CJM (Customer Journey Map)

A lot has been written about Customer Journey Maps (CJM): some resources are great, while others fall short. In this article, I'll consolidate all the knowledge and experience I've gathered to outline the essentials. Here, you'll find useful links, tools, and just a touch of theory.

Introduction

CJM is a vast topic that requires in-depth exploration, so I promise to write more articles explaining how to use journey maps and how to create them. In this article, we'll cover the basic principles of CJM and some theories related to how people interact with your product and their journey.

My Experience and Approach

In digital design since 2007. I've been focusing on user interfaces and interaction design since 2014. At our agency, ZAYATS, we focus on UX consulting for small and medium-sized businesses and the digital transformation of offline companies. We use a scientific approach to design, helping our clients create a seamless customer experience (CX) at every stage of interaction with potential customers.

Prioritizing Customer Experience (CX)

The key takeaway to remember at every stage of product development is that improving customer experience (CX) should be the primary focus, even over the product itself. Ideally, the product would be perfect, but if we have to prioritize, CX takes the lead. Here's why.

A New Perspective on CX

Customer Experience (CX) is the sum of all interactions a person has with a company at every stage. CX includes all touchpoints with your product: from navigating screens in an app to contacting support and receiving email newsletters. CX holds a pivotal role in shaping a successful digital product. CJM is an integral part of CX and is crucial in influencing customer perceptions of your company.

Imagine you book tickets for an important trip through an airline's website. However, it turns out that the seats you booked are unavailable, despite being shown as available. You end up canceling the booking over a phone call, waiting on hold, asking the operator to cancel the order because the money has already been deducted, and then starting the search for tickets all over again. Now, you're frustrated and missing your scheduled meeting. You're unhappy with the service, the website, and overall displeased with the airline's customer support. These feelings towards the airline define your CX.

Theory

A Customer Journey Map (CJM) is a visual representation of all the events when a user interacts with a company, from the initial contact to the purchase. It helps understand the routes and variations of interactions and influence them. It's important not to confuse CJM with User Flow.

CJM ≠ User Flow

User Flow illustrates the customer's path within an interface and doesn't include the stages of need formation and solution search. CJM, however, covers not only user behavior in the product but also how the need was formed, how the customer searched for a solution, and why they may have abandoned it.

What Tasks Does CJM Solve?

Sales Optimization

• Improve customer experience to boost sales, and conversions, or reduce sales cycles and marketing costs through process automation.

Complete Understanding

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of customer interactions with your product, allowing you to identify and close gaps with strategies that satisfy customers.

Automation

• Automate parts of the workflow by enhancing the customer journey. For example, implement AI to re-engage users who didn't complete a purchase.

Retention

• Enhance the customer experience to increase the loyalty of current and potential customers, leading to more repeat visits or purchases.

Consistency

• Ensure seamless coordination between all departments and communication channels of your company.

Identifying Growth Points

• Use CJM to design new experiences, enter adjacent markets, launch new products with minimal costs, and better understand how to attract and influence customers.

When and Who Doesn't Need CJM?

If your product's demand hasn't been validated, building a CJM would be inefficient and yield no results. But what about startups? For startups without verified product demand, I recommend using cusdev technique with early access to a demo version (MVP) and conducting numerous user interviews. This helps create a good product and eventually build an excellent journey map.

Three Types of CJM

As-Is

The As-Is customer journey map depicts the current customer journey based on real data from research and analytics. This type of map helps identify the stages customers go through when interacting with a product or service, the problems they encounter, and what frustrates them. The primary goal of the As-Is map is to uncover the reasons for customer drop-offs during interactions.

To-Be

The To-Be customer journey map represents the ideal customer journey, typically designed when developing a new product or service. At ZAYATS, we frequently use this type of CJM for quickly launching our clients' products. This map is based on hypotheses, existing customer data, and expert team evaluations. It illustrates the customer journey as it should be, according to general consensus. A key feature of this CJM type is the need for validation and refinement through testing, usually taking around 2-3 months.

Generic

Generic maps are used for multiple products or scenarios to simplify the creation of new maps. For instance, the registration process on a website, which always involves the same actions. These maps aim to streamline the mapping process for recurring activities.

Objectives of Each Type of CJM

The goals of each type of map vary significantly from project to project. Here are some examples of correctly defining these objectives:

• Designing Business Processes: During the development phase of a new product (with validated demand), use the map to design efficient business processes.
• Identifying Barriers: Find and eliminate obstacles that customers face.
• Spotting Growth Opportunities: Identify potential areas for product improvement.
• Retrospective Analysis: Evaluate how customer behavior has changed over time (if a map was previously created).

