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Winning the Customer Journey Battle: Netflix vs Blockbuster Case Study

By   Stratability Academy

Published: April 25, 2019

Last Update: May 4, 2020

TOPICS:   Gameplans & Roadmaps , Operating Model , Service Design , Transformation

We know a brand has established a strong position in customers’ mind when its name becomes a verb, like Google, Uber, Skype. And one such brand that cannot be ignored in this digital age is Netflix. Netflix has come a long way, starting from an online DVD rental service to the world leader in the streaming industry. The company completely changed how people watched movies and, consequently, destroyed the throne of Blockbuster, once the giant brick and mortar video rental store in the U.S. Interestingly, in 2000, Blockbuster turned down the $50M offer to purchase Netflix, just to find itself decease under the reign of Netflix 10 years later. How did Netflix flip the table and nail the customer journey as of today? How did it master the art and science of digital transformation on its strategy journey?

Let’s explore what happened based on the pains and gains in the customer journey.

Blockbuster’s Customer J ourney

Before Netflix, the age of Blockbuster…

Back to the late 20th century, when Netflix was just a small start-up, Blockbuster dominated the video rental industry with over 9,000 stores around the globe. With the emergence of DVDs as the new video medium, Blockbuster managed to get exclusive deals with big Hollywood studios to rent new DVD releases after cinema showings ended. At that time, almost every household had a videocassette recorder (VCR) for the purpose of video watching, and Blockbuster rental stores were people’s frequent destination for movie selections.

Then, at one point, people realized they went to Blockbuster stores not because they enjoyed the experience but just because it was the only choice for them to watch new movie releases. With that being said, Blockbuster store visits were far from convenience. Imagine one Sunday afternoon, your kids were home and you wanted to watch a movie with them. Then you would probably spend the next few hours driving them to a nearby Blockbuster store, going through hundreds, if not thousands, of DVDs on the shelves without a catalog or any recommendations from store attendants, except for the new releases which were charged out at a premium, getting eyestrain from reading the titles, and arguing with your kids what to watch. By the time you got home, you realized you had not cleaned up the VCR machine’s video head after the last watch, so you do that first, before sitting down on the couch to play the DVD you brought home earlier. How much enjoyment was left then? But it was not the whole story. After some days of watching the movie, you were too caught up in your work and forgot to return the DVD on time, thus you had to pay the store an exceptionally high late fee. In fact, late fees comprised of a large pie of Blockbuster profits. It was an unpleasant experience that actually drove people away from the business.

Netflix’s Digital Transformation Customer Journey

Then Came Netflix – a Market Disruptor

As a former Blockbuster customer, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thoroughly understood the issues with that customer journey, and he initially started Netflix as a mail-order DVD subscription service to eliminate the lengthy in-store visits and annoying late fees. To make up for the lack of physical customer interaction, Netflix offered lower prices (monthly subscription fees for unlimited rentals) and implemented efficient order-processing computer systems. After just a few years, from a small business, Netflix steadily grew its revenues and got Blockbuster on guard.

Nevertheless, it was when Netflix launched its video streaming service that saw the end of Blockbuster. Netflix, again, took a deep dive into the consumer journey and foresaw the future demands for instant-access entertainment at the convenience of Internet devices. With the new streaming service, Netflix customers could browse a detailed digital movie catalog and press play in a second with no need for a physical DVD. The streaming service of Netflix is so successful that it accounts for one-third of downstream Internet traffic during peak hours in the U.S.

In 2013, upon discovering the potential hype of binge-watching, Netflix started to produce in-house content, known at Netflix Originals, and released all the episodes at one time. Its first original series House of Cards still remains one of the best dramas on Netflix. Besides, Netflix took on customers’ desire for personalization and came up with the smart content recommendation system which was backed by machine learning. Each customer now has a customized experience on Netflix based on their personal habits and preferences. This is where Netflix built up its sticky service to get customers addicted and keep them coming back for more.

Netflix’s popularity can be exposed by impressive numbers: circa. 150M users, almost double the runner-up Amazon Prime; two-thirds of Netflix users share their accounts with others, increasing the actual viewers by 2.5 times; 10 hours spent on Netflix weekly by average U.S. users; 23 languages used and 57% of international users; etc… Considering the recent increase in the share of users outside the U.S., Netflix is drastically growing its international content in the library.

And it gets that the customer journey doesn’t stop changing either. Netflix has been extending the customer journey via cross-platform partnerships. It has teamed with telecommunications and media companies like Vodafone, BT, and Sky in the UK, who all offer Netflix as part of their mobile or cell phone packages, or TV packages, and you can now control your Netflix accounts with voice-activated home automation IoT apps like Amazon Alexa, and Google Home. All of these customer journey extensions are there to save customers time and to provide convenience, and continue to provide better customer experiences.

Hasting could not have applied all of these digital transformation changes to the Netflix business model so successfully without closely following and predicting the customer journey and even testing with customers via co-creation. For a service company like Netflix, customer experience is king, thus the importance of the customer journey mapping process when it comes to lifting a business or an organization to another level, and changing the ‘game’.

Digital Transformation success through the customer journey

Netflix’s success results from the continuous effort of understanding the customer journey and delivering value driven; customer co-created; and network connected services; three digital transformation approaches introduced in THE STRATEGY JOURNEY Framework . The customer journey mapping process and digital transformation approaches, go hand in hand with each other, which explains the failure of Blockbuster to digitally transform due to its customer experience blind spot.

So when it comes to innovation and defining any new service, don’t forget to ‘map the customer journey ‘ as Reed Hastings and Netflix did.

Stratability Academy

About the author

Stratability Academy is a provider of strategic management, innovation and digital transformation learning materials based on the THE STRATEGY JOURNEY Framework , and is the publisher of THE STRATEGY JOURNEY book (2019) by Julie Choo and Graham Christison.

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NETFLIX SOCIAL

design process

REsearch goals

Research components.

• Market research
• Competitor analysis
• User surveys
• User interviews

Research Plan

Secondary research.

MARKET RESEARCH

• Traditional pay-TV providers lost 1.8 million subscribers in 2018 (USA Today)
• YouTube is the largest video streaming site in the world with over 1 billion users worldwide, with Netflix bringing in the strongest revenue of 15.8 billion in 2018
• 51% of all US streaming service subscribers use Netflix
• 64.5% of digital video viewers in the US watch Netflix at least once a month (eMarketer)

Primary Research

“If I enjoy a show, I want other people to enjoy it also. Why? Because I love when people appreciate things I do and we can then discuss it. Also, it validates my taste in TV shows that others like it.”

“I don’t know how the [recommended] algorithm works but I don’t feel that it’s tailored towards me. If I’m looking for something to watch, and they send me these shows, it’s frustrating when they are so not something I’d like.”

“I would love to be able to recommend or receive recommendations to people through the app.”

QUALITATIVE TAKEAWAYS from questionnaire and interviews

• Overall, research findings showed that the majority of streaming service and Netflix users decide what to watch based on friends’ and families' recommendations.
• Though users vary on whether they watch alone or socially, most report that their choice of selection has to do with recommendations from friends
• Across the research, users expressed a frustration the inaccuracy of recommendation that the app's algorithm develops for them.

Empathy and PERSONA DEVELOPMENT

POINT OF VIEW Statements and How Might We Questions

• How might we help users send and receive recommendations with their friends?
• How might we give users recommendations that better match their interests and mood?
• How might we provide a way to display videos that users are more likely to continue with?
• How might we redesign the categorization so that users spend less time on browsing whilst making the “right-for-them” choice?

SITE MAP AND TasK flow

VISUAL DESIGN

USABILITY TESTING

• Determine the usability of the updated Netflix desktop site and observe how easily a user can complete the supplied tasks
• Make note of any difficulties for further iteration/improvement
• Collect feedback from users on ease of navigating the website

Reflections & Looking Ahead

See more of my work.

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9 Best Real-life Customer Journey Map Examples

April 4, 2024

The customer journey mapping process is a visual representation of the experiences and interactions customers have with a company, from initial awareness to post-purchase evaluation.

These maps utilize infographics to showcase touchpoints across the customer-brand relationship, revealing strategies for personalized experiences that enhance consumer success and engagement.

By aiding businesses in understanding the customer journey, identifying pain points, and enhancing overall experiences, journey mapping contributes to increased sales, loyalty, cost savings, and team alignment.

How Customer Journey Maps Impact Business Performance?

Customer journey maps serve as invaluable tools for enhancing business performance by facilitating a smoother path to customer satisfaction.

They provide insights into the customer experience, allowing businesses to empathize with customers, identify pain points, and address challenges they encounter along the way.

By pinpointing inconsistencies between touchpoints, such as communication gaps across platforms or departments,  customer journey mapping aids in improving service quality and retention. Leveraging customer journey contact center data, these maps optimize genuine customer engagements across all communication channels.

Key Elements of a Customer Journey Map

Numerous customer journey mapping software options exist in the market, each offering unique features. Here are the key elements that characterize these customer journey map templates.

Customer Personas

To create a customer journey map, you first need to know who your potential customer is. This begins with developing customer personas, which are fictional representations of typical customers based on demographics, behaviors, and customer needs.

For instance, Uber has two primary personas: passengers seeking seamless rides from A to B, and drivers desiring flexibility and supplemental income.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints encompass every interaction a customer has with your brand throughout their buying journey. When creating a customer journey map, it's essential to outline these points of contact, information gathering, or interactions with your brand. Typical touchpoints include:

• Marketing emails and newsletters
• Phone calls, service and support lines, online chatbots
• Store staff, checkout registers, service points
• Website, apps, social media platforms
• Packaging, shipping, delivery

Customer Emotions

In this step, you map out the specific emotional experience of the customer at each touchpoint. What are they thinking? What actions do they take? How are they feeling?

Avoid guesswork by gathering real feedback from customers through surveys and, ideally, direct interactions with your customer support team.

