were important. Therefore, we may conclude that the business traveler is the most important persona to the airline at that particular step. In terms of importance to the persona, using the example of the “in-flight” step, the customer traveling on business and the family traveling with children have rated the step higher than the couple taking an adventure holiday and the customer traveling with a wheelchair.

Once an airline recognizes what each of its customers desire and expect, it is criti-cal to align these needs and expectations with the company brand. From a busi-ness perspective, it is equally important to assign a value to each customer.

Customer ValueSome customers drive more value to your

airline than others. An airline can determine customer value in a number of ways, including: Customers who drive additional revenue for

the airline through the purchase of ancillaries and upgrades;

Existing customer value based on the data derived from information about the most recent trips, the frequency of trips and the price paid;

Likelihood to recommend; A combination of all of the above.

Interdependent Channel TransitionsIn the ever-connected online world, cus-

tomers want data and information that is customized, aggregated, relevant and social. They also want to travel with an airline that knows them, offers them the right information when they need it, and respects and helps them. Customers want effortless experiences that are simple, responsive, highly contextual, proactive and personal. They also expect that the experience across channels is consistent.

In a previous issue of Ascend, we intro-duced the typical touchpoints where an airline can capture the heart of the guest. However, with customer journey mapping, airlines can go deeper and uncover previously untapped opportunities to interact with customers, providing that seamless experience across all channels.

Shift To Customer Journey Mapping

Ultimately, the process of customer journey mapping enables an airline to hone in on the touchpoints that emerge as the most important to interact with customers from the customer’s point of view. This enables the airline to determine what it is doing well, where improvements are

needed and where to invest in solutions to enhance the customer experience, increase revenue and grow brand loyalty.

Persona creation and customer journey mapping are just two elements that can help customer experience professionals create a sound customer-centric strategy. To be completely successful, chief cus-tomer experience officers need a coalition of top executives who take an active role in transforming the organization through customer experience governance.

While most executives support the idea of customer centricity, many fail to act because they don’t understand the business value or don’t know how to help. Shifting the entire airline to become more customer focused and its employees to become active supporters of customer experience, those responsible for the strategy should identify top influencers, rate their current level of support and develop a customized plan to bring each department along.

However, much more is needed than just a shift in mindset and processes. An airline should find an experienced busi-ness partner, such as Sabre Airline Solutions®, that can help develop the cus-tomer journey mapping strategy and drive it forward. And equally important, it must identify the right technology to support the strategy, such as SabreSonic®

Customer Sales & Service, a fully inte-grated customer-centric portfolio. This advanced technology provides the capabil-ity to identify and recognize your

customers, collect and distribute customer information for operational decisions, and provide a holistic view of your customers to aid your airline in fulfilling its customer promises. a

Julie Dent is a customer experience director for Sabre Airline Solutions.

For additional information about customer journey mapping or

SabreSonic Customer Sales & Service solutions, please send her an email message at [email protected].

Interacting With Customers Customer journey mapping enables an airline to identify the touchpoints for which individual customers want and expect airline interaction. This approach helps airlines verify what is working well, what isn’t and where they need to invest.

Check-In and at the airportCustomer Acquisition/Retention

Customer Journey Mapping

Guide for Practitioners

© Oxford Strategic Marketing

CONTENTS

Look for these icons to help you find your way through the Guide

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2: When to Journey Map

Section 3: Customer Experience Mapping

Section 4: Mapping the System (Process Mapping)

Section 5: Measuring the Experience

Section 6: End-to-end Case Studies Page 91

Page 79

Page 55

Page 19

Page 11

Page 1

Section 1

Introduction

Introduction


INTRODUCTION

Across all areas of government there’s a growing emphasis on getting closer to customers, to understand what really drives behaviour and attitudes in order to design and deliver services that meet the needs of people and businesses rather than the needs of government. This is reflected in the recent cross-government Service Transformation Agreement, which set out the need for departments, agencies and local government to show how they are improving customers’ experiences of their services.Journey mapping, focusing as it does on tracking and describing customer experience, is one of the tools that can help do this. It sits alongside other approaches, such as mystery shoppers and focus groups, that can bring you close to the customers that you serve*. In helping bring customers’ stories to life, journey mapping can challenge preconceptions and help change perceptions, acting as a call to action and contributing to culture change. The insights that it generates can help shape strategy and policy, to improve people’s experiences and lead to greater efficiency within government. At its best, journey mapping can be truly transformational.This Guide for Practitioners sets out to demonstrate the use and value of journey mapping. Assuming no prior knowledge, it starts with a definition of what journey mapping is and guidance about when and how to use it. It describes the circumstances in which journey mapping can be of most benefit, sets out the different tools and mapping techniques that exist and gives practical guidance about using and benefiting from these. Three main techniques are described. There is a section of this guide relating to each of them, but the three are not mutually exclusive – their benefit can be maximised by using all of them at the appropriate point in the lifecycle of a project.In putting the guide together, we have reviewed and drawn upon best practice. Some of the learning has come from leading-edge companies in the private sector, but we have also included in the guide many good examples of how journey mapping is already being used within government.

Customer journey mapping is the process of tracking and describing all the experiences that customers have as they encounter a service or set of services, taking into account not only

what happens to them, but also their responses to their experiences. Used well, it can reveal opportunities for improvement and innovation in that experience, acting as a strategic tool to

ensure every interaction with the customer is as positive as it can be.

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* The full range of such tools is set out in “Customer Insight in Public Service: A Primer’ – see page 9.

”“At its simplest, journey mapping helps you tell a

customer’s story with passion and narrative, to drive insight and build engagement. Comparing the customer’s story with current

systems and processes can help you identify priority actions and focus resources, and adding quantification to this tells you how many people

are affected, and the costs involved. As you build the layers of understanding you really come to maximise

the benefit.”

Introduction


CUSTOMER JOURNEYS IN GOVERNMENTMany of the customer journeys dealt with by government cut across departmental boundaries, and it’s for journeys like these that customer journey mapping is particularly valuable. It helps you to see things from the customer viewpoint, cutting across silos and forcing you to think beyond your own priorities or policy agenda.

INDIV

IDUAL

JOURNEYS

BUSINESS

JOURNEYS

Maternity leaveAnte-natal careRegistering birthBenefitsTrust fund

Birth or adoption

Ofsted reportsApplying for schoolPre-school boostersSchool meals

Starting school Further educationWork, PAYE, taxBenefitsStudent loan repayment

Leaving education

BenefitsTaxesRegistrationName change

Getting married

Starting a business

RegistrationVATFinancingApplying for grants

Paying tax/complying

End of year returnsVATNI and accountsAuditing requirements

Employing someoneJobcentre PlusPAYENational insuranceCompliance

Health & safety

RegistrationHSE inspectionsLocal authority regulationsLegal system

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By customers we mean anyone – people or businesses, who use either central or local government services.

