Customer Journey Mapping is an innovative approach that leads to understanding customer insights, by “mapping” customer behavior, from brand awareness to initial consideration and purchase, through product usage and repurchase/referral.

Journey Mapping is an incredibly insightful approach that integrates qualitative and quantitative research methods.

But, many marketing and insight leaders struggle to identify the benefits – direct and indirect – from customer journey mapping.

Our experience is that there are three things that customer journey maps uncover that can be used to drive specific benefits:

Our experience is there are three things that journey mapping uncovers and translates into hard benefits:

1. Understanding customer pain points. There are usually three to four points on the journey that lead to “friction” or “irritation,” which in turn leads to dissatisfaction and customer attrition. Addressing these irritants with service and product improvement programs can improve the customer experience, thereby reducing customer attrition and improving retention rates. Businesses can estimate and monetize these improvements before or after an improvement program is initiated to measure the true impact.
2. Understanding moments of truth that lead to product/brand selection during the shopping experience. Understanding moments of truth leads to increased conversion rates online and at retail centers that. For example, a CPG company knew that shoppers were “switching brands” at the aisle, but didn’t know how often or why. “In-the-moment” shopper research showed that over 70% of shoppers were switching from their pre-determined brand preference in the aisle. The research isolated the three key factors driving the customer brand decisions. By improving their performance in these three areas, the company was able to improve their brand share immediately.
3. Understanding the different experiences that different customers have. A technology company felt that some larger customers weren’t purchasing as much as they used to. An analysis showed that “satisfied” large customers were buying as much as they did before, but “un-satisfied” large customers were buying 55% less. Interviews with those customers identified that they weren’t receiving the same quality of sales, training, service, support and account management that the “more satisfied” customers were receiving. These focused improvements allowed them to immediately increase revenues for those accounts and drive an ROI of over 400% for their improvement project.

When you understand all aspects of a customer’s journey, it’s easier to identify and improve problem areas. These changes can instantly improve your rate of return. Monetizing your customer experience is the best way to build support from the C-Suite – and it starts with Journey Mapping.

Contact us at 1-800-549-7170 or send us an email for a free 30-minute consultation on this topic.

Gold Research Inc. has extensive experience in journey mapping, path-to-purchase research, deploying customer intercepts, in-store interviews, and mobile surveys for concept testing, marketing testing, satisfaction research, shopper insights, and mystery shopping. We can also act as an extension of your research team in helping with data processing, analysis, report development, and survey programming.