Customer Journey: what it is, how to map it, and key elements to manage it

Customer Journey: what it is and what are its stages

Customer Journey indicates the path and all contact points between a consumer and a company and includes, in addition to direct interaction moments, indirect contacts, such as third-party opinions.

The first theorized model of Customer Journey was the AIDA model which included 4 stages (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action). The model was then reworked and expanded as follows:

• Awareness (Discovery): customers learn about the existence of a product or service through various channels such as advertising, social media, word of mouth, online searches...;
• Consideration: the customer begins to consider buying a product or service. At this stage, he/she searches for information, compares different options, reads reviews...;
• Decision: after considering several options, the customer decides to make the purchase through the company's website, customer service, a visit to a physical store...;
• Purchase: the customer finalizes the purchase of a product or service;
• Retention (Loyalty): having made the purchase, the customer still interacts with the company through product delivery, after-sales service and technical support;
• Advocacy (Advocacy): if the overall customer experience is positive, this can lead to an ongoing relationship with the company, including repeat purchases, participation in loyalty programs and recommending the product or service to others.

Source McKinsey: Linear Customer Journey Model.

In 2009, McKinsey introduced a new, more complex and circular Customer Journey model that replaces the traditional linear funnel.This new model takes into account the evolution of consumer behavior in the digital age and recognizes that the customer journey is constantly changing due to the ability to access a plurality of tools that influence purchase choices. The model has the following stages:

• Initial consideration set: the set of brands that an individual considers at the beginning of the process of choosing a product, based on personal knowledge or recent contacts with the company;
• Active evaluation: at this stage, the potential customer gathers information about products or services that interest them through marketing content, in-store experience, reviews, and word of mouth;
• Purchase: the consumer selects and purchases a particular good or service;
• Post-purchase experience: the post-purchase experience influences every subsequent decision and is therefore critical in ensuring that customers return to buy from the same company. Loyal customers also help to spread a positive brand image through word of mouth.

Source McKinsey: Circular customer journey model theorized by McKinsey.

Why the Customer Journey map is important and how to map it

Knowing how to manage all stages of the Customer Journey is critical for companies, as it enables them to plan a strategy aimed at optimizing investments. Having a visual representation of the customer journey as they interact with the company is essential to building and defining each touchpoint, thus facilitating understanding of customer needs and improving the overall experience. This approach makes it possible to identify opportunities for improvement and personalize interactions, increasing satisfaction and loyalty.

The Customer Journey map, therefore, provides a visual representation of the experience and allows for the identification of possible problems and opportunities for improvement on each touchpoint; it also allows for the optimization of the customer experience by identifying critical touchpoints and improving the experience at each stage of the customer journey; and it helps reduce costs and increase productivity by removing obstacles that can slow down the buying process.

To build a solid customer journey map, it is not enough to know the benefits but also to know how to correctly map all stages of the customer journey. For this reason, it is important to:

1. Collect qualitative and quantitative data through customer interviews, surveys, and product experience analysis tools to understand customer needs and expectations;
2. Identify all touch points between the customer and the company, including communication channels, websites, social media platforms, and onboarding processes;
3. Create a diagram that visually represents the customer journey, including key steps, customer actions and company responses;
4. Analyze the diagram, to identify areas for improvement and implement changes to optimize the customer experience.

Professional figures for effective customer journey management

To effectively map and manage the Customer Journey, professionals with specific skills and responsibilities are essential. These include Customer Success Managers (CSMs) who, with a consultancy background, aim to ensure that customers have a positive experience with a company's products or services. CSMs are responsible for the Customer Journey management process, from its mapping to the monitoring and control phase, with an important role as facilitators among the various functions involved such as Sales, Marketing, Operations and IT.

They are generally required to coordinate teams, involve other departments to design solutions, adopt methodologies and tools to ensure cross-functional collaboration, and have a "customer driven" rather than "process driven" approach to ensure end-customer satisfaction.

Other notable figures only the Customer Journey designer and the CX specialist who, with a Business Analyst background, improve the entire customer journey by analyzing critical touch points, developing improvement strategies, and managing customer feedback to ensure a consistent, high-quality experience.

The Customer Journey designer and CX specialist are committed to creating positive experiences for end customers, promoting customer loyalty, and ensuring that the Customer Journey functions properly over time.

All of these professionals work synergistically with the business departments (marketing, sales, and customer care) and IT of companies to improve the customer experience and increase retention.

How AI impacts customer journey management

Companies that plan their strategy on customer centricity, to stand out in the experience offered to the customer, know thatArtificial Intelligence (especially generativeAI ) is a very important tool to enhance the Customer Journey.

Indeed, new technologies are revolutionizing the way some companies manage the customer journey to improve the quality of services offered and ensure more personalized and engaging exeriences. Artificial Intelligence is being adopted by these companies to optimize the customer experience in the following contexts:

• Personalizing the experience: analyzing data on customers allows companies to offer personalized recommendations with virtual assistants and chatbots to improve interaction with customers at every stage of their journey;
• Sentiment and feedback analysis: allows companies to better understand users' emotions and opinions through touchpoint-generated data and identify areas for improvement;
• Predictive analytics: through advanced algorithms, customer behavior can be predicted, enabling companies to anticipate their needs and take proactive measures to meet them, thus improving the overall experience;
• Omnichannel: technologies that enable an integrated omnichannel experience are key to ensuring a consistent and seamless experience, regardless of the channel used by the end user.

By harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence, companies can then create more relevant, personalized and engaging experiences and ensure greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

How Increso transforms its customers' customer journey

What sets Increso's approach apart is its unique ability to combine the most advanced generative AI technologies offered by our conversational AI platform, the consulting skills of our Customer Success Managers, and the experience and empathy of the Customer Specialists in our Contact Center.

The combination of cutting-edge technology and the human factor is what we at Increso call HumanTouchnology, an approach that has always enabled us to offer innovative customer care solutions and achieve the benefits expected by our client companies in a very short time.

Increso's Customer Success Managers support the client company in surveying As-Is, solution design, designing the Customer Journey, and configuring our CXM platform, evaluating the benefits of transformation in as little as a few weeks.

At Increso, we are able to build unique solutions by improving the Customer Journey of our client companies and provide a personalized experience with immediate answers on their customers' preferred touchpoints across:

• Choice of generative AI engine and prompt protection: we identify with the client company which of the platform-integrated AI engines performs best consistent with the scope and needs expressed and protect the prompts made from hacking attempts;
• Intelligent Customer Journey Automation: our platform can be integrated with business systems (CRM, business documents, ERP) and can enable with a simple graphical interface the management of all AI tasks, even concatenating multiple prompts;
• BOTs that understand and respond in natural language: we propose virtual assistants capable of providing the answers automatically to customers 24/7 on the various touchpoints and able to empower the contact center operator by suggesting the best answers to be given to the end customers, evaluating with ad hoc algorithms the reliability of the proposed answer.
• Always Personalized Generated Content: through Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) information is captured from business documents and other sources to generate more accurate responses that are always consistent with customer sentiment, helping companies better engage customers and improve service.

To find out how to best enhance your customers' Customer Journey, fill out the form or write to us at marketing@increso.it.