Introduction


ConveyancingMoving to new areaCouncil taxParking

Buying/moving house

Applying for pensionTax on retirement incomeAge concessions

RetiringIncapacity benefitsDisability benefitsPensionsHealth servicesCare homes

Becoming a carer

Registering deathBenefitsPensionsNotifying change of circumstances

Bereavement

International tradeImport and export regulationsTax and VATVisa services

Closing down

Changing name,

address or status

Redundancy paymentsTax and accounts

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Introduction


THE ROLE OF JOURNEY MAPPING

Journey mapping can be inspiring and powerful, but it’s not a dark art. As with any research, best practice is to draw on the expertise of research professionals, but journey mapping is scaleable - simple journey maps can be drawn up by any well-informed practitioner following the processes described in this guide.

SIMPLICITY

There are lots of journey mapping approaches and methodologies described here, but the basic approach is extremely simple. It’s not just a science for experts – anyone involved in developing, delivering or communicating customer services can contribute.

SCALEABILITY

Although journey mapping can involve formal research and large budgets, it doesn’t have to be done that way. It’s possible to start easily and cheaply – more can be added later if needed.

At the Ministry of Justice a project was carried out before a journey mapping budget had been secured, simply by hypothesising the current and desired future journeys through the criminal justice system. Information wasn’t verified by research, but gave a good starting point, building engagement and support internally and leading later to more formal journey mapping projects.

Journey mapping isn’t an end in itself – it’s one of a range of tools that can contribute to better customer understanding. Nevertheless, the very process of mapping the customer experience can have benefits. Getting close to customers and walking in their shoes can lead to great insights, and the view of customers that it affords can be a powerful way of winning hearts and minds amongst staff.

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Introduction


WHAT JOURNEY MAPPING IS USED FOR

Bringing the outside in; thinking and

working to a customer-focused approach Making decisionsFacilitating inter- and cross-

departmental working

Designing and overhauling systems and processes

Understanding the reality of people’s lives

Enable and deliver true customer focus and insightDefine things from a customer viewpoint (e.g. understand big lifestage changes)Understand the differences between people (needs, ability, ways of doing things)Use deep understanding to design policy, delivery, engagement and communication

Show instantly where issues arise for customersEnsure systems are efficient, effective and customer-focusedUnderstand transactions and deliver solutions

Understand processesand transactions that cut across more than one function and/or departmentOvercome silo thinking Identify ‘baton-change’ momentsProvide a highly visual way of looking at things, to help different functions identify common groundFind the best way of working together

Make decisions on relative priorities between, for example, different customer groupsPlan how to allocate resources – people, infrastructure, budgets and systems

Take cost & complexity out of the system

Design customer experiences

Working across boundaries, ‘Tell us Once’ will reduce customer stress by enabling a citizen to report a birth or death only once

HMRC prioritised according to customer need in access policies for tax credits, so that face to face help is focused on those who need it most

Northumbria 101 partnership found that 70% of calls about anti-social behaviour were made outside traditional office hours

Journey mapping in Hammersmith & Fulham has helped design new access systems. Capital costs were paid back in under 2 years, and annual savings of £4m pa are now expected

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Introduction


BENEFITS OF JOURNEY MAPPINGJourney mapping helps you look at your business from the outside in – it’s perhaps the best tool available to help think laterally, outside your own policy agenda. By engaging with customers you can move from incremental service improvement to genuine service transformation. It’s a win:win opportunity - better customer experience and greater operational efficiency; good customer understanding is also good business!

BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE GREATER EFFICIENCY

“Outside-in thinking led to a real culture change – it made an impact on people who’d not really understood the

customer before”

“The real breakthrough was finding out why

people found it so difficult to deal

with us...”Journey mapping helps you to:

See and approach things from the customer’s point of viewIdentify where customers are being confused by different touchpoints, some of which you may not even be aware of Meet expectations (often raised by private sector experiences). Recognise people’s time is valuable and be flexible about how and when they can access government Deliver a seamless, streamlined experience that cuts across silos by recognising where and when it makes sense to join things up for the customerUnderstand how much you can expect people to do, and recognise where you might be imposing undue stress Get it right when it really matters e.g. when emotions are highest or need greatestLook at the current situation and the ‘ideal’side-by-side, giving a chance to genuinely redraw the customer journeyDeliver information, messages and services at the most appropriate time

Journey mapping helps you to:Bring about change across government in a way that cuts across silosTarget limited resource for maximum impactPlan the most efficient and effective experience by reducing duplication and shortening the length of processesAnticipate demands on the system and plan so that you can meet thesePrioritise between competing calls on resources by showing when and where needs are greatest and service most valuedIdentify ‘baton-change’ points where service or communication breakdown is most likely Identify problems and issues without attributing blameIdentify cheapest ‘cost to serve’, and influence people to transact with you in a way that minimises costs (e.g. use new channels)Set performance indicators and standards so that you can measure and track progress over time

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Introduction


A GREAT EXAMPLE OF JOURNEY MAPPING

Journey mapping isn’t just something that’s nice to know –used correctly it can have very tangible business outcomes, as shown by the Tameside example.It’s a key tool to use in helping to deliver policy objectives.

Tameside Free School MealsTameside Council identified that changes to the free school meals application process could deliver better customer service and, at the same time, save money for the council.

Journey mapping helped them understand the process from the customer viewpoint, whilst quantifying the cost to the council. Customers were abandoning claims, deterred by a complex process and the associated stigma. Meanwhile, for the council, on-line applications cost 7p, compared to £10 for a face-to-face application.

Clearly a system overhaul that directed appropriate customers online could help both customers and council, but the cost benefit could only be realised if the process could be followed end-to-end with no disruptions.

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Using learning from the journey mapping they had carried out, Tameside were able to implement systems that allowed this uninterrupted process. Applicants for free meals now enjoy a simpler, more streamlined process that is much more cost-effective for the council.

FREE SCHOOL MEALS –ORIGINAL JOURNEY

Introduction


This guide was commissioned from Oxford Strategic Marketing by the Cabinet Office and HMRC jointly on behalf of the Customer Insight Forum (CIF). CIF enables service transformation by being an advocate across government for the role and value of customer insight, promoting best practice and knowledge.

ABOUT THE JOURNEY MAPPING GUIDANCEThis guide is intended as a practical reference document for people who will be carrying out the process of journey mapping. It’s been designed not to be read from cover to cover, but rather to be consulted in stages according to interest and need.

