Without a picture of where, when, how and why customers engage with your company, you will never be able to positively impact their journey. This is a picture you need. And, it is a picture you — the CMO — must paint. It’s your roadmap. Not your strategy. So keep it simple. Your painting will take the shape of a customer journey map and should answer these critical questions:

  • When do my customers interact with my company?
  • Where do they interact with my company?
  • How do they interact with my company?
  • Why are they interacting with my company?

Let’s break each of these down so we can understand the data you really need to guide your customer experience strategy.

When do customers interact with my company?
This is the timing lens of your journey map. What you are looking for is when critical “interactions” take place between your company and customer in each phase of the journey — Awareness, Research, Selection, Purchase, etc. Your goal is to capture the interactions that matter and make a difference in the customer’s overall experience.

Where do they interact with my company?
Now that you know “when” these interactions happen, you need to understand “where” the interactions are taking place — more specifically, the environments or situations where these interactions occur. The “where” will define specific online and offline locations. Online locations might include: corporate website, social channels, live chat, e-commerce software, support systems, etc. Offline locations may include: sales, customer service, purchasing, and technical support.

How do they interact with my company?
Here you want to capture “how” customers interact with your company. For instance, if customers interact with the sales team during the “Purchase Phase” of their journey, the question you need to answer is how are they interacting with sales? Is it in face-to-face meetings, email correspondence or online demonstrations? There are a variety of interaction points. In most cases, these interactions will be facilitated through multiple — yet consistent — methods.

What is my customer’s desired outcome?
This is where we get to the “driving factor” or “intent” behind customer interactions. Here, you will need to answer questions like:

  • What is the customer trying to achieve with this interaction?
  • What is their state of mind on the front end of this interaction?
  • What is the state of mind you want them to leave with?

You need to understand your customer’s intent and state of mind entering and exiting specific interactions with your company. You need to capture personal and professional, actual and desired outcomes.

It’s Time to Start Painting.
Just like anything else in life, customer journey maps can get overly complicated. Your goal is to simplify. To focus on interactions that matter. Don’t let complexity stand in the way of progress. Start painting a picture of your customer journey today by answering these basic questions. You can always create a “Mona Lisa” later.