To improve customer relations, build better brands, and gain new customer acquisition – the customer journey is educational for your business. ForbesOpens a new window explains what customer journey mapping is in the following:
Customer journey mapping helps to visualize a customer’s experience from their specific point of view, across all the various touchpoints they have with a brand as they seek to achieve a specific goal leading to conversion. The resulting visualization emphasizes a high level of clarity and transparency, allowing companies to better serve their customer and effectively target its own objectives and goals.
There are numerous ways that businesses can utilize their customer’s journey to achieve knowledge that affects every aspect of the company – from sales to experiences.
Customer Service
Knowing how your customers are being serviced is integral to any business. Customer experience is at the core of how the business is perceived, acquisition of new customers, and retaining current clients. Without having an idea of your customers’ experience, you cannot gauge what to improve upon.
In fact, according to Entrepreneur:
A Bloomberg Businessweek survey revealed that “delivering a great customer experience†has become the new imperative: 80% of the companies polled rated customer experience as a top strategic objective. White House Office of Consumer Affairs found that 80% of US consumers would pay more for a product or service to ensure a superior customer experience.
Targeted Engagement
One of the key metrics in the customer experience or journey is the engagement of the person you are targeting within your business. By knowing how the customer reacts to the experience you offer, you can better target other customers as well as keep the ones you currently have.
Some online retailers have found that by improving the customer journey, they make the experience more pleasant. Some examples include suggestions on what to buy based on prior purchases and search history; it’s all about making the experience unique to each customer.
Increase New Customer Investment
The very life blood of a company is their customers. Retaining the ones you have is important but so is garnering new ones. By using customer journey analytics, it is easier to leverage that information in order to understand what the customer wants, likes, and is engaged in as it pertains to your company.
One major retailer found that it is more important for their customers to stay loyal to their brands rather than focusing on customers only shopping at their store. This enabled them to acquire new customers and retain the old ones based on the fact that customers are loyal to experiences not channels. This cross-channel way of marketing is hugely successful and provides an entry point to their store and this increases new customers.
Reduce Customer Loss
Customer churn is detrimental to any business but by using customer journey analytics, companies can use that data to gain insight into why a customer may move on to somewhere else. These at-risk customers have valuable insight into the customer’s preferences and what areas are causing discord.
In Deloitte’s 2017 Retail, Wholesale, And Distribution Industry Outlook ReportOpens a new window , it was found that a wireless provider based in the United States had found that using customer journey analytics gave insight on customer calls for support. This data gave their agents knowledge on how a caller addresses issues, what needs to be resolved with the issue, and how to deliver a customer service experience that is thoughtful, helpful, and better than what was delivered in the past.
Based on their findings, a one-half of one percent increase in customer churn or retention is estimated to be worth over $1 billion in revenue for the company. On top of the gain in revenue, the company minimized call center volumes by 30 percent which saved 15 dollars per call without impacting service levels negatively.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Along with retaining customers, the customer lifespan is a key metric that should not be ignored. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metrics provide a unique look into what keeps the customer loyal. Whether it is through personalized experiences after a large ticket item has been purchased or a loyalty program, this is a way to increase repeat business and purchases.
For example, many car dealerships reach out to the customer after the purchase of a new car. Whether they offer free oil changes or simply keep in touch with the customer to offer them a reward for referrals, it makes the experience and customer journey more positive and creates a sense of loyalty.
Return on Marketing (ROMI) Increase
By putting customer journey mapping to use, businesses will see a return on marketing (ROMI) increase. This is because the data is collected at every touchpoint, which showcases what is working and what needs work.
Today’s companies know how important the customer journey is to their business and using these analytics increases the ability to understand customer behavior and create experiences that not only keeps the customers you already have but helps you gain insight on new customer acquisition. This gives companies an edge on competitors and provides a value that is integral to the customer experience.