It’s complemented by a range of other materials, each of which serves a specific purpose:

Customer Journey Mapping - Guide for Managers is written for a senior audience of service providers, policy makers and strategists across government and is relevant to all those involved in leading and supporting cross-government service transformation. It suggests how journey mapping can be used to introduce more customer-focused thinking to challenge organisational assumptions about the customer experience.

There are a set of four online training modules that serve as a quick introduction to journey mapping and give an overview of key approaches, tools and benefits. These can be found on the CIF website (see facing page for address).

Customer Journey Mapping

Guide for Managers

Customer JourneyMappingModule II

Customer Journey MappingExpanded toolkit

Section 2

An expanded ‘toolkit’ is also available on the CIF website and gives additional tools to the ones included here. You will see references to this throughout the guide, indicated by the icon shown here.

8

Introduction


OTHER RESOURCES

The Customer Insight Forum is the best starting point for more information, and can help you access the other resources listed on the left.

You can contact the Customer Insight Forum by emailing [email protected] by telephoning 020 7276 3182.

Customer Insight Forum WebsiteThe following papers have been published by the Customer Insight Forum and are available at their web site, which also contains the online version of this document, training modules and additional tools described on the facing page:http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/public_service_reform/delivery_council/workplan.aspx

Customer Insight in Public Services: A Primer which aims to establish a common language for customer insight and sets out some of the main sources of customer insightEstablishing an Effective Customer Insight Capability in Public Sector Organisations which sets out some guidelines and examples that help to explain how to establish an effective customer insight capability in a public sector organisationPublished as accompanying guidance to the Service Transformation Agreement, Promoting Customer Satisfaction: Guidance on improving the customer experience in Public Services explains the role that customer satisfaction and measurement research techniques should play in improving customer's experiences of their services and covers key issues such as the pros and cons of taking a common measurement approach for all public services. Accompanying this guidance but targeting a practitioner audience, How to Measure Customer Satisfaction: a tool to improve the experience of customers is a toolkit document designed to help public service providers improve the experience of their customers by understanding how to undertake and make best use of effective customer satisfaction measurement.

Government Communication Network (GCN) EngageGives information and advice on how to deliver customer-focused communication, with advice on journey mapping in this context. Go to www.comms.gov.uk

Service Transformation AgreementA Government-wide commitment to build services around the needs of citizens and businesses will be integral to the achievement of each of the PSA outcomes for the next spending period (2008 - 2011). The Service Transformation Agreement underpins delivery of the new PSA framework, setting out the Government's vision for building services around the citizen and specific actions for each department in taking forward this challenging agenda. The PSA Delivery Agreements and the Service Transformation Agreement are all available at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pbr_csr/psa/pbr_csr07_psaindex.cfm

Customer Insight ProtocolPrepared for use by councils, partners and umbrella organisations in designing and analysing future local surveys and in gaining extra value and information from existing data sources. It is available to download from the following web address:http://www.lga.gov.uk/content.asp?lsection=59&id=-A78492C2&ccat=1335

COIThe Research Unit at COI can offer consultancy and advice across the range of research methodologies and can procure and manage projects on your behalf via their comprehensive research roster. In the first instance, please contact Fiona Wood, Director of Research, 020 7261 8905, [email protected]

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Introduction


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Journey mapping was used to improve the journey experience and to develop a really compelling proposition that would make people want to use EurostarIt also helped the Eurostarmanagement to make decisions on which parts of the journey to invest in, and to set up customer satisfaction tracking.

PRIVATE SECTOR CASE STUDY: EUROSTAREurostar was not an immediate success. The management of Eurostar decided to use journey mapping to improve radically the customer experience. Here’s how they used different techniques to gain the insight they needed.

RESEARCHIndependently of the role-playing exercise, research was carried out amongst passengers by the French part of the organisation.

This confirmed the highs and lows for various traveler types.

OBSERVATIONA workshop was held with senior board members who did not, traditionally, have a customer orientation.

The management appreciated that they couldn’t treat all customers the same. Business people had very different needs from leisure passengers. And they were able to suggest really practical and workable solutions to problems, which not only improved the experience but reduced costs in many cases.Manager participation and engagement enabled fast action by having great ideas championed from the top.

SENIOR STAFF

They were encouraged to role-play different customer groups, even dressing up in costume, in order to map the highs and lows of the journey for different customers.

After the workshops, the senior board members were encouraged to make the journey for real and ‘shadow’passengers who looked like the ones they had role-played in the workshops.

By having them make the journey in this way, a number of key outcomes were achieved:

Together these approaches enabled Eurostar to produce and verify detailed journey maps of the whole experience for different customer groups, mapping the high and low points. In particular, the work identified the real ‘WOW’ factor of travelling on Eurostar – the arrival right in the heart of the city, which was later developed into a compelling communications proposition. See pages 96-97 for more information about the Eurostar journey mapping work.

16501 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 601, Encino, CA 91436 • Phone (818) 464-2400 • Fax (818) 464-2399 • www.mmrstrategy.com

Using Customer Journey Maps to

Improve Your Customer Experience

Dr. Bruce Isaacson, President of MMR Strategy Group

Using Customer Journey Maps to Improve the Customer Experience Page 1

www.mmrstrategy.com

In recent years, many companies have discovered, or re-discovered, the importance of the

customer experience. The customer experience primarily exists in the everyday interactions

that customers have with a company, through such touch points as requesting service,

purchasing, repurchasing, asking questions, checking prices, and other activities. Across a wide

range of industries, interest has grown in improving the customer experience, customer

satisfaction surveys have become more commonplace, customer satisfaction measures are

increasingly part of management scorecards and bonus structures, and companies have created

teams, task forces, departments, and positions devoted to the customer experience.

The customer experience is complex, in part

because it typically cuts across divisions,

departments, and functions. As an example,

consider an everyday process such as filing a

claim at an automobile insurance company.

The claim may involve multiple functions, such

as customer service, field agents, underwriters,

adjusters, and repair shops. Each may have a

different set of metrics and objectives. The claim may take place over a period of weeks or

even months. It may require numerous communications to the customer - some outbound,

others inbound; some tied to a calendar or specific timing, and others occurring at any time.

Similarly, asking a question of a cell phone carrier may involve not just customer service, but

also technical specialists in areas such as phones or billing. Customer service reps and technical

specialists may have different skill sets, perspectives, and different compensation plans.


www.mmrstrategy.com

Given this complexity, efforts to improve the customer experience can face numerous

organizational obstacles, such as:

Departmental barriers that interrupt a seamless customer experience, and

may produce competing visions for the customer experience.

Organizational cultures and perspectives that focus from the inside out,

concentrating on organizational processes rather than customer experiences.

