Hello everyone. Last time, I wrote about the survey planning (generally called as survey design) when conducting the primary research. In survey design, we need to define the items like “1. Survey objectives” -> “2. Target customer segment” -> “3. Analysis methods” -> “4. Number of samples”, right?
This time, I would like to write about “Customer Journey Mapping” which was introduced as one of the “3. Analysis methods” in the last post.
1. What is “Customer Journey Mapping”?
The business world these days is full of words like “_X”. ”CX (Customer Experience ⇒ Customer Satisfaction)”, ”EX (Employee Experience ⇒ Employee Satisfaction)”, ”DX (Digital Transformation. X in DX is Transformation, not Experience)”, etc. So many “_X”:) If we look back to 10 to 20 years ago, the business world was full of words like “_ _ M” such as “CRM” and “SCM”:) There are a lot of “buzzwords” all the time.
I went off the track a little, but we can say that customer journey mapping is a method that can be used to improve “CX” in the buzzwords these days.
Specifically, we clarify the customer’s “buying behavior (buying process)” and confirm the “contact point (also called as touchpoint)” between the customer and the company at each step on the buying process. Then, it is a method of identifying issues for each touchpoint and solving them. There are so many actual examples on the Internet, so let me put some links.
How to Create an Effective Customer Journey Map
How to Create a Customer Journey Map
2. Key points for “Customer Journey Mapping”
When identifying the buying process, it is important to think from the customer’s point of view, not from the company’s point of view. For that purpose, you can use the framework of “AIDMA (Attention/Interest/Desire/Memory/Action)” introduced in the previous post (Recently, there is another framework called “AISAS (Attention/Interest/Search/Action/Share)”).
And when actually doing customer journey mapping, first of all, define persona (a specific image of the target customer, such as “A woman who lives in 〇〇 and is of age 〇〇”). The important point here is that no matter how much the persona is refined and even if you can map the detailed buying behavior according to that persona, it is only a hypothesis. Thinking about personas and mapping out the buying process is fun, so we tend to get absorbed in it and feel a sense of accomplishment when we complete a map:)
The purpose of customer journey mapping is not to create a map, but to “test hypotheses based on the map, identify issues with your company’s touchpoints, and continue to solve the issues”. This is the important point.
3. How to proceed with hypothesis testing
There are several ways on proceeding with hypothesis testing.
It would be good if you could first find out which part of your company’s touchpoints have problems by conducting a customer satisfaction survey with a quantitative questionnaire, and then grasp the specific problems with a qualitative survey (interviews or mystery shoppers). It is important to continue to test hypotheses.
4. BtoB / BtoC
When it comes to customer journey mapping, the image of B to C may be strong, but the same method can be used for B to B. The difference is the method of customer survey at the time of hypothesis testing (see previous post).
That’s all for this time, and I would like to continue from the next time onwards. Thank you for reading until the end.