Critical Moments

Critical moments are the touchpoints that significantly influence the overall customer experience, whether positively or negatively. These moments of truth provide opportunities for innovation and growth as they represent instances, such as pain points, where people are willing to invest in addressing their critical needs.

Channels and Platforms

Channels and platforms encompass the diverse mediums through which customers engage with your business. These may include traditional channels like in-person visits or phone calls, alongside digital channels such as websites, social media, or mobile apps. Understanding the preferred communication channels of different customer segments helps in effectively engaging with your customers throughout their journey.

From Concept to Reality: Creating Your Customer Journey Map

Customer journey maps are not one size fits all; however, there are fundamental steps that you can take to create your own.

Step 1: Define customer touchpoints

Identify all customer interactions, from ads to website visits, forming the core of your user journey map, illustrating the path from awareness to purchase and beyond.

Step 2: Create customer buyer personas

Develop fictional representations of your target audience, considering demographics and behaviors.

Step 3: Set goals

Establish goals for each touchpoint on your map, whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or fostering customer loyalty.

Step 4: Conduct user studies and surveys

Conduct user studies and surveys to understand how customers discover products, interact with your brand, and identify pain points or challenges they encounter.

Step 5: Analyze your customer journey map

Evaluate key metrics such as repeat purchases, sales, and customer satisfaction to assess the effectiveness of your customer’s journey map. Use the data to optimize touchpoints and enhance the overall  digital customer experience .

Real-life Application: 9 Customer Journey Map Examples Across Industries

Example 1: consumer saas- spotify.

Spotify, a leading audio streaming service, utilized a customer journey map to enhance its music-sharing experience for users. The objective was to determine the optimal integration of music-sharing features within the customer journey.

The map detailed the user experience from opening Spotify on a mobile device to interacting with shared songs. By analyzing each stage and touchpoint, including user actions, thoughts, and emotions, Spotify identified pain points and implemented improvements for a smoother music-sharing experience.

This comprehensive journey map prioritized customer engagement, considered user behavior, and aimed to enhance overall user satisfaction, ultimately encouraging more frequent music sharing among users.

Example 2: Entertainment - Netflix

Similar to Spotify, Netflix's customer journey map incorporates stages, emotions, and thoughts, albeit with a different approach. In Netflix's map, each touchpoint is described in a more goal-oriented manner, focusing on addressing the goals through rows such as 'motivations', 'pain points', and notably, 'opportunities'.

Additionally, this customer journey map is tailored with a clear target persona in mind, likely detailed in their marketing materials, along with a predefined scenario. This approach makes Netflix's customer journey more actionable and focused on achieving its objectives.

Example 3: E-commerce - Amazon

Amazon, a global e-commerce giant, employs sophisticated technology and custom systems to guide customers through the sales journey. While its customer journey map is complex and extensive, it can be broken down into manageable parts for analysis.

For instance, Amazon's customer conversion funnel illustrates how its products facilitate the customer journey, driving engagement and maximizing sales. When conducting your  customer journey mapping , remember to incorporate key metrics to monitor success and gain deeper insights into the overall customer experience.

Example 4: B2B - Hubspot

HubSpot opted for a linear design for their customer journey map, organizing common experiences along a timeline and using color coding to denote pain points or moments of delight. This format made the map easy to interpret and actionable for other teams.

Additionally, they incorporated testimonials from customers, categorized based on their position in the journey, to provide firsthand perspectives on interactions. These stories humanized the map, making the identified issues feel more relevant and pressing to employees.

Example 5: SaaS- Zendesk

This customer journey map example from Zendesk uniquely emphasizes customer churn and reconsideration. While it doesn't delve into the specifics of customer activities, thoughts, or emotions, it distinguishes itself by accounting for a range of outcomes, including churn and reevaluation.

For teams prioritizing these aspects, this format offers a valuable framework for gaining deeper insights into the customer's mindset at each stage of their journey.

Example 6: Toy- Lego

LEGO has innovatively crafted a Customer Journey Map using a tool called the "experience wheel." This wheel analyzes a flight to New York City in a simplified manner.

At its core are the persona's characteristics, surrounded by three levels of experience representing the journey's goal achievement. The outer circle details each step of the journey, marked with emoticons reflecting positive, neutral, or negative experiences. This straightforward format allows for easy creation, making it suitable for discussions and idea-generation sessions. It offers a quick way to view products or services from the customer's perspective.

Example 7: SaaS - TurboTax

TurboTax, a leading online tax preparation software, developed a customer journey map to launch its new product, Personal Pro.

The map, created through a blend of data research, customer surveys, and discussions with tax professionals, tracks the  customer experience  from website entry to tax filing completion. By identifying and addressing customer pain points, the map enables TurboTax to enhance the overall experience, ensuring smoother and more satisfactory interactions.

Example 8: Transport - Uber

Uber's customer journey map not only includes clearly defined stages, emotional waves, and thoughts at each touchpoint but also incorporates additional visuals from their app and descriptive elements.

For instance, the persona is well-defined, eliminating the need to reference external marketing documents for details. Moreover, the critical analysis for action section provides a clear assessment of both positives and areas for improvement at each step of the journey.

Example 9: Retail - Starbucks

Starbucks’ customer journey map, using a timeline style, highlights diverse touchpoints and aims to enhance customer experience. It gathers feedback from outlet visits and categorizes experiences into three components:

• Poached experience: Customers are asked about their overall impression of the outlet they visited, particularly during peak hours.
• Enhanced experience: Starbucks also assesses any negative experiences encountered by customers and seeks resolutions to prevent their recurrence.
• Touchpoints: This refers to the level and extent of interaction the consumer has experienced with the brand, whether in person, through the website, app, etc.

How to Implement Customer Journey Maps Using Five9

Implementing customer journey maps using  Five9 is a simple process. With Five9, agents gain access to a unified view of customer history, including interactions from email, web chat, and phone calls.

By integrating all channels into a single interface, Five9 ensures that agents have a clear understanding of the customer journey, enabling them to respond effectively at every stage.

Discover how using  Five9 customer journey mapping can boost customer service, helping agents understand and meet customer expectations, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

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Netflix new user onboarding journey map

The Relentless Pursuit Of The Perfect Customer Experience: A Netflix Story

The ultimate example of a company disrupting an industry with customer experience?

Netflix, in 2016, represented 35% of all internet traffic in North America, boasting around 75 million subscribers worldwide. An impressive feat, considering the company not too long ago was a small upstart facing up against the goliath of it's time in Blockbuster. The rise of the entertainment platform is a true tale of disruption.

In this article, we’ll dig deep and explore what lessons you can learn from Netflix. The goal of the post is to distil some of the actionable key takeaways for customer experience practitioners. Shedding light on how Netflix ensure that customer experience is at the heart of their business and decision making.

Netflix is customer obsessed

Netflix is obsessive in its pursuit of customer satisfaction.

A lot has been written about Netflix's approach to creating a personalized experience for its subscribers. It's well documented how Netflix helps viewers whittle down those choices through personalization of the website.

Netflix has developed cutting edge algorithms to serve up custom artwork for its thumbnails to entice viewers to watch content. Serving content that caters to their tastes to create a personalised experience when exploring TV and film on the platform.

The level of personalization experienced by users is what keeps them coming back for more. They're shaking up the entertainment industry and offer a blueprint for delighting customers. Imagine if you clicked on to your favourite travel website you could book a stay, in a hotel in your preferred type of room. The perfect climate, pool facing, on the fourth floor with a balcony overlooking the sea?

Netflix doesn't stop it's efforts at personalisation. They work hard to remove any friction for the customer. They fully buy into the view that the customer's experience begins as soon as they come into contact with your brand. Being customer centric means delivering a great experience with every interaction you have with the customer not just in customer facing roles.

“We own the Netflix customer experience from the moment they sign up, for the whole time they are with us, across TV, phone and laptop”.  - Todd Yellin, Netflix’s VP of Product Innovation

A lesson that is applicable across verticals, for example, your customer's expectations of what constitutes an excellent customer experience has shifted radically. Netflix, Amazon and Spotify have trained us to expect a smooth customer journey with little to no friction. Your customers will automatically see friction when you fail to live up to the experience they're used to elsewhere.

Netflix keep customers engaged

Customer retention and engagement essentially determine whether a subscription company lives or dies. If the customer falls out of love with the product, gets bored or starts to doubt the value of the offering, then they churn. Worse still, they probably don't inform you why they are leaving or give any indication that they are about to unsubscribe.

So tailoring your touchpoints becomes invaluable. Most of you reading this post will be familiar with Netflix's recommendation system. From the email updates,  personalised landing card and the recommended shows.  Netflix runs over 250 A/B test each year, gathering data to see how we respond, trying to create the ultimate mechanism for finding shows. Data informs every decision they make at Netflix.

The data led strategy is is well founded in research with over 80% of what people watch comes from Netflix recommendations (Gomez-uribe & Hunt 2016).

We've all been there endlessly flicking through the various categories. Until finally, you eventually settle on the same episodes of your favourite show that you've binged watched five times already.

So where's the payback for the tailored content?

Well, compared to Netflix competitors, such as Hulu and HBO Now, around 60% of their subscribers pay for other streaming services compared to 80% that solely pay for Netflix subscribers. Netflix takes a further slice of the market when looking at these services as the mainstreaming service, both Hulu and HBO Now subscribers tend to also subscribe to Netflix.

How do you personalise and optimise for your customer?

Research on personalisation carried out by My Total Retail, found that tailoring the product experience to a customer's preferences can deliver a 6 per cent increase in revenue per visitor (RPV).

So by not only tweaking the thumbnail to suit you as a viewer but Netflix also ensure that you'll likely enjoy their suggestion. The chances of you making the right choices are maximised, resulting in happier viewing and more satisfied and engaged customers. And with a relatively low 9% churn rate (lower than any other subscription streaming service by some margin), Netflix maximises lifetime revenue.