Accumulated history and culture that resists change, even when faced with

an excess of task forces, process maps, policy manuals, and research reports.


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The best customer experience typically comes when a company can act as a single seamless

entity across the different steps of customer involvement. To do so, a company must improve

the steps that most need improvement, and not waste resources on steps that are less

important to customers, or that do not need as much improvement. This article describes

Customer Journey Maps (CJM’s), which are a powerful tool to help companies visualize and

evaluate the customer experience from the customer’s point of view.

CJMs describe key touch points where customers interact

with the company. They also describe the customer’s

emotions and experience along the way, including the spots

where the customer’s journey with the company is more or

less difficult or satisfying. CJMs also identify interactions that

are particularly important for the customer and the company.

When done properly, Customer Journey Maps depict and

describe the customer experience in clear, concise, and

simple terms. They can provide rallying points for a common

vision, and can be used to communicate with a variety of levels and functions. This article

shows how Customer Journey Maps should be created and used, providing examples from past

MMR Strategy engagements.


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What are Customer Journey Maps?

A Customer Journey Map is a visual picture of the customer’s experience with a company. It

describes that experience from customer’s perspective, describing the activities the customer

would undertake, in words the customer might use.

A Customer Journey Map may be drawn from

two perspectives. One perspective describes

the end to end customer experience. For

example, a CJM might describe all the steps

involved in taking an airplane trip might include

arrival at the airport, such as check in, security,

waiting for the flight, boarding, taking the flight,

exiting the plane, and picking up luggage.

Alternatively, the map may describe a single

product line or process, such as the process of security in the airport experience.

Not every step of the customer experience is equally important and not every customer needs

to be highly satisfied on all steps. For some routine transactions, such as paying a bill,

customers may want a simple interaction that goes smoothly but does not need to be

memorable. For other transactions customers may seek a higher and more memorable level of

service. Think about the difference between taking out a new mortgage and making a monthly

payment on the mortgage – taking out a mortgage is a less frequent and more emotional

experience.


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By identifying the key moments of truth – those steps that are most important to customer

satisfaction and renewal - Customer Journey Maps provide a resource allocation guide. They

identify the places where investments in higher levels of service are more likely to attract or

retain customers.

A Customer Journey Map is different than a process map, but the two are related. As shown by

Table 1, a process map takes the company’s perspective, and describes a company’s internal

processes, using terms, jargon and acronyms specific to the company. Process maps are often

developed by specialists (including those with Six Sigma experience) or by specific departments.

By contrast, the Customer Journey Map takes the customer’s perspective, describing the

customer experience using the customer’s own language.

Table 1: Differences between Process Maps and Customer Journey Maps

Topic Process Maps Customer Journey Maps

Main focus The company The customer

DescribesThe company’s internal processes,

functions, and activities The customer experience

Terminology Terms and jargon specific to the

company The customer’s language

Who is involved?Process mapping specialists and

specific departments

All groups involved in the

customer experience


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Figure 1 and 2 show examples of Customer Journey Maps, using a disguised example presented

here as a cell phone carrier. There are a variety of ways to present the maps for a given

experience; Figure 1 shows a circular map, while Figure 2 shows a more horizontal map. Both

are potentially appropriate ways to depict the customer journey. Each map:

Groups the customer experience into a series of steps within larger processes.

Takes the customer perspective, focusing on steps that a customer might experience.

Avoids any internal jargon or acronyms.

Describes the elements, here called value creators, which matter most to customers.

Figure 1: Example of Circular Customer Journey Map


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Figure 2: Example of Horizontal Customer Journey Map


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A Customer Journey Map should be simple and easy to understand. Perhaps the best example

of an overly complex map comes from the American engagement in Afghanistan. In 2010,

General Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO force commander was presented with a complex

process map of the engagement in Afghanistan, shown here in Figure 3. Upon seeing the map,

General McChrystal is said to have remarked, 'When we understand that slide, we'll have won

the war.”

Figure 3: Map of The American Engagement in Afghanistan1

In the next section, we will describe how to develop these maps.

1 The map can be found in numerous places online. This is from The Guardian’s website, at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/29/mcchrystal-afghanistan-powerpoint-slide.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/29/mcchrystal-afghanistan-powerpoint-slide


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How Do You Create a Customer Journey Map?

This section describes the five step process involved in creating Customer Journey Maps, and

provides templates to use at each stage of the process. The five steps, listed in Figure 4, include

selecting the journey to map, creating an inventory of touch points, describing each touch

point, identifying moments of truth and key metrics, and creating Users’ Manuals to guide

implementation.

Figure 4: Five Steps to Creating a Customer Journey Map


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Underlying these five steps are five design principles that apply to each step:

1. Take the customers’ perspective: The CJM

should describe the customer experience from

the customer’s perspective, using customer-

friendly terms. Jargon, including any term that

is not familiar to or not used by customers,

should be banned from the map.

2. Be emotional: The CJM should incorporate and

reflect the emotional, experiential, and functional elements of the customer experience.

The emotional refers to how a customer is feeling, experiential refers to what a customer

experiences, and functional refers to the logistics of how it happens.

3. Be universal: The CJM should be universal, applying to all customers. Later, use cases

can be used to build CJMs for specific segments or distribution channels.

4. Keep it simple: The CJM should be easy to follow and colorful. It should be appropriate

for a wide variety of levels and functions.

5. Gather lots of input: The CJM should be built with input and involvement from the

multiple departments that touch the customer’s interaction with the company.

Gathering input from these departments will require a series of interviews and

workshops throughout the process.

We will now describe the five steps involved in creating a Customer Journey Map.


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Step 1: Select the journey to map

The first step in the process of developing a Customer Journey Map is to select the journey to

map. The journey selected must be small enough to map, yet large enough for relevance to a

significant proportion of customers. The experience mapped will likely cut across functional or

departmental boundaries, and should be an experience with:

Importance: The experience is important to customers, meaning that it occurs

frequently or has a significant impact on customer satisfaction when it does occur.

Opportunity: The experience provides significant opportunity for improvement.

Availability: Technical experts, departmental specialists, and other staff are

available to provide input.


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Step 2: Create an inventory of touch points.

The next step in the process is to create an inventory of all the touch

points in the process. A touch point is a place where the customer

interacts with the company. It is easy to identify a customer touch

point, because a touch point can usually start with the phrase, “I

want to…”.

For example, in our example of a cell phone carrier, a customer might say, “I want to ask

questions”, so “ask a question” is a touch point. Similarly, a customer might also say, “I want to

cancel”, making “cancel my service” another touch point.

