Journey Mapping

If you are coming from the user experience (UX) world, you are probably familiar with customer journey mapping. If you are coming from the customer experience (CX) or voice of the customer world, then you may be hearing more and more about journey mapping. This is the link between both worlds as more companies realize that the user experience is not limited to the usage of products, and the customer experience is not just about what happens when customers call customer service.

There are three main categories in journey mapping:

• Customer Journey Mapping: Focuses on the interactions a customer/user has with a company when trying to accomplish a goal (e.g. learn, try, buy, maintain, etc.)
• Human Experience Mapping: Focuses on an individual’s general experience within a particular product or service category without referring to a specific company (e.g. how consumers buy auto parts)
• Service Blueprint: Focuses on the alignment of customer-facing and back-end actions of the service process (e.g. customers’ use of hotel reservation systems and the company processes and resources to support them)

Why You Should Do It

In the current experience economy, it is important to understand the journey potential and current journeys customers take as they navigate a product/service category and interact with your company. It is also crucial for your organization’s processes to be aligned with the actions users take as they interact with your company.

You will win customers if you master this knowledge, but you will lose them if you don’t. Knowing your customer touchpoints and pain points will provide you with actionable insights to improve the customer experience. However, more important than that is the journey they take across those touchpoints.

Depending on how your organization is structured, and the nature of your products and services, your customers will have different journeys when they interact with your products and services. Some customers will have more pain points than others, therefore, you need to know which problems your customers are facing before you can fix them.

Mapping the customer experience either through customer journey mapping, human experience mapping or service blueprint mapping will allow your business to grow if you are willing to implement the insights you will gain from it.

The Approach

Journey mapping is conducted mainly through qualitative research. It requires the involvement of both key stakeholders in the organization and customers/users, particularly for customer journey mapping. The development of journey maps is often conducted in different phases and includes meeting with stakeholders, gathering available internal research and conducting external research with users for validation purposes.

In the case of customer journey mapping, it is important to understand the types of customers for which the experience is being mapped. Customer types are often described as “personas” who are involved in typical scenarios a particular customer segment may find itself in. If no persona research or customer segmentation has been conducted before journey mapping, we strongly recommend doing it. Without a clear idea of who the customer is, the journey mapping research is unlikely to provide useful insights.

Qualitative research methods we can use for journey mapping include:

• In-depth interviews (phone, online, and in-person)
• Diary studies
• Direct observation
• Contextual inquiry
• Competitive analysis (users use competitive products/services)

Target Audience Recruitment

Relevant Insights can recruit qualified B2C and B2B participants through our sample provider partners for both qualitative and quantitative research. Relevant Insights can also recruit participants from your customer database and will implement procedures to protect any identifiable personable information.

Another option is for you to recruit directly from your own customer database if data privacy restrictions don’t allow for customer data sharing. In this case, we will provide the necessary data collection tools or work with existing data collection tools (i.e. survey tools) if the data is required to remain in the account.

After a discussion with your team, we determine the sample parameters and assist with developing screeners. We also manage participant incentives.

Implementation

In direct collaboration with the client team, Relevant Insights will:

1. Conduct internal meetings with key stakeholder groups.
2. Gather and synthesize internal research available (e.g. surveys, customer support logs, voice of the customer feedback, etc.) in hypothetical maps.
3. Recommend the most appropriate qualitative research data collection method for the target sample.
4. Develop a discussion guide to uncover the journey being mapped.
5. Conduct qualitative research with customers/users (e.g. interviews, observations, etc.).
6. Discuss recommendations for sample size and sample sources. Sample size requirements will depend on the product category, target audience, and incidence rates, among other factors.
7. Monitor the field and provide daily reports on its progress and any issues that may arise.
8. Rent facilities or online platforms as needed.

Analytical Plan

Depending on the type of journey mapping, you the map may include

• Persona.
• Scenarios.
• Timeline.
• Journey phases.
• Interactions and behaviors.
• Thoughts.
• Feelings.
• Touchpoints.
• Barriers.
• Customer-interface actions.
• Backstage actions.
• Business opportunities for improvement.

Reporting

Relevant insights can provide different reporting options, which can be chosen based on budget and time constraints:

1. Summary of internal stakeholder meetings.
2. Short summary report with key findings for external research.
3. Full, detailed report with analysis, charts, tables, quotes, and graphics in an appealing format for external research.
4. Graphic representation of the journey map(s).

Typical Project Duration

Six to eight weeks.

Factors that can affect project duration include:

• The incidence rate of the target sample: The lower the incidence rate, the longer we need to stay in the field to gather the required data.
• Client team responsiveness: A delayed response to requests for feedback at different steps of the project, will stall a project and affect the delivery date.
• Timeline for stakeholder meetings.

Investment

The cost will vary depending on:

• Sample specifications and sample size.
• Reporting requirements.
• The number of stakeholder meetings/interviews.