Customer journey mapping

For as long as there has been a product, there has been a customer journey. Today, the customer journey is being articulated in increasingly fancy documents, in various forms and fashions.

Here is a basic-level customer journey that you are ‘e-walking’ through right now.

The applications for customer journey mapping at differing levels of detail are manifold, including:

• Understanding the current experience vis-à-vis customers’ expectations
• Analysing moments of delight, negativity, and opportunities
• Inputs for service innovation and co-creation
• Cross-functional planning and resource allocation
• Identification of learning needs for people development

Think about great customer experiences, and one’s mind inevitably wanders to the dreamy land of Disney – and not without reason.

On a recent family vacation onboard the Disney Dream Cruise, my kids had a blast at the kids club. Think Andy’s room from Toy Story, the cockpit of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon for the Star Wars fans, craft sessions, and non-stop entertainment.

Just as we were all suffering from Mickey withdrawal weeks after the cruise ended, this postcard (made by my daughter at the kids club) came in the mail!

Understanding the customer journey, like Disney, helps you to design the right moments to create desired memories, and to grow your relationships with your customers.

However, simple as journey mapping may seem, it is both an art and a science, involving an acute understanding of customers’ needs, conscious and unconscious – which are also constantly evolving. The transformation of the customer experience then needs to be supported by a plethora of factors such as cultural change, staff empowerment, realigning resources and measurements, amongst others.

Finally, a delicately executed change management process is critical to any customer experience initiative, without which, the customer journey map would simply be another decorative document adorning the walls of the office hallway.