The statement “I want to” ensures that the process focuses on activities relevant to the

consumer, and representing activities that the customer actually wants to accomplish. Some

touch points, such as checking on a monthly billing balance, may be relatively simple, while

other touch points, such as obtaining new service, may be more involved.


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The best way to identify all relevant touch points is through a workshop involving

knowledgeable staff from the functions, departments, or processes involved in the customer

experience being mapped.

Using a framework similar to that presented as Figure 5, the staff identify all the potential touch

points as activities that the customer may wish to undertake. In many service organizations,

touch points frequently address steps such as asking questions, checking billing balances,

checking on service availability, changing service, cancelling service, fixing equipment, and

other activities.

Figure 5: Framework for Customer Journey Mapping Workshop

Description

Customer Activities

Customer Emotions

Method of Interaction

Wants and Expectations

Touch PointTouch PointTouch PointTouch PointTouch Point


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Step 3. Describe Each Touch Point:

The third step in the process is to describe each touch point. The best way to gather

information to describe each touch point is to interview experts throughout the organization

who are familiar with the touch point.

This will likely require the project team to conduct a series of interviews with technical experts,

who can describe the specifics of each touch point, focusing on how the customer interacts

with the company at that point. The experts may also be able to provide items such as copies

of communications sent to the customer, market research studies, and other descriptive

metrics.

When describing a touch point, a company might use a Customer Activity Grid, such as that

described in Figure 6, which includes the following elements:

Figure 6: Customer Activity Grid to Describe Touch Points


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Description: What does the touch point do? What is the customer trying to

accomplish?

Customer Activities: What is the customer doing during the touch point?

Customer Emotions: What are the emotions that the customer is typically experiencing

during the touch point? For example, does the customer experience fear, doubt, or not

much emotion at all? What emotions do we want the customer to experience at the

end of the touch point?

Method of Interaction: How do customers interact with the company at each touch

point, and how would they prefer to interact? For example, would they prefer customer

service over the telephone, or self service?

Wants and Expectations: What is the customer attempting to accomplish?

Some companies also find it useful to develop a matching Company Activity Grid, to describe

the company’s activities or underlying processes. For each touch point, the Company Activity

Grid describes elements such as company objectives, activities, departments or groups

involved, and standards or metrics to measure the activity.

When developing Customer Journey Maps, it may be useful to consider “use cases”, which

describe interactions with a company from the perspective of a particular type of customer or

type of interaction. For example, in our cell phone example, the journey map for a corporate

business customer who travels frequently may be different from a small business owner or a

college student. They may buy through different channels, have different needs, and expect

different levels of service. For many companies, the journey map for a frequent or high-volume

customer is different than that of other customers.


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Step 4: Identify moments of truth and key metrics/goals.

The fourth step identifies the key moments of truth and the

key metrics and goals for each step. Moments of truth are the

most important interactions from the customer’s perspective,

as they matter a great deal to satisfaction and retention.

Moments of truth can be identified in a variety of ways, such as:

Ask management: In some companies, managers already know the moments of

truth. When asked to identify the mission-critical touch points for customers, they

can confidently and accurately point to the specific moments that matter most.

Ask customer-facing staff: Often, customer-facing staff in functions such as

customer service, claims, or sales know which steps tend to be hot buttons for

customers, and which are not.

Consult marketing research: Marketing research reports often describe moments of

truth by identifying those interactions that are most highly correlated with

outcomes such as overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, or likelihood to

renew.

Review customer retention data: Customer retention data may point to those steps

where customers cancel service or stop buying, or those that are cited most often by

customers who are in the process of renewing or cancelling.


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Analyze customer satisfaction data: Many customers gather customer satisfaction

data overall and at each step or touch point. These data can be reviewed to

determine which steps have satisfaction measures that are most highly correlated

with outcomes such as overall satisfaction, likelihood to renew, or likelihood to

recommend.

After identifying the moments of truth, each moment should be associated with metrics that

provide guidelines for the company’s performance at each key touch point. The question of

objectives is particularly important, and links directly to the allocation of attention and

resources. Movement in some measures may cause profound changes in the customer

experience, while movement in other measures may not make much difference.

The question of objectives forces the organization to think carefully about where the judicious

application of resources can make the most difference. Questions that could be helpful in this

process include the following:

Current Measures: What measures are gathered that

relate to each individual touch point? How are the

measures gathered, and what do they show today?

Objectives: What should the goals be for each

individual moment of truth on each key measure?


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Step 5: Create users’ manuals to guide implementation

The final step in the process is to use the Customer Journey Map as a guide to allocate

resources, organize across the Customer Journey Map, and measure the customer experience.

We find that the best way to do so is to create Users’ Manuals that can guide the organization

through these tactical steps. A Users’ Manual organizes the learning from first four steps,

describing specific action steps to allocate scarce resources, organize across the customer

journey, and measure the results.


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Here is a checklist of ten important questions to guide the process of creating a Users’ Manual:

Resource Allocations:

1. Do certain touch points merit additional investment to

increase customer satisfaction and/or retention?

2. Where will additional investments in customer-facing

activities yield the most productive results?

3. Where can we decrease investment or attention, to

free up resources for mission-critical activities?

Company Organization:

4. How should the various departments or groups involved in the customer journey

organize so that customer experiences are seamless within and across touch points?

5. Are key resources divided between touch points or departments; if so, how can

customers experience them as if they belong to one seamless company?

6. How can the organization improve the ability of departments to share information and

processes?

Metrics and Measurements:

7. What metrics do we currently achieve at each touch point? Where do we stand on

those metrics today?

8. What are the new objectives?

9. How will the new objectives be measured and integrated into scorecards and personal

objectives?

10. What standards can we implement now and what new information must we gather to

support the new objectives?


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The complete Users’ Manual could include the following materials:

1. Customer Journey Maps that describe customer interactions across touchpoints.

2. Customer Activity Grids that describe the customer experience, including customer

objectives, activities, emotions, wants and expectations, metrics, and standards.

3. Company Activity Grids that describe

the company’s activities, such as

company objectives, activities, owners,

stakeholders, performance indicators,

and standards.

4. An information roadmap describing

areas where information exists, and

areas where additional information is

needed.

5. Metrics, including the measures for each touch point, as well as the goals to achieve.

6. Other items, such as materials addressing use cases involving key segments or customer

types.


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What Happens Next?

The Customer Journey Maps described in this paper can help

a company improve the customer experience in a number of

ways. Perhaps most importantly, the journey map provides a

visual and comprehensive picture of the customer experience,

incorporating both qualitative and quantitative information.

Once complete, the Customer Journey Map becomes a powerful tool to use across the

organizations, in discussions with executives, managers, and staff, to describe and improve the

customer experience.

