CJM: everything you need to know about the customer journey map

When developing a new product, every business representative first of all thinks about how their product will become in demand on the market, enjoy stable demand over a long period of time, bringing good profit. Only a high-quality product will help to ensure all this. And here we are talking not only about direct quality in the general understanding of this word, but also about the extent to which it is able to satisfy the demands of the consumer market. This means that from the very beginning you need to understand who you, as a business representative, are focusing on when launching production. Attention should be paid to the problems, needs of potential clients, their pains, emotions, prohibitions.

The point is that any business that would like to develop should release only those products that can solve other people's problems. That is, the task is to increase the value of the product to the maximum. And this means - to meet the needs of a potential buyer as quickly and easily as possible, remove any prohibitions and negative emotions, enhance the positive from the product during interaction with him. This will be the secret of its successful promotion on the market.

A tool such as CJM, that is, a customer journey map, helps to implement this idea as effectively and simply as possible. This is a modern visualization tool that can clearly display the entire process of interaction between a person and your product, from the emergence of the very idea of a purchase and up to subsequent use. This is what will allow you to better understand your potential buyer along with their needs, requests and, as a result, satisfy them.

Now we will dwell in more detail on what CJM is and why it is important for any marketer to take it into account. We will get acquainted with its structure and describe in detail, step by step, how to implement everything in practice as correctly as possible. We will highlight the main mistakes and consider the problems that a specialist may encounter when developing CJM. The information presented will help you to orient yourself in as much detail as possible in what a customer journey map is and implement the upcoming work as correctly as possible. Thanks to this, you will be able to optimize your own sales strategy and, moreover, launch a product on the market from the very beginning that will be of high quality in all manifestations of this word, which will become the basis for its effective promotion on the market.

What is CJM and what is its advantage

CJM, that is, Customer journey map, is a technology that involves visualizing the customer's path, starting from finding a suitable product and up to his direct purchase. The final map can be presented in the form of a table, infographics, diagram. Along with all the points of interaction between the buyer and business representatives, it will also display a detailed description, so to speak, of the emotional state of the buyer, his experiences, impressions, positive moments from interacting with the store. This information is necessary so that the manager can really understand the buyer, his requests, experiences and show that his problem can be solved with the help of the product. The information obtained will form the basis for building an effective sales funnel in the future and will minimize various problems that may arise at this stage.

Visual display of the customer's path — this is what will help:

• see the points where a potential buyer comes into contact with your business;
• understand the difficulties your client faces;
• see which specific moments had a key influence on the decision to place an order;
• highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the launched marketing strategy;
• improve the entire process of interaction between the buyer and your business, as well as a direct understanding of the audience;
• improve the quality of service, find ways to increase conversion;
• reduce the entire sales cycle along the funnel, including by eliminating unnecessary touchpoints;
• increase the number of sales, including through regular customers;
• identify triggers that will contribute to the launch of “word of mouth” radio."

That is, the Customer journey map is something that can provide marketers and any other participants in the sales process with the most accurate and clear picture of the interaction between a potential buyer and a brand's product or service. Thanks to high visualization, all information will be perceived as effectively as possible. It will be easy to understand and remember. But in this case, a high result will only be achieved if you manage to implement the upcoming work as correctly as possible.

Customer journey map and buyer journey: what is the difference?

Before moving on to a deeper acquaintance with the customer journey map itself, let's get acquainted with another strategy that is also actively used in Internet marketing and highlight the key differences. In particular, we are talking about the buyer journey, that is, the route of a potential buyer. The first thing I would like to note is that the Customer journey map is this is something that literally exists on its own, that is, it does not depend on the overall marketing strategy and all the actions that specialists take when interacting with potential clients.

This is a kind of individual buyer's route, allowing you to understand how a person behaved even before direct contact with managers. This is how he basically had the need to buy a particular product, how he managed to find your site or another online representative, what related products he was interested in, what characteristics and properties he paid special attention to, and what factors were decisive in the process of choosing a particular product or service. That is, CJM is used directly to build a sales funnel.

In order to attract the attention of the consumer audience, as well as transform visitors into buyers, it is important to develop a comprehensive and step-by-step strategy that will necessarily include 3 key stages:

1. Awareness. The point is that a person understands that he needs a particular product or service.
2. Consideration. At this stage, a potential buyer gets acquainted with the market and what exactly it can offer him, what stores or companies work in this niche.
3. Decision making. At this stage, a person already understands what product he needs, knows where to buy it and chooses the final option for placing an order.

This entire linear path that we described is the customer's route, that is, the buyer's journey. If you study it, you can increase the number of sales, hold the attention of the audience. To make it clearer how this technique works, let's look at a simple example. Let's assume that we have 2 online stores that offer the market approximately the same products. Both of them have high-quality sites with a fairly similar number of visitors. Well, their strategies at the stage of attracting the user audience will be different.

