Summer is in full swing and time is flying by fast. Soon I will (finally!) finish school, get my diploma and officially become a CX specialist. Reflecting back to two years ago when I decided to go back to school, I am happy that I decided to go with it. I have developed new competences that I really cherish and am really grateful to have acquired. 

For any person that is having thoughts of changing paths, I highly recommend you to take that leap of faith, new knowledge is like going to the gym, you will never regret it, more like regret not doing it. Hopefully my next career step is not as far away as it might feel like in this quite challenging economy…

Today I want to continue on the subject of CX, because CX is my thing, and to me it is part of my mission to spread awareness about CX as a concept, since the term it is not as well known as it should be. As mentioned before in previous blog posts, some think customer experience equals customer service or UX. Let’s delve deeper into what CX could be in practice.

So for this post I want to focus on the customer journey, and customer journey mapping as a tool for visualising and creating awareness of the entirety of the customers’ interactions and experiences with the company. That includes before, during and after a purchase. 

So, what is the point of mapping the customer journey? 

Let us discuss some of the reasons: 

1. Understand your customer: A customer journey map should be made according to the customer’s perspective. Therefore it is a prerequisite to be knowledgeable about customer needs and desires, which kind of forces you to get to know them. Talk to them, who are they, and what makes them tick? Usage of a persona can help as a visualisation tool to better empathise with your customers. 
2. Development towards a seamless customer experience: The customer journey is a great tool for development. As mentioned above, by visualising the customer journey, it is easier to get a holistic view of the customer journey and enable development towards a seamless experience. One major benefit of journey mapping is that we make sure to include touchpoints within the customer journey that we do not directly account for. It could be touch points such as marketing by other actors, or being influenced by friends to act (or not to act) in a certain way. 
3. Mapping out the current state: What is our “Now”? Journey mapping is a great tool for understanding our current state of the customer journey. By having a clear understanding of the current state, it simplifies the process of developing our future state.

So those are some of the reasons to get going with that customer journey mapping.

Final point of this blog post: 

• A journey map is an excellent starting point for CX within an organisation. It is a great initiative to create engagement and involvement around the customer experience. 

See you in the next one.

Laura