About MMR Strategy Group

MMR Strategy Group is a full-service market research-based consulting firm. We help our

clients grow by leveraging customer insight to develop marketing and sales strategies. In order

to support critical business decisions, we combine the data gathering capabilities of a research

firm with the business analytics of a strategic consulting firm.

For more information about Customer Journey Maps, please contact us at 818.464.2400 or

email [email protected].

© Copyright MMR Strategy Group, May, 2012. All rights reserved.

mailto:[email protected]

Touchpoint Dashboard | 8918 W 21st Street North, Suite 200, PMB191 | Wichita, Kansas 67205 | 888-267-9454

Cooking Up a Winning Customer Journey Map


TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is Customer Journey Mapping 3

Why Map the Customer Journey 3

Part I: The Ingredients 4

Part II: Combining the Ingredients 8

Part III: Now What? 11

Part IV: Rules of Customer Journey Mapping 12 Part V: What Journey Mapping is Not 13 Looking for an Easier Way to Map 14 About Touchpoint Dashboard 16


What is Customer Journey Mapping? A customer journey map is used to identify and define your organization’s customer touchpoints. It’s a way to map, analyze, and visualize how a customer engages with your company, via your products, services, online experiences, retail experiences, marketing efforts, and/or other channels. It captures customers’ needs (what are they trying to accomplish, what problem are they trying to get solved), processes (what steps did they go through to achieve their goals), and perceptions (what was the experience, how did the company perform) at each touchpoint. This visualization allows you to consider each and every touchpoint, identify where gaps lie, and determine how to optimize the overall customer experience. Adam Richardson, writing on Harvard Business Review’s Blog Network, explains how to use customer journey maps to improve the customer experience. His customer journey timeline looks like this:

Engage –> Buy –> Use –> Share –> Complete

Richardson employs the following framework at each stage of the journey map:

Actions: What does the customer do in the stage and how do they move to the next stage of the journey map?

Motivations: Why is the customer here? Why would they continue along the journey map?

Questions: What uncertainties does the customer have that might impede them? Barriers: What structures, costs, or other barriers would prevent them from moving to

the next stage of the process?

Knowing what happens at each stage, as well as answering the questions posed along the way by conducting in-depth customer research, will result in the most complete customer journey map.

Why Map the Customer Journey? Why is customer journey mapping a mission critical part of an organization’s customer experience strategy? According to Bruce Temkin of the Temkin Group, customer journey mapping is one of the skills that will be required to move into the age of CX Mastery. “Companies increasingly use customer journey maps to understand how customers accomplish their goals. These efforts provide a customer-centric view that cuts across channels and spans over time as well as uncovering key customer activities that don’t involve the company at all. Today, these efforts are used to identify places for redesigning discrete interactions. In the future, companies will design and track experiences that involve multiple interactions to address customers’ higher-level goals.”i

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/using_customer_journey_maps_to.html


Part I: The Ingredients You probably haven’t thought about your map in terms of “ingredients” and “a recipe” before, but journey mapping is like cooking in many ways. If you use fresh, quality ingredients when you cook, it’s very likely that your recipe will result in something that will put smiles on the faces of your guests and get them to return for a second helping. This is exactly how it works with a customer journey map. You build quality, meaningful information into your map, and when it’s done “cooking,” you will be able to pull out everything you need to build a prioritized action plan for transforming your business. Then you can consistently delight your customers and keep them coming back for more. Sounds delicious, right? Let’s get started! Here are the ingredients you’ll need for a winning customer journey map. 1. Your Customers

An important part to the mapping process is to talk to your customers. Before you do that, though, you must know who they are. Identify your customers and segment them, since different customers and customer types will have different journeys with your organization. You’re not going to map the journey for all of your customers. In the end, you’ll focus on those that meet your 80/20 rule. During this step, you’ll define your customer personas. 2. Customer Experience Lifecycle

How do people become your customers? Once they are customers, how do they remain so and (hopefully) help bring new customers your way? This process is referred to as the customer experience lifecycle. You must define these phases for your business; different companies label the phases differently depending on their products and/or services, but phases typically look something like this:

Awareness Information-gathering Selection Purchase Satisfaction Loyalty Advocacy Churn

3. Channels, Areas, or Departments/Divisions

Define all the ways a customer could come into contact with your brand. Think in terms of broad umbrella categories for now. Examples of your channels might include:

Advertising/PR/Events Digital Retail Store


Dealer/Broker Customer Service/Call Center Finance/Billing

4. Touchpoints

Now it’s time to take an inventory of your touchpoints. A touchpoint is any point where the customer touches the company; an interaction is what happens at a touchpoint. To inventory your touchpoints, start with your list of channels from Step 2. List all touchpoints associated with each channel. Here are some examples of touchpoints for the digital channel:

Facebook Twitter Website Microsites Web ads Searches Apps, etc.

Next, think about how customers encounter each touchpoint. What touchpoints are present during each lifecycle phase? Organize and further define these touchpoints, taking into account the following:

What is the business reason for each touchpoint (Why does it exist from an operations perspective? To educate, provide support, receive payment?)

Why does the touchpoint exist from a customer’s perspective? To set you apart from a competitor, for repeat sales, to build loyalty?

What databases and supporting applications enable these touchpoints? What department is responsible for each touchpoint? Which touchpoints are most actively used? Are touchpoints specific to particular product areas or customer segments?

These backend processes are typically found in great detail within service blueprints, the behind-the-scenes, company-centric view of the customer journey. It is still helpful to include this level of detail to provide additional diagnostic value, in order to make your journey maps more actionable for those in the organization who will use them. 5. Interactions

Once you have an understanding of the various touchpoints, the next step is to define the various interactions that might occur at each touchpoint. So, if we think about your website as a touchpoint, the interactions that might occur there include a purchase, a product/information search, a customer support request, downloads, etc.


6. Customer Journey

This is where the rubber meets the road. It’s time to talk to your customers. It’s time to do some in-depth research to figure out exactly what their experiences are at each touchpoint. Go back to Step 1 and look at your personas. For each, to get the conversation started, roughly plot the journey based on what you know; then let them do the talking. Document the journey a customer takes for each touchpoint, channel and lifecycle phase. For now, a simple step-by-step list will do. These questions can help you get started:

Why did the customer contact the call center? Talk me through that process. What steps did you take to make and complete that call? What were the pain points? What went well? What does it look like from an employee’s perspective? What other touchpoints are involved in this process?

