How can you map the customer journey to increase advocacy and referrals?

2 Identify your customer segments and personas

Next, you need to know who your customers are and what they want. You can segment your customers based on various criteria, such as demographics, behavior, needs, preferences, or goals. Then, you can create personas for each segment, which are fictional representations of your ideal customers. Personas help you empathize with your customers and understand their motivations, challenges, expectations, and emotions. You can use data from surveys, interviews, analytics, or other sources to create realistic and relevant personas.

4 Identify the advocacy and referral moments

As you map the current customer journey, you should also look for the moments where your customers are most likely to advocate for or refer your brand to others. These are the moments where your customers are delighted, satisfied, or impressed by your value proposition, service, or product. They are also the moments where your customers have a strong emotional connection with your brand, such as trust, gratitude, or loyalty. You should highlight these moments and analyze what makes them successful and memorable.

5 Design the ideal customer journey

Based on your analysis of the current customer journey and the advocacy and referral moments, you can design an ideal customer journey that maximizes the potential for advocacy and referrals. Utilizing the same visual tool, you should include the desired actions, thoughts, and feelings of the customer, as well as the touchpoints, channels, and interactions with your brand that support them. Additionally, solutions, improvements, and innovations should be included to eliminate or reduce any pain points, gaps, or friction points. Lastly, strategies, tactics, and incentives should be implemented to enhance or create the advocacy and referral moments.

6 Implement and evaluate the ideal customer journey

Finally, you need to implement and evaluate the ideal customer journey that you designed. You can use various methods, such as prototyping, testing, feedback, or experimentation, to validate your assumptions and measure the impact of your changes. You should also monitor and track the metrics and goals that you defined at the beginning of the process. You should also be ready to iterate and improve your customer journey based on the results and insights that you gather.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?