Today, personalisation has never been more attainable with the collection of massive data sets, but many businesses still fall to capitalise on this new trend.Putting it bluntly bad personalisation is often more annoying to customers than something more generic, so how does Netflix maximise the data that they obtain?

It begins with data collection. Ensure you collect data points across all customer touchpoints, across the entire customer journey such as complaints, support requests, transactions, social media and customer feedback. The average business has the average company has over 20 customer touchpoints.

The next step is to make sure that customer data is easily sharable and accessible internally. Lot's of companies have data stored in silo's, keeping customer insights that encourage empathy with the customer to be locked away from sight. You need to break down those silo's and arm yourself with the right tools to overcome the problems traditional companies face.

Netflix has full visibility of their experience, and it empowers its employees to build better customer experiences and optimise touchpoints.

A clear path is visible for employees to understand and take action on what needs be improved to prevent friction for the customer. For example, Netflix, through optimising customer touchpoints, has developed an extensive FAQ with the sole purpose of removing friction.

If that doesn't satisfy customer needs Netflix has made getting in touch by phone easy and couples this with a live chat that has built up a reputation for being effective in solving problems. Transforming unhappy customers into satisfied customers or even better into advocates.

Share customer insights company wide

We've already mentioned this previously, but it's so important it deserves it's own section.

There has already been a mention of teams within an organisation becoming siloed, but much like the ease of talking about personalisation - true company wide focus on improving Customer Experience is equally difficult to enact. Particularly in hypergrowth and scaling phases.

So how did Netflix manage this? Well, an initial focus on data from inception meant that customer experience permeates the Netflix DNA. When CX data is at the heart of your organisation it ensures all wheels are turning in the right direction.

Netflix also incentivises employees, between 2006 and 2009, a prize was offered where if a 10% improvement could be gained a $1 million reward would be awarded. How many brands do you know value customer experience to the extent their willing to payout $1 million? It's a clearcut sign Netflix view customer experience as a key differentiator in a competitive market.

At Chattermill, we find that providing insight from customers is utilised best when it is passed across numerous teams, to give a full picture of how your customers think and feel. The more people who have access to insight the higher number of satisfied customers. We work with lots of super fast scale-ups to established brands, and when we perform analysis internally,the data shows a clear pattern.

Don't ignore customer feedback

This is where we have the classic Henry Ford quote is often touted,

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

As a reason to ignore customer feedback (thankfully, this is becoming less common). Perhaps, if you have a product comparable to the first affordable motor vehicle that enables mass movement and changes society, the statement may hold.

But as a word of caution, Netflix found to its detriment that this wasn’t the case. During the early days of streaming, the business looked to split DVD rentals and streaming with a separate price structure for each.

The result was around a 60% increase in price for customers, this was considered (without reference to data or surveys) a mere obstacle and that generally there would be no ill effects. The result? A fierce backlash from 800,000 customers who churned acting as the catalyst for a plummet in the stock price of nearly 80%. Netflix recovered but learnt the hard way that ignoring your customers will see them jump ship.

But the key takeaway here is how and when you ask for feedback. The classic question following a positive NPS rating “what could we have done better today?”, very often leads to “cheaper” or something relating to reducing the price this is Mr Ford’s 21st Century, “faster horse” response.

So asking with broad open questions, “Tell us about your experience” or “How did we do” will lead to the customer sharing what is most important to them at a specific point in the customer journey. Over time, with the right analysis you'll begin to see a pattern of apsects of the customer's experience that isCouple these responses with the unsolicited feedback (your traditional detractors and promoters) and you’ll begin to build a full picture of your customer’s experience.

So to conclude, customer experience is integral to growth. Not only does a best in class customer experience enable you to disrupt large or established competitors but also companies that lead in CX typically have 1.5 times as many engaged employees as CX laggards.

So not only are your customers benefiting from your focus on their needs and sufficient personalisation, but your employees are also able to leverage all of that customer data in a highly motivated way. Happy customers and motivated employees are the base of all growth.

• https://www.slideshare.net/justinbasilico/recent-trends-in-personalization-a-netflix-perspective
• https://www.slideshare.net/SudeepDasPhD/deeper-things-how-netflix-leverages-deep-learning-in-recommendations-and-search
• https://informi.co.uk/blog/lessons-blockbuster-vs-netflix
• https://www.mycustomer.com/service/channels/what-netflix-teaches-us-about-using-ai-to-create-amazing-customer-experiences
• https://www.mytotalretail.com/article/applying-the-netflix-customer-experience-to-retail/
• https://www.retently.com/blog/companies-high-nps/
• https://engagecustomer.com/netflixs-customer-experience-transformation-revolutionising-the-world-of-online-entertainment/
• https://www.nunwood.com/excellence-centre/publications/uk-cee-analysis/2019-uk-cee-analysis/

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Customer Experience at Netflix: 6 lessons we can all learn from!

Take your product very seriously

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of movies and series, but Netflix never made that mistake. They describe entertainment as a basic human need, which feels extra relevant in these pandemic and lockdown-filled times:

Entertainment, like friendship, is a fundamental human need; it changes how we feel and gives us common ground. We want to entertain the world. If we succeed, there is more laughter, more empathy, and more joy.

“We want to entertain the world”: how’s that for an ambitious mission?

Know what you sell

At the same time, the people at Netflix also realize on a deeper level that they sell ‘attention’ rather than entertainment. They know that they aren’t just competing with other streaming services— but rather with anything that takes consumers away from its services. That’s why its 2018 earnings report stated that “We compete with (and lose to) ‘Fortnite’ more than HBO.”

This has tremendous repercussions on the customer experience as it means that Netlfix has to constantly battle for attention in a big red ocean and has no other choice but to offer absolute top quality experiences and products.

Use science to measure, test & repeat

That is why everyone at Netflix is not just focussed on the customer, but absolutely obsessed with them. Here’s how former Netflix VP of Product, Gibson Biddle, describes the difference:

At Netflix, the customer is constantly under scrutiny: not just through analysing personal profile data to better recommend the right movies and series, but just as much through focus groups, usability sessions, one-on-ones and demographic or cancel surveys and then A/B testing the assumptions that flow out of these inputs. Netflix’ obsession goes a lot further than data, algorithms and fantastic personalization. Though the latter is obviously what sets them apart, as Reed Hastings describes it:

“If the Starbucks secret is a smile when you get your latte, [Netflix’s secret] is that the Web site adapts to the individual’s taste.”

They are in fact so serious about this that they call it “consumer science”: using a scientific methodology to form hypotheses, test them in order to build a culture of customer obsession and to discover what delights the customers. Consumer science is the driver behind their ultra-tailored experience and it’s also the reason why its inhouse content – like Black Mirror and The Queen’s Gambit – is so exceedingly popular.

Focus on Joy

But it’s not just testing, data and algorithms that makes Netflix an absolute king of customer experience. They are one of the most human brands as well, with an exceptional customer service. One top of a wide range of self-help solutions in case of problems, English live support is available 24/7 (local from 8.00 till 23.00), through live chat or via phone. And each of the customer support members is fully trained to focus on Joy instead of second guessing the customer. If you want to understand my Joy reference, watch this clip:

I love this personal example that Ian Hall writes about: “Last night I was passively watching (or more listening than anything) to Eco-Trip with my daughter while we fixed dinner.  All of a sudden the sound gets all garbled.  I figure the encoding is off and think nothing of it until this morning I receive the following email. Now THAT is customer service. Netflix knew I might be upset (or at least have noticed) the interruption and so, proactively, they allowed me to request a credit for a small amount of my bill.  Now while 3% of my bill isn’t really going to add up, it makes me FEEL 100x better.  And here I am gurgling over my feelings and the attention Netflix pays to their customers.”

This is customer service done right: if something goes wrong, don’t wait for the customer to call to fix it. Fix it before that and make him/her feel good in doing so.

Chase and delete anger, friction and frustration

Some of the best innovations come out of solving real problems. When Netflix started out as a movie rental service, Hastings was obsessed by “Making the movie experience so much better than the regular video rental that everyone wants to do it.” He went beyond positive CX, and offering ‘Joy’ and wanted to completely redefine the experience.

For those who are too young to understand how video rental worked: you had to go to the store, find the right movie out of the hundreds of possibilities which could take ages and then there were the annoying late fees. Netflix offered lower prices with monthly subscriptions and got rid of late fees and you no longer had to go to the store (as they sent you the DVD via the mail). The first approach was not very ideal of course, so Netflix took a deep dive into the consumer journey and foresaw that instant-access entertainment – streaming – could easily solve all customer frustrations in the matter. And they have been chasing anger and frustration ever since to keep enhancing the experience.

Happy employees beget happy customers

Last but not least, Netflix understands the competitive advantage of happiness, not just of its customers but of its employees as well. Though not all great customer experiences are rooted in great employee experiences (take Amazon warehouse workers, for instance), every great employee experience does rub off on the customer experience. Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings understands this better than anyone else: he and his colleagues think just as rigorously about people and culture as they do about digital streaming and content. They make sure that they hire the right – people “who will put the company’s interests first, who understand and support the desire for a high-performance workplace” – and then they empower them to make the most creative and impactful decisions, that will always trickle down to the customers.

The Netflix culture manifesto states: “Our core philosophy is people over process. More specifically, we have great people working together as a dream team. With this approach, we are a more flexible, fun, stimulating, creative, collaborative and successful organization.” The latter has obviously just as much to do with employer branding in a raging talent war as with fostering creativity, innovation and continuously seeking better experiences for customers.

Customer journey map

Key Takeaways:

• A customer journey map visualizes the entire lifecycle of a potential customer, from the first touchpoint to post-purchase interactions.
• Different types of customer journey maps include current state map, future state map, day-in-the-life map, and service blueprint map.
• Customer journey maps identify and measure areas of improvement, leading to happier customers, and increased revenue and profits.

Table of Contents

What is a customer journey map.