In the end, you want to understand what it takes for a customer to move through the lifecycle, as well as to discover any roadblocks – or highlight best practices – along the way. 7. Customer & Employee Feedback

Whatever method or listening post you use to gather customer feedback — surveys, testimonials, comments through your website, etc. — gather and organize this information by channel and lifecycle phase, and sift it down to the specific touchpoint if possible. You should also ask employees for their feedback about their performance and their ability to deliver the desired experience. You will use this information to gauge the effectiveness of your touchpoints. Consider the following:

What do your customers have to say about their experiences during each lifecycle phase?

Does each touchpoint enhance or weaken a customer’s experience? What does a customer expect at each point? Do you meet their expectations? How do they feel? How do you want them to feel? Are there any redundancies or unnecessary touchpoints? Which touchpoints are most and least effective? What does the experience look like from the perspective of a front line employee or

those who manage a specific are of the customer experience? How do employees rate the effectiveness of a touchpoint?

This ingredient is critical because it will help to determine the performance gaps and action items that will need to be completed in order to deliver a superior customer experience.


While gathering your ingredients is not a simple process, it’s important that you take the time to define, and organize these elements. By doing so, you will have a solid framework from which to build a robust, “flavorful” customer journey map that will be packed with priceless insights about your customers, your processes, and your overall operations.


Part II: Combining the Ingredients Step 1: Determine Your Mapping Method & Design

Figuring out how to design your map can be tricky because there are dozens of ways to do it. You could manually arrange all of your data on post-it notes, design an elaborate process flow chart in Visio, or use our Touchpoint Dashboard tool, to name a few. (We admit that we’re biased, but we recommend the latter option. Touchpoint Dashboard automates the mapping process and outperforms every time when compared to other methods in terms of ease of use, design and touchpoint analysis, measurement, and management.) If you opt to design your own map without the power of Touchpoint Dashboard, we recommend starting the streamlined “Swim Lane” design, where touchpoints and data are organized and displayed in rows and columns. It looks something like this:

Step 2: Define Swim Lane Headers

Now that we’ve settled on a design, it’s time to start adding the ingredients you gathered in Part I and build your map’s framework. One of the first things you did was define your customer journey lifecycle phases and your departments or channels. Use this information to design the skeleton of your map and set-up your columns and rows. Label each column header with a lifecycle phase going in order from left to right. Similarly, label each row header with your departments in whatever order you deem relevant to your business. Step 3: Create a Key

Your map’s framework is in place and you’re almost ready to add the remaining ingredients that you worked so hard to prepare. But first, you’ll need to create something that every map requires — a key or a legend.

http://www.touchpointdashboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TouchpointDashboard-vs.-Visio.pdf

http://www.touchpointdashboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TouchpointDashboard-vs.-Visio.pdf

http://www.touchpointdashboard.com/how-it-works/


Look at your list of touchpoints and the supporting materials you developed. How, in broad terms, do you touch your customers? Is it by email, web, mail, in person, phone, mass media, or an event? Add these touch types to your key and assign each one a color. This will help you keep your touchpoints organized. Also determine and add any symbols you want to use to indicate pain points, best practices, moments of truth (those interactions most important to your customers), listening posts, etc. Step 4: Add Your Touchpoints & Plot the Journey

Now it’s time to add the “meat” to the recipe. With your list of touchpoints and supporting materials in hand, start adding your touchpoints to the map. Organize them by lifecycle phase and corresponding department/channel, and color-code them according to touch type. It might be helpful to arrange your touchpoints in the order that a customer comes into contact with them, or you may want to group them by type. It’s entirely up to you. Once you’ve displayed and arranged all of your touchpoints, refer back to your supporting materials and the key. Add supporting details and associated symbols. Details could include:

Why each touchpoint exists from a business and customer perspective Responsible departments Supporting databases or systems How you measure the effectiveness of this interaction How often it is used and cost involved

You want this map to tell a detailed story about your touchpoints. You want it to show you where you’re delighting your customers and where you’re letting them down, as well as to call out the areas of your business that excel and the ones that need work. The trick in Journey Mapping is to figure out how to incorporate all of the background data and information so that you are not flipping back and forth between your map and supporting documents and reports. This is exactly why we built Touchpoint Dashboard. With our tool, there is no flipping back and forth. You have the ability to open each touchpoint and add as much or as little detail as you want, including uploads or links to background data. Every time you add additional information or make changes of any kind, the journey map updates automatically. It’s a great way to bring your customer journey to life and map, analyze, and present your touchpoints. Step 5: Synch Your Voice of the Customer Information

This is one of the most important, yet most challenging, steps in the mapping process. If you took the advice outlined in Part I, you already organized your customer feedback by channel and lifecycle phase and sifted it down to specific touchpoints. It’s not an easy process, we know, but this will be the key to truly gauging the effectiveness of your touchpoints. Refer back to the questions we posed in #7 of Part I. Some of those questions included:


What do your customers have to say about their experiences during each lifecycle phase?

Does each touchpoint enhance or weaken a customer’s experience? What does a customer expect at each point, and are those expectations met? Are there any redundancies or unnecessary touchpoints? Which touchpoints are most and least effective from a customer and employee

perspective? Use the symbols from your key and position appropriate ones next to the touchpoints on your map to indicate where pain, best practices, or moments of truth occur. You may also wish to include direct customer comments as supporting evidence. Rank your touchpoints in terms of value and effectiveness. If a touchpoint has a high value and is not effective, you will know it requires immediate attention. This ranking of touchpoints will help you develop action plans. Next Steps…

Congratulations, your map is complete, but (sorry) you are far from being done. Check out Part III for tips on how to pull insights from your map and use them to transform your business.


Part III: Now What? You and your team have analyzed, synthesized, visualized, and now you’re mesmerized with this finalized map that fully outlines the complete journey of your customers and all of the associated touchpoints. Whew! So now what? Don’t wait too long to get your customer experience improvement projects started! Start taking action on the insights you’ve uncovered immediately! Think about the laws of physics. An object in motion stays in motion, right? If the momentum comes to a halt, you’re map becomes a dust collector. Here are a few tips to help you use the insights your map delivered to keep your customer experience initiative moving forward:

Think big but start small. Identify a few quick fixes you can make that will boost the customer experience at one or two key touchpoints and start fixing. Document successes and show how the results support your company’s key metrics. Build excitement. A few small wins will help you justify further investment in your initiative. Be sure you have a prioritized list of all the critical improvement initiatives ready (or at least in the works), including estimated investment requirements. So, when executives ask for that information, it will be readily available.

Share for Success! Improving a customer’s overall experience with your company

requires buy-in and collaboration from employees, managers, and executives from all areas of your organization. Resist the urge to share the findings with some of your internal stakeholders versus all of them. Sure, it will require more time up front, but it will eliminate a lot of headaches down the road. Share the findings with everyone — you’ll garner more support, commitment and significantly increase the odds of your success.

