What is a Customer Journey Map:
Definition, Different Stages, and Advantages

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What is a Customer Journey Map?

Customer journey encompasses the complete experience a customer has with your business. It includes every interaction, or touchpoint, within the customer lifecycle; from awareness to advocacy.

A customer journey map is a visual representation of a customer journey. It maps out each touch point within customer journey in a chronological order to ensure that no customer slips through the cracks.

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Different Stages of Customer Journey

In order to conduct customer journey mapping, it is important to understand the different phases of customer journey. There are five main stages of customer journey, and they are:

Awareness (pre-sale)

This is the phase within customer journey where your potential customer identifies that they have a problem or a need, and are looking for a solution. Within this stage, you must show them the value you could provide to them, in order to gain their interest and trust.

Consideration (pre-sale)

Consideration is the second stage in customer journey where customers have narrowed down their options but are still evaluating each one by looking at additional information. In this stage, your product is being compared to other solutions within the market. They may be reading customer reviews, doing price comparisons, and reading additional details on your product or service.

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Purchase (post-sale)

The third stage within customer journey is known as purchase, or decision. In this stage, your prospective customer has done all the research they needed to and has made their decision on which company’s solution will best address their needs.

Retention (post-sale)

The fourth stage in customer journey is known as the customer retention stage. In this stage, you must follow up with your customer to collect their feedback on their purchase and their experience. It is roughly five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to maintain an existing one, therefore this is a vital stage that must not be neglected once the sale is made.

Advocacy (post-sale)

The final stage in the customer journey is advocacy. This is the stage where your customer becomes an advocate for your brand, referring it to friends and family through word-of-mouth marketing. This is the hardest stage to achieve as customers will only advocate for your brand if they had a great overall experience with your company, at every touchpoint.

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Advantages of Customer Journey Mapping

Outlines Gaps in Customer Service

Customer journey mapping allows you to view every touchpoint with a magnifying glass, helping you outline the gap between customer experience and customer expectations. Once you have identified this gap, you can work towards improving customer service, so as to meet customer expectations.

Helps Define Clear Goals

Customer journey maps outline pain points and different areas within customer journey where improvements need to be made, allowing you to set clear goals for your organization. These goals should clearly define the tasks that need to be executed by every department, so that employees have a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

Reduces Costs

Companies that have powerful customer journey management programs will experience an improvement in the cost of customer service due to reduced expenses.

Helps Improve Customer Satisfaction

Customer journey maps help you outline problems and solve them proactively. It helps you improve on every touchpoint within the customer journey, ultimately resulting in an increase in customer satisfaction.

Increased Sales

Customer journey maps ensure that decision-makers remain focused on the needs of customers. By keeping customers in focus, you significantly improve customer satisfaction which will result in an increase in word-of-mouth marketing. This could increase sales and revenue.

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FAQs

What are pain points within customer journey?

Pain points refer to any problems that customers may experience along the customer journey.

What are the phases of customer journey?

There are five stages of customer journey and they are:

Pre-Sale

Awareness
Consideration

Post-Sale

Purchase
Retention
Advocacy

What are some advantages of mapping customer journeys?

These are a few advantages of customer journey mapping:

Helps define clear goals
Reduces costs
Improves customer service

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