It's crucial that the development of a CJM is not isolated from other company processes. CJM is a strategic tool that should integrate into the company's customer experience management system. After designing the map, there should either be a set of products to expand the customer journey or a set of hypotheses to improve weak points in the journey.

How to Form a CJM?

Before starting the customer journey map research, address key questions clearly:

1. What do we want to research?
2. Why is this research necessary? If the goal isn't clear, the results may be irrelevant.
3. How will the results be used?
4. What will happen if we don't conduct the research?
5. What decisions will be made based on the data?
6. What are the next steps after the research?
7. What is the timeline for conducting the research?
8. In what format are the results needed?
9. What sections are required in the CJM?

By answering these questions, you can ensure that the CJM will be relevant, actionable, and effectively integrated into your business strategy.

Developing Personas and Defining Audience Segments

Each segment has its own needs and motivations. Therefore, it's essential to depict different interaction scenarios with the product. Initially, you can focus on key segments that bring in the most revenue. The first step is to create profiles of your clients, often referred to as Personas, though in Europe, the term Customer Avatar is frequently used.

Segmentation Methods

• Socio-Demographic Segmentation: This method is more suitable for B2C products.
• Jobs To Be Done (JTBD): Here, the audience is segmented based on situations and the ultimate goal the customer wants to achieve. This method is ideal for B2B products.

Data Collection

Methods for Data Collection:

• Interviews
• Observation
• Web Analytics Data
• Analysis of Customer Interactions (e.g., call center records, tNPS comments). tNPS (Transactional Net Promoter Score): % of loyal customers minus % of disloyal customers.

I’m confident you are well-versed in using web analytics services and observing your audience, so I won’t delve into those methods. Instead, I'll focus on interviews, as they can provide more accurate data on user behavior.

Interviews

Preparation of Instructions

This document ensures you don't waste time generating questions on the fly during the interview and helps you remember to cover all aspects of interaction with the product.

Audience

Here, advice is divided into two principles:

• If you have a budget: Delegate this task to agencies.
• If you don’t have a budget: Network, ask in social media, and participate in discussions in specialized groups.

Conducting Interviews

Use prepared questions to systematically gather insights from your audience.

By focusing on these steps, you can create comprehensive customer personas and effectively segment your audience to enhance your product's user experience and drive business growth.

Designing CJM

Now we get to the most interesting part. "Ideal" Customer Journey Maps (CJM) follow a specific pattern — the X-axis represents the lifecycle stages, while the Y-axis represents layers of information. Let’s start with the X-axis.

1. Unawareness: The customer is not aware of the brand or doesn’t recognize the problem yet.
2. Awareness: The customer realizes a need but hasn't started searching for solutions.
3. Solution Search: The customer begins comparing available solutions.
4. Decision or Purchase: The customer selects a solution and makes a purchase.
5. Initial Use: The customer starts using the product.
6. Active Engagement: The customer fully experiences the product.
7. Support: The customer begins interacting with the company for support.
8. Loyalty: The customer likes the product, becomes a regular user, and recommends it to others.
9. Departure: The customer stops using the product or switches to a competitor.

The Y-axis is more complex.

Information Layers

The layers of information can vary depending on the data collected and the goals of the research. Here are common layers:

Important Aspect

1 CJM = 1 audience segment. Only after designing maps for all target segments should you start merging them to form a general pattern.

Filling in the Information

We have prepared a template that now needs to be filled out. Here are the CJM rules to keep in mind when creating the map:

• Don't try to build the "Death Star" right away and cover everything. Focus on something specific. One Persona = one map.
• CJM should not lie "dead" in your workspace. It is a living strategic unit that should be regularly updated and refined.
• No block should exist "in the air." Every element of the map should have connections (how it was reached and what comes next).

Don't forget to create a LEGEND. A good CJM is one that everyone can understand.

Tools. Where to Design?

Here are the top programs for creating CJMs. But in reality, you can even use a simple Word document.

• Figma Jam
• Miro: A collaborative online whiteboard platform
• Smaply: Specialized tool for journey mapping
• UXPressia: Another specialized tool for creating customer journey maps

That's all I have for today. If you need a comprehensive approach to UX and professional advice, drop me a line for a free 15-min intro consultation.