A customer journey map is a flowchart or similar visualization that shows the full lifecycle of a potential customer’s “journey.” The map covers the point when the prospect learns about a company to them becoming a customer and through extended customer support. These maps are a visual representation of interactions across all channels a customer may interact with, including social media, in-store, website, or email.

A customer’s first touchpoint with your brand may be a social media ad, which is the starting point on their customer journey map. The map then charts all of that user’s interactions and may have branching points for choices they could make. For example:

• Begin at the social media ad touchpoint.
• The next node on the map indicates the customer going to your website.
• A branch on the map may describe the customer deciding whether to make a purchase: If they buy, their journey may include an email invitation to a mailing list. If they don’t buy, the next step in their journey could be an individual discount code by email.
• The map for purchasing customers then charts any of the customer’s post-purchase interactions, such as: Sending a customer satisfaction evaluation, receiving customer support , or renewing a contract or making another purchase
• The map for customers who did not purchase shows the steps to re-engage them.

Types of Customer Journey Maps

What goes onto your customer journey maps will depend on customer types, the services or products you offer, and the goals of your mapping exercise. Maps for companies that offer business-to-business (B2B) products or services will also differ from maps for business-to-customer (B2C) brands. You may end up with multiple maps; some may show the current state of your customer journeys and others may show a desired future state.

Ultimately, the customer journey map should be a tool that helps you and your marketing team identify areas for growth and make decisions. The following examples are good places to start:

Current state map

A current state map is often the first customer journey map a team creates. This is a map that shows how an average customer interacts with your brand today. For these maps, you will look at internal data, like website traffic sources or data showing how they move through your online storefront. This mapping process can show current pain points or customer service gaps that you can work on now. It can also highlight points of high conversions that you will want to emphasize in the future state.

Future state map

For future state maps, gather a wishlist of improvements and your team’s strategic goals and use these to plan the ideal state of customer journeys with your brand. These maps work best when compared to current state maps — the current state maps help identify areas for improvement and what is working to inform future state maps.

Day-in-the-life map

Mapping a day in the life of a customer can help marketers and customer-facing teams understand what the customer is thinking, and how best to help them. These kinds of maps rely heavily on customer profiles or personas, because different customers will interact with different touchpoints. Where other customer journey maps will center the customer interacting with your brand, the day-in-the-life style imagines what your customers might do from when they get up to when they go to bed, and what problems or questions they may face during the day. You can use these maps to identify customer needs and create new marketing strategies.

Service blueprint map

A service blueprint map focuses on how teams deliver services. You can expand a customer journey map to identify which teams are responsible for each part of the customer experience, and specific roles, technologies, processes, or policies that each step requires.

Where a customer journey map begins with the customer looking at products on your company website before going to a store, the service blueprint map includes that, and also labels which technology powers the chat, who answers questions, and which teams handle the customer in-store. These maps may depict current state, and help identify pain points for current customers, or they may show future state, helping plan how a service will ideally operate.

Benefits of customer journey mapping

The practice of customer journey mapping gives you a clear picture of a customer’s experience with your brand, which will help:

• Improve communication across teams - If you understand how a customer passes from team to team, you can identify and close interdepartmental gaps, and ensure that the right information reaches the right people in time.
• Improve customer experience (CX) - Mapping the entire customer journey means understanding what your brand looks like to a prospective customer, and finding ways to improve that perspective. You can also identify ineffective touchpoints and understand customer expectations.
• Increase customer loyalty and engagement - If you understand the customer’s experiences, you can improve customer engagement with more targeted ads and emails to help them make informed decisions.
• Identify and measure areas of improvement - A clear picture of your customer’s interactions will help you gather better data about specific “moment of truth” touchpoints (decision points where you may keep or lose customers), and measure the efficacy of new CX initiatives.
• Boost revenue or sales - All these benefits will create happier and better-informed customers. According to Invesp , it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one, and keeping just 5% of your customers can increase profits between 25% and 95%.

Components of a customer journey map

A customer journey map is a kind of infographic that shows different stages and key touchpoints a customer may experience with your brand, meaning it will have components that record and show different types of data.

Remember that a customer journey map is a tool for you and your team. It doesn’t need to follow a specific template or pattern as much as it needs to be something that meets your needs. With that in mind, not all customer journey maps will use all of these components.

Visual components of a customer journey map

A customer journey map will use certain visual elements to depict the journey through the map, these include:

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are any interaction a prospective customer has with your organization during the buying process. Customer touchpoints can occur on marketing channels (including social media platforms), web or TV ads, radio or podcast promos, posters on a bus bench, or in-store flyers. They may also include messaging a chatbot, downloading an ebook, taking a survey, or going into a physical store.

One challenge of mapping customer behavior is predicting what the customer may do. While touchpoints map direct engagement with a brand, actions include indirect engagement. For example, when a customer tries to decide between pet food products, they browse review websites or ask friends with similar pets for personal recommendations.

These are different from touchpoints because your ability to control them is limited. However, for the journey map, work from the assumption that the customer will perform that action to progress to the next touchpoint.

Customer journey stages

Many customer journey map types begin before the customer knows they will be a customer. Every customer journey has multiple touchpoints and customer actions that fall into one of the five customer journey stages :

• Awareness : The customer has heard of your brand
• Consideration : Your brand is an option the customer will consider
• Decision : The customer has decided to choose your brand
• Retention : Your brand is trying to keep the customer loyal ‍
• Advocacy : The customer will recommend your brand to others

Some maps separate the stages using different background colors for each, so that the customer touchpoints remain in focus, with a color-coded system indicating which touchpoints fall into which stage.

Customer persona

Marketers create customer personas to describe different groups of customers. The customer persona depicts a fictional person who represents a swath of your customer base, as an archetype of those customers. The persona describes the customer type’s needs, preferences, emotions, habits, and motivations. The information a persona includes varies across businesses, but will include data from marketing tools and focus groups.

For example, a pet food brand may have a persona for Alex:

Alex is a 35-year-old who lives in an urban apartment with two cats.

• They work in sales for a tech company.
• They are single.
• They are tech-savvy.
• They will splurge for the cats.
• They live in the city and do not have a car.

What they’re looking for in a pet food brand:

• They are concerned about giving their cats natural products with health benefits.
• They like the convenience of having food delivered (instead of using the bus).

Media and social media habits:

• They watch a lot of shows on Netflix and other streaming services.
• They tend to surf social media on weekday evenings, before bed.
• They prefer Instagram, but have Tumblr and Facebook accounts.

And a second persona for Frank:

Frank is 68 years old, and lives in a suburban house with 1 cat and 1 dog.

• He is retired.
• He is married.
• He can use a computer, but is not tech savvy.
• He has a limited budget but has enough to treat the pets well.

What he’s looking for in a pet food brand:

• Good value for money.
• A brand he can trust for both pets.
• Available in stores he visits regularly.
• He listens to the radio in his truck every day.
• He is on Facebook, but checks it about once a week.
• He usually speaks to friends on the phone, but is learning to text.

Alex’s customer journey would be markedly different from Frank's. Alex’s journey should include Instagram ads, and perhaps some on Tumblr and Facebook. Frank’s journey would likely start with a radio ad. While Alex would appreciate a “free delivery” offer by email, Frank would prefer a manufacturer’s coupon to use in-store. These personas help determine what the pet food brand can do to attract more customers like Alex or Frank.

Emotions and pain points

Some maps consider the customer’s emotions at various points along their journey. How would a customer anxious about their pet’s health interact with a pet food brand differently than one who is overwhelmed, or someone who’s content? The customer’s feelings will influence the actions they take.

For example, a customer feeling overwhelmed with too many options might appreciate a brand that’s endorsed by a personality they respect, such as a TV host with pets. A content customer may stick with their current brand. A customer who has had positive interactions with your brand may consider it the next time they need your service.

A customer who has seen the same ad too many times or has to contact the customer service team multiple times about the same problem may become frustrated. This can lead to people stepping off the customer journey and considering other options. Using a map to identify pain points or interactions where customers consider leaving the customer journey can help your team improve the user experience.

Solutions or opportunities

At various stages of the buying process, when the customer needs to take an action to remain on your customer journey, there are things your organization could do to keep their attention. Any of the customer journey map types, but especially the future state maps can be a useful tool for brainstorming solutions to pain points and opportunities to keep customers coming back.

Identifying pain points could also indicate solutions, and implementing those solutions may be part of your service blueprint. Any customer emotions you’ve identified could present opportunities to surprise, delight, or help the customer. Once you’ve built a customer journey map with the other things in mind, you can start to list ways to improve the buying process, and ensure that customers encounter fewer pain points as they journey.

How to create a customer journey map

The following steps will help you create maps your teams can use, but if one of these stages doesn’t fit — or doesn’t fit right now — you can skip or return to it later.

Establish goals

Determine the goal for your journey mapping process and choose a map that best fits that goal. Do you want to know what your current customers experience? Do you want to plan a future service? Do you want a sense of the customer’s life?

Note : If this is your first mapping exercise, a current state map may be the best place to start. It gives you experience with making a map, and is based on information you can get right now.

Gather key stakeholders

Customer journey maps represent a holistic view of your customers’ interactions with your company, so it’s important to gather stakeholders from any teams that power those interactions. This may include teams that don’t directly interact with customers, as the customer journey map covers all channels and all stages of the customer lifecycle. Gathering stakeholders early can help you clear roadblocks and get time with the right people to answer your questions.

Research your customers

Pulling customer data from internal systems (like a data warehouse or CRM tool) is crucial to journey mapping, but you also need customer research to help create and refine your map. This data may include feedback questionnaires asking why customers picked your product over others and user testing data. This information can help you identify customer pain points and define customer personas.

Remember that journey maps for business-to-business (B2B) companies will differ from maps for business-to-customer (B2C) brands.

