Or: I know how to deal with my customers – Journey Maps are a waste of time!
Summary: You think you deliver great customer service because you have your “customer heart at the right place”. But in today’s business world this might be no longer sufficient to run your business successfully! (3 minutes read, audience: beginners to Customer Experience & Success)
Recently, a friend of mine, she is the owner of a small business shop (retail), commented on my explanation of Customer Journey Mapping: “Isn’t that an obvious thing? Just serve your customer, do it from your heart, create value, and be available at any time!”
Listening to her, I recalled a statement obviously made by Gandhi, see below. So, I reckon my friend is correct in her assumption:
Customer Journey Maps are obsolete! Really?
Maybe not quite! Let’s take into consideration that in today’s world we have to deal with more dimensions of running a business. Some examples (and compare this to my friend’s small retail shop!):
- Size of Customer Base – We no longer know our customer personally: How can we achieve customer empathy; how do we remain personal?
- Product Complexity – Customers choose from product variations: How do we build subject matter expertise and how do we share this knowledge with our customers?
- Digital Communication – Channels vary, we have chat, email, phone, social media, even bots: How do we exchange information, keep it consistent across all channels?
- Internationalisation – Growing with different teams in different countries: What are “local” customer expectations and how do we meet them?
- Digitalisation – Different tools and programs used on different devices: How do we keep all information coherent and up to date?
I reckon we can’t ignore these aspects, can we? Therefore, let’s try to agree on:
Gandhi’s statement is the foundation of a successful customer service program. And your Customer Journey Maps should be built on top of this foundation, helping to address the various dimensions of your business!
Examples of good (and not so good) Journey Maps
In our next blog posts, we will share some interesting customer service examples we collected over the last few months. All examples, good and bad, will help you to understand the value of Customer Journey Mapping
Take-home message
For today you want to keep this in mind this in mind: Customer Journey Mapping will improve your interaction between your business and your customers. They:
- Visualise your customer interaction and consequently the customer experience!
- Will help you to identify the moments of truth!
- Allow you to discuss customer journeys with other teams!
- Are focused on customer value!
And remember this about the “moments of truth”:
