We are increasingly being asked by clients to map their existing customer or user journeys and to provide the output information in a usable and visual format so that they can articulate this to their internal stakeholders. This does two things, it firstly enables the stakeholders to fully understand their users’ motivations, attitudes and behaviours at different stages of the engagement cycle. Secondly it can have the effect of more greatly understanding the value of optimising this engagement through wider user experience design.
Our solution for this is a Customer Journey Map shown in the diagram below and in this article we will outline some of the key considerations you should take into account when undertaking the process.
- Map a current user journey with a customer persona in mind When starting the process, it is important to have a specific customer persona in mind. This will form the basis of your research going forward. You will need to have completed some customer persona research before starting the user journey mapping process so that you are able to understand some of their drivers for purchase. You may have some internal research to help build context to your user persona profiles or you may need to interview a range of your target users one-to-one.
- Sketch out the main parts of the User or Customer Journey
Start with a pen and paper and sketch out the overarching user journey that the user will take to purchase and post purchase. The purchasing process can broadly be split into the following stages:
a) Investigation b) Awareness c) Selection d) Purchase e) Post Purchase.
You can get creative and we generally start with the way that the customer will arrive at a website.
- Identify the Information required and likely questions
You should understand the types of questions users are likely to ask before making a final purchase. These might be related to cost, service and what will happen after a transaction or end point has been reached.
You might need to shadow users through a process or undertake some additional user research to fully understand the elements of their purchase process and drivers to sale.
- Analyse the information
Once you have all of the information together, a useful way of splitting it up into each stage of the process is to log it all in an Excel spreadsheet. This ensures that all the information that you need is in one place and makes it quicker to transfer the information over to a diagram when you are ready. I generally have a different column for each step of the process and then have a different row for what the customer is: ‘Thinking’, ‘Doing’, their ‘Needs/Experience’, ‘Digital Touch Points’ and finally what they are ‘Feeling’.
- Prepare a Swim Lane Diagram or Customer Journey Map Now that you have all the information planned out, we find that the best way to articulate this is by mapping the information as a Swim Lane Diagram.
Your Customer Journey Mapping will help you articulate the information succinctly and can be used to communicate the users’ attitudes, motivations, behaviours and digital touch points on a single sheet of paper. Although the component elements can sometimes take a while to pull together, the end result makes it easier for key stakeholders to fully understand all of the elements involved in a purchase decision or customer journey.