Develop customer personas

Customer personas will help you create more specific maps. To start, develop one to three customer personas that capture most of your existing customers. Then, look at your data for ways to tailor the customer maps to those personas. Ask these questions:

• What emotions are they feeling? (needs they are trying to meet or problems they are concerned about)
• What questions do they have? (about your product or about how to begin your service)
• Which touchpoints are they going to use or skip? (such as social media or an email newsletter)

Part of the customer journey is about problem-solving, which means part of the mapping process is understanding what problems need to be solved. Using target customer personas lets you narrow the scope of those problems.

Remember that a B2B organization may have customer personas that include the decision-makers at the target company, rather than an individual consumer as in a B2C company.

List touchpoints

With all the data in hand, it’s time to start listing any touchpoints where customers interact with your brand. This includes your company website, email marketing, customer service emails, app push notifications, paid ads, storefronts, social channels, and many others.

This step is closer to a brainstorming exercise. Start with the common touchpoints identified by Google Analytics or other tools, and then move out to more uncommon examples, like in-store returns. You may also start to notice trends during this process, such as some customer types having a lot more touchpoints than others.

Create the map (use a template)

First define the scope of the map you are using by identifying the beginning and end of your customer journey. Then, using the list of touchpoints, the customer personas, and your analytics data, start putting the maps together with these steps:

• Choose one persona.
• List the first interactions those types of customers have with your brand.
• Determine their next most likely interaction, and add that to the map.
• Repeat, following that persona through all of their actions and touchpoints from your list. Make note of which touchpoints from your list do and don’t get used, as that can help you identify areas where your organization is wasting effort.
• Repeat for any other personas you have.

Customer journey map templates can help streamline this process. You can always begin with an existing template and expand it later to meet your needs, rather than trying to start from scratch.

Note : There are customer journey map templates available at the bottom of this article.

Establish resources and ownership

You can now use the maps to identify the resources available to your customers and your teams and determine ownership of those resources. A comprehensive list should include the tools that your teams can use to interact with customers, customer service documentation, email newsletters, knowledgebase articles, and data repositories.

The team or individual owners of those resources will be the teams responsible for using and maintaining them. Identifying that ownership gives your teams a clearer division of responsibilities, and allows you to keep those resources up-to-date better. Keeping this information on the customer journey maps can help you set priorities and goals for those resources.

Take a test drive

In addition to verifying whether your map is accurate, walking through the customer journey map yourself helps you test assumptions, such as whether your website is easy to navigate. You can do this at any point of the process, but having a fully built map allows you to experiment with different touchpoints and experiences.

List gaps and recommendations

Throughout the mapping process, you may notice trends or patterns in the customer experience. Use the customer journey map to explore those trends and identify gaps. For example, a trend may show more customer escalations after a hand-off from the sales team to a customer support team. The map may show that the customer has to repeat themselves because the teams are using different tools that don’t interact.

After identifying gaps, you can suggest changes to your processes, such as finding a way to make the sales and customer support tools share information, or getting a tool that works for both teams.

Update the map regularly

As your business evolves, your maps should keep up. Periodically revisit the data that you used to create your maps to make sure that they reflect the latest trends. When you do, revisit the maps and make sure that all touchpoint, resource, and ownership information they include is still accurate. Try taking the customer journey again after updating the maps, to see if the experience has changed significantly.

Remember that these maps are not set in stone. You can update them at any point that the information seems outdated or irrelevant. However, setting a regular cadence to test and verify your maps ensures it gets done.

What data points do I need to build a customer journey map?

During the customer journey map process outlined above, you’ll need data including:

• Customer survey data
• Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
• Customer feedback
• Website usage statistics
• Data from your modern data stack
• Focus group data (if applicable)
• Customer personas (existing or created during the process)

Some of this data is considered solicited data, meaning you had to ask your customers to provide it. Unsolicited data includes information they are not directly telling you, but that you gather from chat transcripts, social media interactions, frontline employee contact, or other operational sources. Both types of customer-centric data will provide useful insights into the customer experience.

Do I need a customer journey map tool?

There are multiple customer journey mapping tools that you can consider to help you streamline the process, such as LucidChart, Totango, and Smaply. You could also use any tool for making visual flowcharts, such as Figma, Microsoft Visio, or Miro. However, these tools are not required, and you can instead use a template to help guide your customer journey mapping process.

A hands-on demo is one of the best ways to determine which of those tools is best for you. If you find it easier to use one tool over another, or in place of a template, then that tool may be worth investing in.

Customer journey mapping templates

We've created four customer journey map templates you can download and use for free. The templates include:

• Current state customer journey map template
• Future state customer journey map template
• Day-in-the-life customer journey map template
• Service blueprint customer journey map tempalte

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What You’re Getting Wrong About Customer Journeys

• Ahir Gopaldas
• Anton Siebert

Companies often believe they should make their customers’ experiences as effortless and predictable as possible. But the authors’ research shows that this approach is overly simplistic—and can even backfire. While in some instances (say, watching movies on Netflix) customers want their journeys to be easy and familiar, in others (working out on a Peloton bike or playing World of Warcraft) they want to be challenged or surprised.

This article outlines four kinds of journeys: Routines are effortless and predictable and are suited to utilitarian products. Joyrides are effortless and unpredictable and work with products that deliver an on-demand thrill. Treks are effortful and predictable and are associated with products that help people achieve challenging long-term goals. Odysseys are effortful and unpredictable and are perfect for products that facilitate customers’ passion projects.

Each type of journey has its own design principles. Routines should offer consistent touchpoints in familiar sequences; joyrides, endlessly varied moments of delight. Treks require goal-posting (breaking big objectives down into small ones), and odysseys, substantive variation and journey tracking.

They shouldn’t always be effortless or predictable.

Idea in Brief

The context.

Marketing experts agree that the best way to keep your customers coming back for more is by facilitating a compelling series of experiences called a customer journey.

The Problem

Most experts promote an effortless and predictable journey—or a routine—as the gold standard. In many instances, that’s a mistake.

The Solution

Companies can keep customers engaged with not just routines but also joyrides, treks, and odysseys. All four types of journeys can help companies achieve long-term success in the marketplace.

Most marketing experts agree that it’s not enough to give customers a satisfying initial experience with a product. Instead, product managers must offer them a compelling series of experiences—a customer journey —to keep them coming back for more. The design of customer journeys is the new marketing battleground.

• AG Ahir Gopaldas is an associate professor of marketing and currently holds the Robert B. McKeon Endowed Chair in Business at Fordham University.
• AS Anton Siebert is a lecturer in marketing at Lancaster University in Leipzig.

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How to Use a Customer Journey Map to Boost Your Sales Team’s Performance

In today's marketplace, a positive customer experience plays a critical role in customer acquisition and retention. But did you know it can also determine how well your sales team performs?

According to a Salesforce study , 80% of customers value their interactions with your company as much as your product, and another 86% are willing to pay more for a good customer experience, according to PWC . Treat them badly once, and 49% of them will leave.

By implication, even if you have a fantastic product, a poor customer experience can cost you a lot of business. To avoid that, you need a practical customer journey map for your sales team , especially since they’re the most frequent touchpoint for customers.

This post will guide you through everything you need to build a practical customer journey map from scratch. But before we get into it, let’s discuss the definition of a customer journey map and why your sales team must have one.

What Is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map clearly outlines the customer’s demographics, needs, pain points, touchpoints, and motivations for either continuing with your business or going with the competition . Armed with this knowledge, your sales team can devise the best strategies for reducing friction points and maximizing opportunities.

Generally speaking, a customer journey has five stages, which are as follows:

• Awareness : A customer becomes aware of a problem and becomes aware of your product or service as a possible solution. This could be via an ad, a social media post, an organic search, a PR mention, and so on.
• Consideration and alternatives evaluation : They're making a decision and weighing your product against potential alternatives.
• Purchase : They've decided to buy your product or service at this point.
• Retention : Customer retention occurs when a customer becomes a loyal customer and makes recurring purchases.
• Advocacy : If they’re happy with your brand, they may promote it on social media and among their friends and family. Although most customers don’t get to this stage, the value is inestimable.

Here's a good example of a customer advocating for a brand:

Everyone in SaaS should be learning from @PostscriptIO and their CSM strategy. No bullshit sales pitches, just great customer support and a strong focus on helping brands crush sms as a channel. It’s been a min, but stoked to be back on the postscript train with JRB.❤️‍🔥 💬💬 — Eli Weiss (@eliweisss) February 9, 2023

As you can see, this customer isn't only thankful for their service, but also for excellent customer support . And that’s what you should be aiming for.

To return to what we were saying, an inability to see the levers that move your customers from one stage to another will limit the selling power of your sales team and may have a negative impact on your bottom line.

But that’s not all. Other benefits of customer journey mapping for sales teams are:

• Improved customer understanding: A customer journey map provides a comprehensive view of the customer experience, allowing sales teams to better understand their target audience's needs, pain points, and motivations.
• Enhanced empathy: From the knowledge provided by the journey map, sales teams can develop a deeper sense of empathy for their customers and a better understanding of their perspectives by visualizing the customer experience.
• Improved sales strategy: Customer journey mapping assists sales teams in identifying opportunities to improve the customer experience, streamline processes, and optimize sales interactions.
• Increased customer satisfaction: Sales teams can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by addressing customer pain points and providing a seamless customer experience from first touch to purchase and onboarding .
• Improved collaboration: Customer journey mapping can be a collaborative exercise involving cross-functional teams such as sales, marketing, customer service, and product development. This can promote departmental collaboration and teamwork.
• Increased efficiency: When your sales team understands how customers come to a purchase decision, they can focus their efforts on the moments that matter—bringing their sales superpowers to work in the stages where they’ll have the biggest impact.

What to Include in a Customer Journey Map

When it comes to what goes into a customer journey map, nothing is cast in stone.

Take the SaaS industry, for example. The Pirate Funnel , a customer journey mapping technique specific to SaaS, has evolved into numerous variations over the years. But the foundational framework remains the same. Everyone just builds out of it what works for them.

So, as we discuss the basic components of any customer journey map, remember that you can adjust them as you see fit.