So, the first store uses the classic scheme of providing additional discounts on the first purchase to attract the attention of the user audience, and here an e-mail newsletter is used as a means of communication with the audience. This solution has every right to exist, since it is aimed at people who prefer to buy products at a discount. But the problem is that notifications in this case may not work as the marketer expects: the percentage of open emails remains at a fairly low level today. This means that many of the potential buyers will not even know about the tempting offers you have prepared for them.

But another online store took a completely different path. It initially carried out quite a large-scale work and created a customer journey map. Based on this information, it became clear that the vast majority of the target audience is looking for the products that the business has at its disposal through a social network, say, Instagram. With this information, marketers developed the customer journey itself, that is, the buyer journey, made adjustments to the overall sales funnel and focused on attracting potential buyers by launching advertising on Instagram. In practice, this strategy showed excellent results, since it was aimed directly at the site where the main audience is represented.

That is, the buyer journey is an important element of the overall customer journey map strategy, but far from its only component. We will talk further about what elements CJM consists of and how to correctly build it in practice.

CJM structure: getting acquainted with the main components

The first thing I would like to draw your attention to here is that the structure of the customer journey map can be different depending on what point you want to focus on. But still, in most cases, CJM will include the following elements:

• The actor, that is, the one at whom your strategy will be aimed. This is your potential client. Basically, this will be a generalized image of a certain segment of the target audience, composed of the core of the main groups of your buyers or based on several specific people. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the more detailed the work you do at this stage, the better results you will get in the end. It is important to clearly understand what interests your potential buyers have, because this is the only way you can satisfy them. It is also important to understand what keeps people from buying, what fears and worries they experience. This means that the key stage in carrying out these works is drawing up a portrait of the target audience.
• The goals that a potential client sets for themselves, their expectations from cooperation with you. It is important to understand how exactly the client's need to purchase your product or service arises, what exactly contributes to this. If you understand this, you will be able to influence the subconscious of buyers, systematically moving them to make a purchase on your website.
• The main stages that your buyer will go through. Practice shows that in most cases, direct interaction with the client begins long before they enter your offline store or online catalog. Initially, he may see your advertisement, learn about your business from friends or acquaintances, read a post on social networks, etc. And then at each stage he may have completely different goals and objectives. That is, it is important to take into account this distribution and develop a separate strategy for each stage, solving exactly those problems and tasks that buyers face at a certain point in time. The most common stages in practice are the formation of awareness and search for relevant information, selection of a company for subsequent cooperation, study of relevant online platforms, be it an official business website, a social network, visiting the store itself and making a purchase, delivery, stimulating the client to new orders, etc.
• Touchpoints. Here we are talking about all situations, places, interfaces where communication with the target audience takes place, where buyers encounter your products and services. This could be a phone call, correspondence via online chat, interaction via social networks, reviews, forums and other events. This could also include direct communication with employees in the office, a visit to a store or office.
• Potential buyer's emotions and actions. This section of the CJM will indicate the actual behavior of a person during interaction with you, as well as all the steps that he will take from the moment he realizes the need to purchase a product and up to repeat purchases. It is very important to try to analyze the client's train of thought, understand what questions he has and what motivations he has. At each stage, the needs for information will also be different. If you have direct quotes from such studies, this will be the optimal material for research. Particular attention at this stage should be paid directly to emotions. This is something that should be researched along the entire path, because this is the only way to understand which of your actions caused useful emotions in the audience, which, on the contrary, caused negative feelings and, perhaps, even became the reason for refusing further interaction. That is, in the end, you will get a kind of line that will clearly indicate what the client was satisfied with, and what, on the contrary, disappointed with.
• Barriers that arise on the client's path. Now we are talking about what problems, difficulties arose at one stage or another and, possibly, led to negative consequences, up to and including refusal to cooperate. You must understand that the more problems a person encounters when interacting with your business, the more likely it is that he will take the easier path, namely, turn to your competitors for a purchase. Try to put yourself in the buyer's shoes and go through his entire path. Perhaps you will be able to see what exactly caused the person's dissatisfaction, what disappointed him and, as a result, you will be able to identify the problem and eliminate it.
• Work on yourself. This is what will help improve the service and the product itself, optimize the entire interaction process, and improve the user experience. At this stage, you need to clearly understand how to properly manage all the knowledge and skills that you acquired at the previous stages, which specialists need to be involved to perform the necessary work, on which platform you will be able to organize more effective and faster interaction. It is also very important to understand what methods will be used to evaluate the achieved results, that is, how exactly you will be able to measure the implemented improvements.

As you can see, CJM involves the implementation of a fairly large amount of work, many of which require a comprehensive professional approach and creativity. And in order to achieve good results and get a really high-quality map that will clearly show you all the client's movements, their emotions, you need to work hard. And this means that you need to understand how to properly build your CJM.

