How to map a Customer Journey mapping that improves customer retention.

Over the last ten years I have had the privilege of designing many customer journeys for our clients. I would like to share with you some of the critical aspects of this work to enable you to design a great experience for your company. 

Organization confuse processes and experiences.
Many times, organizations think their internal process and the Customer’s experience are the same but they are not. A process is a series of internal steps you would like a Customer to take. A Customer experience is the experience Customers have of that journey. These are very different. People (Customers) are ‘conscious beings’ and therefore every waking moment we are having ‘experiences’. This is why we name our journey mapping tool Moment Mapping® , it maps the moments of the experience. A process is normally a logical series of steps to produce an outcome but Customers are not logical, they are people and as such feel things and are driven by emotions. 

What experience drives value?
Designing an experience is not just a question of defining an experience which you ‘think’ will work. You MUST design an experience that drives value? Value is what the organization gets out of it, i.e. an increase in Customer satisfaction, Increase in Customer Loyalty and Customer retention. Sometimes what drives value is not obvious. One client, for example, was convinced that reducing the time it took to answer the phones would make a better experience. When we undertook research using our Emotional Signature® tool we discovered that it was ‘desired’ by Customers but did not drive value. What did drive value was having people answer the call who could fix the problem. Don’t lose sight of the fact that Customers do not always know what they want and you are in business to make money, not to give Customers everything they want. 

Rational and emotional.
Too many journey mapping tools I have seen only look at the rational, logical aspects of a Customer Experience. As over 50% of a Customer Experience is about emotions then this means the journey is being designed to address only half the experience. Designing a Customer experience that drives value and evokes emotions is critical as well as looking at the aspects of Experience Psychology we outlined in our last book.

Detail is critical in designing a great experience
A great example of this is Virgin Atlantic who again set the standards by improving their experience. The detail they go into is exactly what all organizations should aspire to. In their upper class cabins they are training their crew to whisper, by employing a whispering coach.

The article outlines what Virgin consider to be a proper whisper! Anything from 20 to 30 decibels. Normal speaking volume is 60 to 70 decibels. Now that is detailed, but by doing this they know they will evoke emotions in their customers of feeling cared for and being valued and virgin know this will drive an increase in net promoter scores and customer retention.

Designing a Customer Experience needs an understanding of psychology to give you a deep understanding of customers; a passion for detail and financial mind to make this all worthwhile.