Outline the Buying Process

While customers often follow a predictable pattern, the nuances will vary from company to company and from context to context. You must understand and outline what customers' buying process looks like for your organization.

For example, we all know that "awareness" is the first stage of a buyer’s journey, and “consideration” is usually the second. But what if your brand is so popular that the majority of your customers start at the consideration stage?

Household names like Netflix and Amazon come to mind here. Many of their customers had known about them for a long time before deciding to try them out.

Or what if you’re targeting existing customers, and this particular customer journey map needs to start after the post-purchase phase? And how do you move them on to the next stage once the process has been kicked off?

By outlining their buying process .

Here is an example of what that might look like:

User Actions

After outlining their buying process, you should include what actions customers will take to move forward, as well as what roles your company needs to play in making those actions seamless.

For example, if a user finds your website through an organic search and ends up on your website, that’s the first touchpoint (action taken) in their awareness stage.

You need to find out what other steps they’re going to take before moving on to the next stage and include that in your map.

Will they contact your sales representatives, read more blog posts on your website, or sign up for a free trial? Knowing all these will allow you to take a look at every possible interaction and ensure everything is working well.

Another important component you should note in your customer journey map is the overarching emotions that customers will feel at different touchpoints.

This can range from excitement to frustration, worry, and satisfaction. Identifying them beforehand can help you minimize negative emotions and maximize the positive ones.

For example, having a slow payment option will cause frustration during a purchase. But writing it down on the map will allow the salespeople to devise a permanent fix or find a way to incentivize the customer to carry on regardless.

Pain Points

Customer pain points mainly come from two sources:

• The ones that brought them to your doorstep in the first place
• The ones they’ll encounter while interacting with your brand

For example, if they left a competitor due to hidden charges, you should note it down in your customer journey map so that you can reassure them that you’re different.

And if your product has a steep learning curve, that might cause some hesitation in adopting it fully. By including it in your journey map, you will be able to alleviate this pain and move the customer further down the pipeline.

However, these are two distinct types of pain that should be addressed in separate journey maps.

Solutions to the Pain Points

The end goal of all your efforts is to find solutions to your customer's pain points.

To do this, gather your team members to brainstorm and find answers.

For example, how will your sales team handle a customer's demand if they want a yearly pricing plan, but you only have a monthly package?

This is one of the pain points that you’d have foreseen when putting your customer journey map together, and a brainstorming session with your team is where you find the answer to it.

Ready to start building your own customer journey map?

How to Create a Customer Journey Map

Now that you know what a customer journey map should include, the next thing is to create one that’s specific to your customer's unique journey. So, how do you do that?

According to John MacDonald , a conversion rates optimization expert, “A customer journey map shows how customers interact with your brand from the customer’s perspective…”

The keyword here is customer perspective , and the idea is to meet customers' needs at every touchpoint and make amends where you may fall short.

Follow the steps below to build an effective customer journey map:

1. Set Goals and Objectives for the Map

Every business needs a customer journey map, but for different reasons. Speaking of goals and objectives, there are two major reasons why you may need a customer journey map:

• You’re trying to create an effective, predictable sales process for your sales team
• You’re trying to eliminate long-standing roadblocks in your sales process

It may also be targeted at new or existing customers. Or it could be something much more specific. Just be sure to state it clearly, along with the methodology for achieving it and the expected outcome.

You'll be running blind if you don't have clearly defined objectives, and you won't be able to tell whether your efforts are bearing fruit or not.

2. Select the Customer Groups You Want to Map

Customers' sales paths can vary greatly depending on what you sell, and what works for A may not work for B.

If you sell software as a service , for example, you may discover that enterprise-level buyers behave differently than SMEs (subject matter experts.) The challenges, requirements, and emotions will vary.

As a result of this diversity, you must classify them into different groups based on similarities in:

• Behavior: Each type of customer has a goal in mind
• Demographic: Age, occupation, education, race, gender, etc.
• Attitude: What are they saying, how do they feel, and how do they communicate?
• Channels: How do they interact? On what social media platforms do they hang out? Who do they follow?
• Offscreen behavior: What they'll likely be doing when you're not there, such as speaking with stakeholders in their company (in the case of B2B) or inquiring about your product with their families and coworkers

This is known as the buyer persona, or ideal customer profile . Create distinct groups of customer personas and separate customer maps for each. If you uncover too many personas in your buyers, it is best to start with two or three of them, as too many groups will put your salespeople under strain.

Grouping customers into different categories like this will shape how you approach your map and whether one map is sufficient or many are required.

3. Gather Customer Data from Multiple Sources

To make step two above truly meaningful, you must go scientific by collecting customer data from multiple sources .

Data will provide you with important insights about your customers and also validate your assumptions about how users progress through your sales funnel.

Here are some examples of data sources from which you can obtain the information you need:

Customer Surveys

The best way to learn about customers is to ask them. You can solicit feedback from them through social media, or you can use Net Promoter Score (NPS) to assess their overall feelings about their interaction with your brand.

But, since we're looking for specifics, it's best if you just find a way to get them to write down their experience. This direct communication with your customers is the absolute best way to get this information—don’t underestimate it.

Sales and Support Teams

No one knows the customers better than the sales team. They are the ones who interact with them, listen to their complaints, and handle their objections. You should speak with reps to gain important insights into customer behavior.

CRM Software

CRM software, such as Close , is a goldmine for customer data. This is because all customer touchpoints, from the first to the last, are meticulously documented.

For example, in Close you can see a clear, simplified history of every interaction with a customer, including phone calls, emails, SMS, and other custom activities your team creates.

Customer Review Sites, Social Media, and Other Channels

You can also learn a lot about customers by reading their reviews on review sites such as G2 and Trustpilot, as well as on social media platforms where many discussions take place.

Talk to Your Company's Stakeholders

Speaking with your company's marketing, finance, and product teams can also provide valuable insights. Each of them has a different experience with the customer, and their insights can be extremely useful.

4. Identify Customer Pain Points During the Buying Process

Data is meaningless unless it’s translated into an action plan that drives a business goal. To do that, though, you need to analyze all the data you’ve collected and use it to identify customer pain points.

It is important to understand your customers' needs and preferences in order to develop solutions to meet those needs.

But let’s put that in context. Here are steps to identify customer pain points and translate them into an action plan:

• Examine all data points to spot recurring complaints, trends, and patterns and assess customer satisfaction with your brand
• Analyze customer behavior on your website to identify areas where customers are leaving or experiencing issues
• Based on the frequency and severity of customer complaints, prioritize the pain points. This will allow you to concentrate on the most pressing issues first
• Look into your competitor's products via the customers’ lens to identify any gaps or pain points in their offerings that you could address

Most importantly, align your findings with touchpoints, or where exactly the customers are experiencing problems.

For example, if slow payment is an issue, it's understandable that it occurs during the purchase stage. The solution would be to find an alternative payment method or find another way for your team to assist with the payment.

Some pain points, on the other hand, can only be managed through proper communication and demonstrating value to customers.

Case in point: If your product has a steep learning curve because it has more features than others, you can show how critical those features are to their goals.

5. Create the Customer Journey Map for Each Persona

This is the stage where you compile everything you've learned and the data you’ve collected into an actionable diagram that your sales team can view and implement.

Here is a good customer journey map example:

In the image above, you can see there’s a lot of specifics on the customer journey, stages, touchpoints, emotions, and so on. What makes this so powerful is the fact that it isn’t generic but super detailed and explicit.

The Spotify team that created this understood the typical user's journey, what actions they’d take precisely and at what point, and the emotions that’d govern each action.

Consider the first element of the diagram, the stages. They knew where the customer's first touchpoint would be: on the phone, and they optimized for it.

However, if you look at the second stage, you'll notice that they tag it "listen" rather than "consideration." This also shows that the map's primary target is mostly existing customers rather than new ones.

When developing the customer journey map for your organization, that’s the level of precision and personalization you should aim for.

Once you’ve put something like this together, you’re almost there.

6. Take the Customer Journey Yourself

Customer mapping isn’t a set-and-forget activity. You might have truly deployed the best strategy and added everything that you should to the map, but to know if everything is working as expected, you have to put yourself in the customer’s shoes.

In other words, walk the path you set for your customers and see what works and what doesn't.

Examine the tools and guides you've provided. Review your sales enablement content to see if it truly adds value. Check the links to ensure that none of them is broken. Check the user experience of your site and ensure that the navigation isn’t confusing.

In summary, go over each step to ensure that everything is working properly.

7. Improve Your Customer Journey Map

No matter how carefully planned your customer journey map is, it’s still a mere hypothesis until it’s been tested in a real-life scenario. "No plan survives contact with the enemy," as the saying goes, is a timeless truth that also applies to business.

This is why you should keep tabs on how your customers are feeling and iterate from time to time. You'll have plenty of room for improvement, and that’s perfectly normal.

The most important thing is to take customer feedback and apply them to the map as you progress.

3 Types of Customer Journey Maps

Depending on your verticals, you may need only one type of customer journey map or different types.

Whatever your needs are, you’ll find your ideal customer journey map in the three types listed below.

Current State Journey Map

A current state journey map is used to improve your current sales process. This can be accomplished through customer research aimed at identifying and filling gaps in the customer experience.

It isn’t your customer's responsibility to inform you if something isn't working properly in your process. Instead, they may decide to leave and seek another option. The goal of a current state journey map is to improve your current process and avoid losing customers.

Future State Map

A future journey map is used as a roadmap to deal with customers' interactions with a product that doesn’t yet exist. It can also be used to predict how your customers will react to new changes in your business.

The goal is to be able to predict an ideal customer journey in the future, whether for a new product or significant changes to existing ones.

Day-in-the-life Customer Journey Map

A day-in-the-life customer journey map is the type that examines your customers' daily activities outside of their interactions with your company.

It tries to understand unmet customer needs and find ways to personalize relationships with them while taking what they do in their daily lives into account.

Customer Journey Map Template

If you haven’t used a customer journey map before, you don’t have to wing it. You can build on the success of others and personalize it to help you move quickly.