Building a customer journey map correctly: step-by-step instructions

Each CJM map is a unique solution that takes into account the specifics of the business, the characteristics of its target audience, as well as many other specific features and nuances. But still, despite all its diversity and individuality, the general principle of building a customer journey map will be quite similar. If you understand how to do everything using a basic example, you can then easily transfer all this to your business, making minor adjustments to the standard solution. To make it clearer, we will consider this entire process using a travel agency as an example. There are 5 main stages to be implemented here:

1. Creating a persona, that is, a generalized image of your client.
2. Determining the main stages along the client's journey.
3. Determining the goal facing the client.
4. Determining the points of contact, intersection with the client.
5. Direct visualization of the entire client's journey.

Now we will consider each of these stages in more detail so that you understand what points you should pay special attention to and can use the information obtained in practice.

Creating a generalized image of your client

A persona in a customer journey map is a collective image of potential clients containing their behavioral characteristics, needs, and wishes. The tasks that people face at a certain stage are also taken into account, taking into account their life scenarios and situations. Let's assume that our person is Ekaterina Sidorova. She is 30 years old, has a husband, a four-year-old child, and her income level allows the family to vacation twice a year. Ekaterina has been to many countries and understands what a quality vacation should be like, but she is never against saving on a tour.

We can also add here the countries that Ekaterina prefers to visit, taking into account the flight distance, service level, pricing policy, availability of infrastructure for families with children, etc.

Defining the main stages along the client's route

By stages of the route, we mean all the steps that your client will take, and in our case, this is Ekaterina Sidorova. The most rational solution in this case is to put yourself in this person's shoes. What would you personally think about before interacting with your agency, as well as during it and immediately after. It is important to combine all this into logical groups and provide appropriate names. Here, everything will directly depend on what market niche you are working in and what stages your potential buyer should go through. Break it all down into 3 key time stages: before using the service or making a purchase, directly during direct interaction with your business, and after the purchase has been made.

If we return to the example of Katya Sidorova and the travel agency, then all the main stages can be divided into the following sub-stages:

• The emergence of a desire, and perhaps even a need to go on vacation.
• Choosing a travel agency through which Ekaterina would like to arrange a package tour.
• Directly contacting the agency for advice.
• Working through all the options that were offered by travel agents: country, price, infrastructure, distance from the sea, attractions, etc.
• Ordering the selected tour, making payment.
• The actual vacation.
• Feedback from the agency to Ekaterina to find out how much she remained satisfied with the vacation itself and the process of interaction with managers.
• Repeat request for a new tour.

These are preliminary sketches, which you will be able to refine and modify in any case during further work with the map. Therefore, if you initially cannot give the correct name to each stage, write it as simply as possible. The main thing is that you yourself understand what is being discussed in this case.

Defining the goal facing the client.

Only if you know what your potential client expects, you will be able to satisfy their needs. It is very important that the goals of your business coincide with the goals of the buyers of goods or services. It is clear that if at some point in time Ekaterina Sidorova decides to buy a car, your travel agency is unlikely to help her with this. But you will be able to choose a tour for her that will best meet her needs and goals. That is, you will close her current need, thereby increasing her loyalty and trust in your company as a whole.

Let's assume that it is inconvenient for Ekaterina to communicate with managers during working hours, since she works herself and her schedule coincides with the schedule of your agency. This is the barrier that must be overcome. Alternatively, you can agree in advance on what period of non-working hours she would like to receive advice and then ask your managers to get in touch at this time and work for an additional fee. That is, the barrier will be overcome: Ekaterina gets the consultation she needs at a time convenient for her, and your manager gets an additional amount to her salary.

Determining the points of intersection with the client

In this case, we are talking about the stages at which you will come into contact with your clients. In our example, this will be:

1. The desire to go on vacation and, as a result, the search for a good agency that will help you choose a tour.
2. Direct selection of the agency. At this stage, reviews that are on the Internet, profiles on social networks and all comments from previous clients are very often studied. Attention is paid to the site itself, since it is important to understand what areas this or that organization works in and whether it will be able to satisfy Ekaterina's requests. Often at this stage, they turn to friends and acquaintances.
3. Direct request for advice. Ekaterina contacts your manager, provides him with introductory information for searching for a tour and waits for a selection of suitable options.
4. Ordering the purchase of a tour, as an option, at the agency office. Here it is important to think through everything down to the smallest detail, starting from the availability of a free parking space and up to the most convenient methods of paying for the tour.
5. The vacation itself. Here Ekaterina will evaluate how truthful the information provided by the managers was, how correctly they understood her wishes and requests, and also took them into account.
6. Feedback. The agency manager contacts Ekaterina after the vacation in order to find out what grade she would give them for their work, what she liked, and where, perhaps, there was negativity. Along with communication with the manager, you can ask to leave a review, which will subsequently be added to the site or another service.
7. Repeat return. Six months have passed, and Ekaterina is planning a vacation. Now she skips the stage of searching for a suitable agency (provided that the initial experience was positive), that is, she immediately contacts the managers of your agency. Perhaps you yourself decide to remind Katya that she has not been on vacation for a long time and you have a tempting offer for her with last minute tours or additional discounts.

