The Customer Journey
The customer journey is changing and process mapping can help you to track it. 54% of consumers have higher customer service expectations than they did a year ago, meaning that you need to be in touch with your clients from the moment they become aware of your brand to long after they become a paying customer. Business process mapping is a powerful resource that can help you to stay in touch with the journey of your customers. In a business environment that is changing from a pure profit motive to a concern for customers and society more widely, mapping this customer journey is also a way to futureproof your business.
Start With Data Security
Process mapping is a data-heavy endeavor, which can conflict with your customers’ right to be treated with fairness and respect. This is why you should start by securing the data of consumers. By putting safety measures in place, people will feel more comfortable handing over data, allowing you to get a more accurate picture of their journey to become loyal paying customers.
Once you have put the security measures in place, you will be trusted to gather the information required. You will then be able to see who is viewing your ads as well as which marketing strategy is the most effective for user acquisition. None of this is possible if the necessary protections aren’t put in place upfront.
Know Your Buyer Persona Intimately
Gathering data ethically is one step, but you still need to know what to do with it. This means building up an accurate picture of your buyer persona, including their age, gender, and background. Until you know these vital characteristics, it will be hard to accurately map their buyers’ journey.
Your business process mapping should help to structure your organization around this buyer persona. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What kind of services do they require? This might encourage you to reallocate funds away from the marketing department and focus more on customer service, assuming that your customer is someone who values authentic interaction over ad campaigns.
Take Time Between Awareness and Purchase
Tracking every moment of a customer’s journey is the key to success in business. Touchpoints are instances in which a customer interacts with your brand and can come before, during, or after a purchase. Process mapping allows you to set up a company that caters to every touchpoint which might occur so that you can make the experience as positive as possible. One bad touchpoint can outweigh a dozen good ones, so this is why you need to use process mapping to your advantage.
Business process mapping has many advantages, but one of the most important regards the customer journey. Tracking their actions from their first contact with a brand to making a purchase requires collecting vast quantities of data, so start by building trust and protecting data in order to meet rising customer service expectations. After this, you have access to a buyer persona and touchpoints which allow you to accurately map a journey and increase your chances of business success.
By guest contributor Jennifer Hole