This is where the customer journey map template comes in handy. The idea behind using a template is to build on something that’s worked for others until you can develop your own.

Rather than creating one from scratch, a good template will provide you with a framework you can build on, allow your team members to contribute by enabling collaboration, and ensure that you’re consistent with the industry's best practices.

Want a head start? Download our free customer journey map template.

Customer Journey Mapping Can Keep Your Pipeline Healthy

To keep your customers happy and drive them to a long-term business relationship with you, you must understand and meet their needs. With the statistics cited in the introduction to this post, the lesson is that even one mistake can result in customer loss these days.

A customer journey map gives your sales team everything they need to succeed in preventing customer loss and, thus, profit loss. We've covered the nuts and bolts of customer journey mapping in this post, and we hope you found it useful.

In case you’re looking for a CRM that’ll boost your sales team’s productivity, try Close , a sales CRM and automation tool, for free for 14 days.

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5 Customer Support Strategies to Learn from Netflix

Netflix competes on customer happiness. In the uber competitive and dynamic video streaming landscape, this is one of the ways they’ve remained on top. That’s because the company is not simply customer focused, but is customer obsessed. 

Neftlix has a lot of competition when it comes to consumer attention. The company competes not only with the growing number of video streaming companies (Hulu, Youtube TV, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Now, etc.) but also with video games: “We compete with Fortnite more than HBO” (Netflix said in a shareholder letter).   

So how does the company compete so successfully, capturing 11% of the world’s internet traffic 1 ?  It’s because the company operates with the mindset that acquiring, engaging and retaining customers lies with the customer experience . Companies across industries – not just those that compete for customer attention – can learn a few key lessons from the Netflix customer-obsession strategy. 

1) Take ownership and be transparent  

In the video streaming business, technical glitches are inevitable. If there is a service disruption or streaming issue, Netflix will not only put out a statement, but also personally email all customers who may have been affected. 

For example, when there was an Xbox Live streaming outage a few years ago, the company proactively reached out to customers, apologizing for the inconvenience and offering a 2% credit to their account 2 . They didn’t wait for frustrated customers to reach out and complain. The company got out in front of the issue. 

Customer Ian Hall remembers another example: “Last night I was passively watching (or more listening than anything) to Eco-Trip with my daughter while we fixed dinner.  All of a sudden the sound gets all garbled.  I figure the encoding is off and think nothing of it until this morning I receive the following email. Now THAT is customer service. Netflix knew I might be upset (or at least have noticed) the interruption and so, proactively, they allowed me to request a credit for a small amount of my bill.  Now while 3% of my bill isn’t really going to add up, it makes me FEEL 100x better.  And here I am gurgling over my feelings and the attention Netflix pays to their customers.”

2) Empower agents to be individuals and focus on full resolution 

The company’s business model relies on a flat subscription rate so agents are not under pressure to upsell a customer when they are speaking to them. Perhaps because of this lack of pressure to drive revenue, agents are focused on solving the specific issue a customer is having. Netflix agents are encouraged to solve the problem without transferring to other agents. 

Agents are also empowered to be personal. A former employee recalled the company encouraging that agents have “at least one moment in a phone call where you would relate to a customer.” Humanizing support with jokes and personal stories. 

In one well-reported customer service story out of Netflix, Mike Mears, a customer service representative, engaged in an entire chat with a customer having a streaming issue in character in a Star Wars persona without breaking character. At the time of the chat transcript going viral, Brent Wickens, Netflix’s vice president of global customer support, said: “We really allow support agents to be themselves. 3 ” 

Click here for the 15 best customer experience tools to elevate CX.

3) Be proactive and anticipate the next touch

We explored earlier how Netflix is proactive when there is a widespread technical issue that could provide a hiccup in someone’s streaming experience. The company, though, deploys proactive support across the customer journey. Whether it’s sending personalized emails with ideas of what to watch tonight (meticulously curated, of course), but also as soon as a person signs up for a free trial. 

As soon as a customer signs up, they are personally welcomed and provided key information and pointed in the direction of when, where and how to get in touch if they ever encounter a problem. This way, customers can reply immediately if there are any pressing questions or easily refer to the email if a question ever arises.  And they are doing something right: Netflix registers an astounding 93% conversion rate on free trials 4 . 

4) Provide support at any time 

People consume content all the time and issues arise on weekends, holidays and after hours. In order to provide superior support, Netflix not only offers self-help solutions to many problems through a robust help center, but also provides English live support 24/7 through live chat or via phone 5 .   

Learn how to automatically resolve customer service inquiries at the industry’s highest rate over messaging, chat, email, and voice with our helpdesk AI solutions.

One customer recounts a problem she encountered when she was a new subscriber. “When joining up we had a problem. It didn’t recognize our password on the first attempt. After numerous attempts failed, we rang up the helpline. Considering it was a Sunday night, the phone was answered swiftly and politely. They soon fixed the problem and apologized.”

Had Netflix waited until Monday morning to help this customer, during “regular” business hours, the company could have lost this customer forever. Because the company provided in-the-moment support, it not only provided an immediate resolution, but also built brand goodwill. 

Improve your customer satisfaction. Discover the best help desk software solutions today.

5) Ask for feedback, directly from customers 

Netflix is notorious for taking a data-based approach to their customer experience, which they dub “consumer science.” The company tests hypotheses, obsessively analyzes what a person watches and what they watch next in order to create the most personalized digital experiences.  

Part of the company’s obsession with data is collecting feedback directly from customers. They send out surveys designed specifically to understand how customers think. Companies trying to be as “customer obsessed” as Netflix should also make data-based decisions. This includes not only rigorous A/B testing, and behavioral and segmentation analysis, but also asking customers their satisfaction following interactions with the company or product, and also monitoring engagement following an interaction with customer support. 

Netflix is a leader not only in the streaming industry, but also globally recognized for its customer experience. The company has remained the biggest streaming company in a fast-changing and highly competitive industry based on its ability to personalize every customer interaction , anticipate the next issue and harness data to continuously improve. Companies across industries can implement Netflix customer obsession strategies within their own organizations to compete on customer happiness. 

Want to learn more about how streaming companies can compete on customer experience? Download our ebook today . 

For more information on customer service, visit:

• Telecom Customer Service
• Customer Service Chatbot
• Retail Customer Service
• Customer Satisfaction Surveys : 17 Questions and Templates
• Companies Using Chatbots for Customer Service

References 

• https://www.sandvine.com/phenomena
• https://techcrunch.com/2009/08/31/netflix-had-me-at-were-sorry/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJbcKK2jrPFgHq_vdq3SF7we2xO_NO2M3niUMS3vSxO1C8gtJj7e-P4AKhCRmSP62a068a35pMO85BXfp-xOMiJ4jd-fRyPDpsfWc5ob2_m3qKS_c9oUMYp5d9ydZKHE2u40i91vl5hbxotagB-8gzyyCb3yqRWhwiWPb5Oxouer  
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/netflix-customer-service_n_4178662
• https://vwo.com/blog/conversion-rate-marketing/  
• https://customerthink.com/customer-experience-at-netflix-6-lessons-we-can-all-learn-from/
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Customer journey map: The key to understanding your customer

When you think of your customer, who comes to mind? 

Can you name their intentions, motivations, and pain points? Better yet, do you know why they are choosing your company among competitors? 

Defining customer needs, problems, and interactions with your company may seem overwhelming and at times, unnecessary. However, understanding every customer’s experience at each stage of the customer journey is crucial for turning business insights into long-term improvement strategies. 

Creating a customer journey map can help you and your company visualize how customers feel at all brand touchpoints so you can avoid potential issues ahead of time, increase customer retention , and discover key information to make the best decisions for your business.

In this post, we will cover: 

What is a customer journey map?

• How can customer journey maps improve customer experiences?
• Where do I start with my customer journey map?
• Why are surveys crucial for developing my customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a visual storyline of every engagement a customer has with a service, brand, or product. The customer journey mapping process puts the organization directly in the consumer’s mind to better understand the customer’s processes, needs, and perceptions.

A journey map lays out all touchpoints that your customer may have with your brand – from how they first heard of you through social media or brand advertising, to their direct interactions with your product, website, or support team – and includes all of the actions your customer takes to complete an objective across a period of time. 

A visual representation of the entire customer journey can provide valuable insights into the thoughts of your customers. This can then lay the groundwork for essential changes to your product or service, or overall customer experience, marketing, and business strategy.

Using a customer journey map to improve the customer experience

Outlining your current processes helps to visualize what the customer is experiencing in real time and may unveil common pain points that need to be addressed. 

Through this mapping process, you’ll also be able to connect with your buyer and in turn, influence your organization to prioritize the customer experience ( CX ) through shared understanding. 

Gaining a deeper understanding of your customer

“Experience maps look at a broader context of human behavior. They show how the organization fits into a person’s life.” -Jim Kalbach, author of Mapping Experiences

How does your customer feel when they can’t get in touch with customer service on an issue they’re experiencing? Or, if their package doesn’t arrive on time? 

You may be imagining a situation where those instances happened to you outside of the workplace and can remember feelings of frustration. You assume this customer may feel the same and can relate to their sentiment. 

The ability to establish empathy for your customers and identify how they’re feeling at every turn is what makes customer journey mapping, a powerful exercise.

A customer journey map – or customer experience map – expands that empathy on a broader level so you have a true understanding of their experience and can be meaningful in your organization’s customer experience improvement strategies. Utilizing this approach allows you to take your customer’s perspective and use it as an opportunity to find solutions to any problem they may face when interacting with your company.

Your map can help answer questions such as:

• Is my online interface user-friendly and matching customer expectations? Why is the user navigating away from the site so quickly? 
• How often is my customer reaching out to customer support and is the team able to address the issues in a timely manner?
• How is the customer interacting with my brand before they decide to make a purchase? How are they feeling at this stage?