As you have probably already noticed, the contacts between Ekaterina and the travel agency almost coincide with the main stages of customer research. This is understandable, since at each of them the business representative and the potential client will interact. And here it is important to understand what tasks the person will face and offer the best way to solve them. If there are stages that cause negative emotions, then you need to understand what the main reason for this is and make adjustments to your own strategy in order to improve the user experience.

Visualization of the customer journey

At this stage, we already have everything we need to create a visual customer journey map. Here, you don’t need to try to fit as much information into it as possible. It will be enough to simply highlight the main stages that we have already described above, but here it is important to add as much useful information as possible, take into account many small details. This is what will allow you to ultimately obtain a high-quality CJM map, which another manager will also be able to easily navigate if he or she has to serve this client.

You choose the map option individually, focusing on which particular design method will be more convenient for you to work with in the future: a diagram, infographics, hand-drawn, etc. There are really many options and there are no strict rules or recommendations here. But in any case, the final version should be as clear and easy to perceive as possible.

The most common mistakes in developing CJM

If you want your customer journey map to be really high-quality and working, so that it significantly simplifies working with the audience in the future, try to minimize the errors that occur when working with it. And here our recommendations will help you:

• Always break your target audience into segments and then create a map for each of them. Unfortunately, there is no one universal path that every business can follow. This does not work in practice. You must clearly understand who you are targeting at a given time and what result you want to get in the end.
• You should not rely only on your own feelings. We said above that when processing the main stages, you can put yourself in the shoes of a potential client and understand what he would like to get from you in one case or another. But you can't rely on this completely, because in any case you are an interested party who thoroughly understands the specifics of your work and knows what nuances to pay attention to. Therefore, it is worth connecting tools for collecting information to your work, including end-to-end and web analytics services, CRM. That is, your guesses and assumptions are good, but it is also very important to test them in practice directly on real consumers.
• Mark all stages of the client's "journey" on the CJM map, and not just what is directly related to sales. That is, it is important to consider what exactly led a person to interact with your business, what impressions he had afterwards. The more you know about a potential client, the better quality services you can provide him.

But it is also very important to analyze existing problems and find ways to solve them. A properly composed CJM will allow you to understand what impressions customers have of interacting with your business, and to assess the likelihood of their repeat contact. So, in most cases, at the stage of choosing a suitable store or company for cooperation, the client initially pays attention to reviews. Here, the probability of making a mistake and choosing the wrong option is one of the main fears. And if it turns out that there is little feedback about your business on the Internet, then such a search may well not be successful. That is, it is important to work on getting feedback, even to the point of offering customers additional compensation for a review.

Potential clients also evaluate the quality of the website itself. It should be visual, easy to navigate, and informative. The client should receive maximum information by studying your online presence, while he will contact the managers for clarification of small details. If we return to our example, you can add the tour selection function directly to the main screen. Thanks to this, Ekaterina will be able to navigate in different travel directions in terms of price, location, and other parameters, and even independently select a hotel that meets her needs. As a result, the work of your managers will be reduced to simply arranging the tour itself.

It is also very important to monitor the relevance of the information presented on the website. Let's assume that Ekaterina used your tour selection form and found a hotel in Kemer that completely suited her. She was shown the price of a 10-day tour for three (2 adults and 1 child) on an all-inclusive basis of $2,000. But when she contacts your managers directly with a tour order, it turns out that the price for the same hotel and for the same dates is already $2,500. It is clear that this will cause her indignation and, perhaps, even become a reason for refusal. Why did this happen? Because the managers simply made a mistake when indicating the date when an additional discount was valid for this hotel. And all this negativity should also be displayed on your customer card. You should also add here how you managed to solve this problem.

That is, all the information that will be presented on your card will allow you to take into account all the nuances in the future, especially the negative ones, and find ways to solve them for other clients. Thus, time after time you will get rid of such problems, improving the quality of service, the level of service to your clients.

Summing up

Summing up everything we talked about in today's review, we note that Customer Journey Map is This is a customer journey map that visualizes their interaction with the company or a specific product. With its help, business representatives will be able to understand their users, customers, assess their problems, motivation, and identify the channels through which they interact with the business. To build such a map as correctly as possible, you need to focus not only on your own feelings, but also on the numbers presented in analytical reports and real responses. At the same time, it is important to segment the audience in as much detail as possible, which will allow you to get the most accurate picture for each individual customer.

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