Blog 94: Best practices to writing a customer journey map

A customer journey map represents a prospect's experience with the product. From the very first interaction (discovering the product) to a being a customer (purchase or download or signup etc.). Refer to blog 16 for more on what is a customer journey map?

It anticipates the different paths a user may take while interacting with the product.

5 best practices to writing a customer journey map

i. Research thoroughly to know your customer: Understand their needs, background, emotions, goals, challenges, etc. According to a McKinsey report, being customer focused can generate a 20% - 30% increase in customer satisfaction.

ii. Recognise the marketing funnel stage a customer is in: Recognise and understand the marketing funnel stage a customer is in (blog 42 on marketing funnel). The four marketing funnel stages are awareness, interest, desire, and action. Action stage also includes sub-stages such as support, loyalty, and referral.

iii. Identify customer acquisition channels: Identify the various customer acquisition channels available to you. Rank them based on feasibility and relevancy. Optimise for existing channels (that your customers are comfortable with) before moving to new channels. There are broadly three ways to acquiring a customer: Owned media, Paid media, Earned media. Owned media consists of website, blogs, emails etc. Paid media includes search, affiliate, influencer etc. Earned media is PR, social (organic), customer reviews etc. Refer blog 54 for more on customer acquisition channels.

iv. Reduce friction between the customer and the acquisition channels: Make it easy for your customers to act (i.e., subscribe, register etc.). Remember Hicks Law (a law of UX) – the time to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices. Refer blog 29 to learn more on best practices while designing your UX.

In addition, understand reasons for customer attrition and proactively take steps to increase retention.

v. Leverage data analytics to understand customer behaviours, to personalise product experiences, to increase retention, to reduce churn, and to refine the product etc.

Note: Refer blog 14 for more on personas.

Jump to blog 100 to refer to the overall product management mind map.

All the best! 😊