Make it a Marathon, Not a Sprint. To prevent your customer journey map from

becoming a dust collector, have a long-term plan in mind. Where do you want the organization to be one, three, and five years from now and beyond? Document goals and benchmarks. Establish a timeline and stick to it. Be sure during the mapping process to clearly identify and appoint journey map owners and a support team who are committed to keeping projects on track. And, don’t forget to check-in regularly with your customers. Their feedback will let you know if you’re on track.


Part IV: Rules of Customer Journey Mapping Now that you’ve got an understanding of the ingredients and steps involved to cook up a customer journey map, let’s take a look at some of the rules that you must adhere to as you’re creating your journey map. A customer journey map…

Must be developed from your customers’ perspective, not the organization’s. The map is in your customer’s words, not in the company’s words (i.e., not how the company would describe a customer interaction).

Is a living, breathing document.

Must be shared.

Is a collaborative piece of work.

Is actionable.

Is the backbone of customer experience management. Everything you do needs to align with the customer journey.

Is not used by just a small (perhaps CX) team in the organization; it must engage cross-functional teams and be used and acted up by the entire organization.

Must be updated as the organization evolves and adapts.

Is multi-faceted. There isn’t just one map, there will be many. o After you map the entire lifecycle, pull out the individual touchpoints and map

the experiences around them. You’ll end up with a bunch of “mini maps” that can all be plugged back into the main, master map that encompasses the customer experiences from start (Need) through the end (Churn).

o While you may map all of your touchpoints in the master customer journey map, identify the most important ones and focus on those for the mini maps.


Part V: What Journey Mapping is Not Now that we know what a customer journey map is, let’s talk about what it’s not. A customer journey map is not…

Designed from the company’s perspective or viewpoint.

About your organization’s internal processes and procedures.

A project.

A one and done effort.

The end. It is the beginning. It needs to elicit action on an ongoing basis.

Just for mapping customers’ experiences; it enables employees, partners, and any other stakeholders of the organization to build a culture around the customer.


Looking for an Easier Way to Map? As you can see, mapping can be down-right hard. Creating a customer journey map, incorporating your customer and employee feedback, and then pulling actionable insights out of it is a very labor-intensive and complex process. After reading this paper, you likely discovered, like we did, how limiting and time consuming the traditional mapping methods can be. There is so much information that needs to be represented on a map… how do you fit it all in in a way that makes sense? That’s why we created Touchpoint Dashboard. Touchpoint Dashboard is designed to save you time and delivers a more robust and intuitive kind of map. The system’s built-in business intelligence enables you to enter and organize your data, and it then automatically converts your information into a streamlined, yet detailed customer journey map. It delivers a clear picture of where and when your customers experience satisfaction or pain, who is most impacted and how it affects your bottom line. Touchpoint Dashboard helps you build a strong case for customer experience improvement initiatives and puts you on the road to success. Here are 6 reasons why you should put the power of Touchpoint Dashboard to work for your business. 1. It’s a User-Friendly, Secure System

No need to have a background in value stream mapping and process flow design No need to license or understand how to use diagramming software Quickly and easily enter your touchpoints and related customer and employee feedback Start a map from scratch or use industry-specific templates. Great for expert mappers

and beginners! Log-in anytime, anywhere to the secure, web-based system. No need to worry about

your Powerpoint, Excel, or Visio files falling into the wrong hands! 2. Automate the Mapping Process and Save Time

Eliminates tedious, manual map drawings and re-designs Auto-generates a map for you based on the touchpoint and customer data you enter

into the system Provides real-time updates and design. As you gather and enter new data into the

system, the map automatically updates to reflect your changes. 3. Involve Others in the Map Design

Provide key stakeholders in your organization the ability to log in and monitor the map as it’s being designed — they no longer need to wait days or weeks for you to show them a draft.

Allow others to play a role by providing them access to view, proof, or even upload content.


4. Thoroughly Organize and Analyze Your Touchpoints

Have an organized way to inventory all of your touchpoints. Merge your customer data with each touchpoint during the design phase, and eliminate

the inefficiencies associated with separate data silos. Then later, you can open the touchpoints and can see exactly where your customers experience pain, when it occurs, and who is most impacted.

Receive a detailed, holistic view of your customer journey and touchpoints across all channels and lines of business.

Clearly see how your touchpoints affect your bottom line so you can ultimately improve it.

Objectively audit and measure your touchpoints: Touchpoint Dashboard tells a story about each touchpoint and assigns each one a score so you can gauge its effectiveness and value, as well as monitor operational consistency.

5. Gain Actionable Insights & a Solid Way to Manage & Measure Your Progress

Use Touchpoint Dashboard’s built-in intelligence to assess which touchpoints are costing you most in terms of loyalty, retention and profitability

Do a gap analysis Understand where you should build infrastructure and capabilities Spot and recognize best practices Generate insightful reports that you can use to create a prioritized action plans Chart your progress: Because your map and related assessments update automatically

when you add new information, you can easily measure and report on your progress 6. Easily Share Findings & Achieve Widespread Organizational Support

Visually represent all of the data you collected in a streamlined way and concisely present your findings to executive management

Use the actionable insights you derive from your map to build a compelling case for change

Deliver “dashboard” views of data that are customized for different stakeholders at different levels in the organization (executives, managers, associates).

Easily report the information that’s most relevant to your audience — provide an exec a high-level report, then turn around and show managers the details they need to take action.

Interested in adding the power of Touchpoint Dashboard to your customer journey mapping initiative? Contact us today!


About Touchpoint Dashboard

Touchpoint Dashboard is an interactive software platform that enables companies to collect, view and

manage all of their CEM data in one convenient location, thereby allowing them to take the reins of the

customer experience and define it in a customizable fashion. Using Touchpoint Dashboard, companies

can do the following:

• Map all touchpoints across the customer experience in a collaborative setting

• Store attributes about each interaction including cost, systems and voice of customer data

• Report on a host of customer-centric measures

• Perform analysis on where interactions are succeeding or failing

• Build business cases for improvements in any part of the organization that impacts the customer

This is the first software of its kind to collect, automate and visualize customer experience data in a

single location. Users can see areas of overlap that allow them to cut costs, as well as highlight pain

points for improvement initiatives. The software also allows users to pull in Voice of Customer and

Voice of Employee data to provide evidence to support prioritization of initiatives.


i Bruce Temkin, The Future of Customer Experience, August 2012

customer journey mapping an assortment of case study's and templates

Business

airline customers

customers shoes

illions of customers

time customers

customer experience

bad customer experience

percent of unhappy customers

bad experience