Understanding the customer journey from an empathetic, bird’s eye view will give you deeper insight into customer needs at every touchpoint so you can take the steps to meet their expectations.

Creating a customer-centric company

Aligning towards the same company objectives is essential for strategic customer experience goal planning and success tracking. When you build a journey map, you have a customer-centered tool to refer to and distribute across the company. 

With your customer journey map, you can:

• Use your map to train team members on CX standards and best practices
• Present the visual diagram in company-wide meetings to map out customer-focused quarterly goals 
• Include the sales team in your map assessment to improve onboarding flows 
• Review the map with your customer service team to explore ways you can reduce obstacles throughout the customer lifecycle  

Using visual mapping to tell a story to your company not only sets a united standard for exceptional customer care, but also benefits customer experience and customer retention in the long run.

Customer journey map design

There’s no correct or incorrect way to create a customer journey map. However, before you begin, consider aligning your map with a chosen customer persona and think through which journeys and stages make the most sense for your business to measure. 

Creating a customer persona

A customer persona (or buyer persona ) is a fictional character that represents your average customer based on user and market research. Imagining this persona’s age, job function, personal goals, etc. can help you step into the customer’s shoes and thoroughly develop the customer journey story. 

Start by creating three personas at most to help in narrowing your character and design focus.

Deciding what to measure 

Next, you will need to decide what you want to measure and what goal you’re trying to achieve. 

Perhaps you want to revisit current customer success processes or take a closer look at your prospect’s experience through the selling timeline. Whatever you choose, your customer journey map is customizable and should evolve over time to meet your business needs. You may also create multiple journey maps in the future as new opportunities shift your curiosities and goals.

Organizing with touchpoints and stages 

As you begin your customer journey design, you may want to organize your map with touchpoints and stages: 

• Identify touchpoints : A touchpoint is any moment a customer interacts with your brand. From advertisements, to a thank you note they receive after a purchase, consider including these touchpoints within your map so you can collect feedback and identify patterns on how they’re feeling at each interaction. 
• Write out the stages : Every time your customer engages with your brand, there is a goal-driven action behind it. Break down the customer journey in stages (or phases) based on the customer’s need throughout their journey. 

Customer touchpoint mapping and journey mapping go hand in hand, but mapping out personas and defining specific customer touchpoints can seem time-consuming. Use Excel documents to organize your map or work from customer journey templates such as Qualtrics’ Journey Map Template to set a simple foundation for your diagram creation process. 

Using survey data to boost your customer journey map

Research is crucial to learn your customer’s motivations, roadblocks, continued pain points, and successes. If you don’t have the survey data to answer these questions, you could be building your map from assumptions, leaving room for misguided strategic planning down the line.

Consider using Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), or Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys to capture first-hand customer feedback to include within your customer journey map. Then, choose between a variety of surveying channels (Email, Web, Link, or SDK) to reach your audience wherever they are.  

Here are some question examples to include in your survey:

• [CSAT]: How satisfied were you with your onboarding experience? 
• [CSAT]: How satisfied were you with our checkout process? 
• [NPS]: How likely are you to recommend this solution to your peers? 
• [NPS]: How likely are you to recommend this store to your friends or family? 
• [CES]: The website made it easy for me to compare options
• [CES]: The support reps made it easy to get my questions answered

After you select your survey, question, and channel, specify when and how often surveys are triggered throughout the customer lifecycle. Before you know it, your customer journey map includes up-to-date feedback for you to start analyzing and acting on CX feedback regularly. 

TIP : To get greater context behind a customer experience at each journey stage, create customized follow-up questions after your initial survey question. From free response to multiple choice, craft up to 10 Additional Questions to ensure your journey map (and future state of customer experience) gets a boost with detailed verbatim feedback.

Delighted makes it easy to ask the right questions at the right time. Use Delighted’s customer experience solution to craft impactful, automated customer surveys or customize one of our survey templates .

Additional customer journey map resources

For additional resources, check out these articles on how to optimize your customer experience program , and the questions you can ask at each stage of the customer journey:

• 7 tips for an effective voice of the customer program  
• 52 popular customer satisfaction survey questions by customer journey  
• How to kickstart a customer experience program  
• Your ultimate guide to customer journey mapping

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TechBullion

Customer journey mapping 101: what, why, and how for event marketers.

Event marketing has changed a lot over the years. Back in the day, it was all about driving attendance. Now, it’s more about understanding attendees and optimizing their entire experience – from awareness to post-event follow up. That’s where mapping the customer journey can help. It gives you insights into what your attendees really want and need.

Event Marketing Has Evolved

Can you remember when event marketing was just about securing a venue, sending invites, and getting butts in seats? 

Those days are long gone. Events are now competing for attention across channels both online and offline. 

People have more options than ever for how to spend their time. With virtual and hybrid events, their expectations are also through the roof when it comes to seamless experiences across multiple platforms.

On top of that, new technologies like AI and the metaverse are opening up possibilities for more personalized, memorable event engagement. Just having an A-list speaker or flashy production is not enough anymore to guarantee success.

This is why taking an outside-in approach by mapping the customer journey is so important. Really understanding what makes your attendees tick – their motivations, frustrations, and goals – can have a huge impact on everything from your event format to ticket pricing.

Why Customer Journey Mapping Matters

Customer journey mapping looks at every touchpoint along the attendee lifecycle, from initial discovery to post-event follow up. It puts you in their shoes so you can view your event from their perspective. This helps uncover pain points in the experience you may have never realized before.

Let’s say you run a developer conference and notice through surveys that your food options aren’t resonating with attendees. 

By mapping out their journey, you learn that many of them have dietary preferences like vegan or gluten-free that aren’t being met. You’re then able to tweak the menu to be more inclusive.

These insights also allow you to refine messaging in a way that speaks to what attendees really care about. If networking and recruitment opportunities are key motivators, for example, you can highlight those angles to get more developer tickets sold.

Major companies are already using journey mapping to improve their events. Tesla looked at owner charging pain points and is adding destination chargers at popular road trip pitstops. Netflix noticed changing attitudes toward ads and launched an ad-supported tier.

Bringing It All Together with a Solid Marketing Strategy

While customer journey mapping provides the intel, you still need a rock-solid marketing strategy for an event to act on those insights. This includes things like:

• Researching your attendees and what makes them tick
• Figuring out the right mix of channels and touchpoints
• Crafting messaging tailored to each stage
• Planning follow-up nurturing after the event

Having a streamlined marketing plan is key to rolling out customer insights in an impactful way across all your event promotion activities – both online and offline. Let’s say surveys show early bird pricing really drives ticket sales. You can highlight that offer prominently across all marketing assets and platforms.

Tools like campaign management platforms, CRM, and email services are also invaluable. Their data and analytics capabilities feed back into the mapping process for continuous optimization.

How To Create A Customer Journey Map

Now that we’ve talked through why journey mapping is so valuable, let’s look at how to actually put one together:

Step 1: Define your goals and KPIs upfront so you know exactly what questions you need to answer. Boosting virality and increasing sponsorships require focusing on different things. Outlining measurable objectives keeps things focused.

Step 2 : Map out the major stages of the attendee lifecycle – awareness, consideration, purchase, event experience, loyalty. While it’s not always a linear progression, the funnel provides a good framework.

Step 3: Identify touchpoints within each stage where attendees engage with your brand – website, email, social, app, signage, etc. Look at both digital and physical. New formats like the metaverse also unlock more opportunities here.

Step 4: Gather data at each touchpoint through surveys, interviews, analytics, etc. Look at pain points and areas for delight.

Step 5: Analyze insights across stages to spot leaks in the funnel as well as ways to enhance experiences. Use this to inform your next event marketing strategy.

Step 6 : Continue gathering data during and post-event to quantify outcomes. Customer journey mapping is an ongoing process of optimization based on learnings.

Platforms like Mixpanel, UserTesting, and Appellee can provide useful tech for gathering and making sense of data across the mapping process.

Tracking Your Event Marketing Success

While the journey map provides strategic direction, you need concrete metrics to measure progress:

Awareness KPIs: Website visits, social reach , email open rates

Consideration KPIs: Newsletter sign-ups, content downloads, survey responses

Purchase KPIs: Tickets sold, upsells, referral code use

Experience KPIs: App stats, NPS or CSAT scores, social engagement

Loyalty KPIs: Retention, recurring attendees, advocacy

Monitoring relevant KPIs at each journey stage gives visibility into what’s working. The insights can feed back into future iterations of your marketing strategy.

Tools like Salesforce and Adobe Analytics make it possible to capture and evaluate tons of event data in real-time. Their dashboards and reports help spot trends and opportunities.

Key Takeaways

• Journey mapping gives event marketers crucial insights into optimizing experiences.
• A solid marketing strategy is key to executing on those insights effectively.
• Analytics and reporting enable continuous optimization based on data and learnings.

As virtual, hybrid and metaverse events take off, event marketing has changed for good. Adopting a customer-first mindset through journey mapping can help your brand thrive in this new landscape. By tuning into your attendees’ needs, you’re primed for success now and in the future.

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Delivering an effortless customer experience (CX) is the best way to gain loyalty, with brands like Netflix and Amazon leading the way pushing CX to new heights. Consumers worldwide have grown accustomed to personalized and frictionless journeys, yet many are unaware that it is Artificial Intelligence (AI) raising the bar to create gold-standard customer experiences.

Having a connected brand experience across the entire customer journey is essential to transform CX the right way, and it must include contact centers.

This ebook explores the five crucial steps to AI-driven CX outcomes, their impact in contact centers and how their application can create a Netflix-like customer experience.

Interested in presenting your own Case Study?

Share best practice, ideas, and solutions to our global community of over 100,000 senior customer experience professionals. View our latest Media Kit to learn more about our audience and review our content calendar. Download Now

Download this ebook to understand: 

• What the purpose of AI and automation is
• The top AI-powered operational CX outcomes
• Why is it important to create a Netflix-like CX
• The five crucial steps to embed AI into contact centers

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