Why Is Customer Journey Mapping the Right Step Towards Enhancing Customer Experience (CX)?

About 15 years ago, as a part of my consulting assignment, I was asked to do the customer journey mapping for a dental hospital. This was an offline setup. They were talking about patient journey mapping, but for our understanding, I am referring to it as customer journey mapping.

We were very clear at the outset that we did not want to look at customer journey mapping as a deliverable. Instead, we wanted to look at it as a tool that would guide them in enhancing the overall customer experience.

We wanted to understand their existing customer mapping. So, we decided to take that journey ourselves, posing as patients.

My colleague and I visited their hospital and quietly sat at their reception. We sat there for about an hour, and not a single person from the hospital spoke to us or inquired about the reason why we were visiting them.

This was the beginning of our experience, and we went the full length as patients and understood all their friction points. Then, we matched it with their ideal customer mapping scenario and came up with things that needed to be done to reach the ideal scenario. We also looked at their positioning vis-à-vis their competitors.

With this, we were able to convert the customer journey mapping into a tool with which they were able to improve their patient experience.

How Do You Go About Creating a Customer Journey Mapping That Acts as a Tool?

Current State Mapping

Look at what customers are experiencing currently. What do they like about the experience, and what do they not like about it?

This would give you an idea of the friction points, and when you compare them with the ideal state, you would know the gaps for you to fill.

Let me give you a few examples.

• A SaaS company discovered their customers were receiving duplicate emails, calls, and texts. This was due to a system glitch. It was easy to fix, which allowed their customers to engage more with the communication they received.

• A healthcare non-profit realized that they had completely neglected donors who donated more than once per year. They quickly created an outreach program for these engaged donors to drive more engagement and contributions.

• A scientific equipment seller understood a better way to sell by aligning their sales with the natural cycles of the academic year of schools in their neighborhood.

• An e-commerce seller understood that customers were abandoning the cart very often during the checkout process. This was happening on the payments page. They made the payment experience easier and reduced the cart abandonment rates considerably.

Ideal State Mapping

This is ideal when brands want to make big changes. This can be designed for specific customer groups, personas, or new products or services.

Let me give you a few examples.

• The government of Tamilnadu understood that they should provide a more accessible experience to beaches in Chennai for people with disabilities. They created two paths that would lead people with disabilities to the beach so they could enjoy the experience.

• A car wash facility reimagined its entire drive-through experience by letting its customers enter and exit cyclically. So, you drive your car in for the wash, and right after that, you drive through to the exit, where the interiors are vacuumed, and you are out in no time. This allowed them to increase the number of cars they service by 40%.

This kind of mapping allows you to navigate new journeys as new channels and customer shopping preferences arise.

Benchmark with the Competition

This helps you identify what expectations your customers might have based on experiences with other brands. It enables you to identify gaps in all the journeys and fill them.

Let me give you an example.

One of our clients was selling a framework with about 20 libraries in them. Their competitor was selling it with a single licensing model, where they give all the 20 libraries along with the framework.

Our client realized that their customers needed only two or three libraries and not all the 20 libraries. So, they licensed it differently by charging a fee for the framework and a separate fee for each of the libraries.

This brought down the costs considerably while ensuring comfort with the fact that libraries can be bought whenever you need them.

I have a personal example to quote. Here it goes:

When we spoke to our customers who used multiple contact center platforms, we realized each of their implementations took anywhere between 8 and 16 weeks. This made them stick to their incumbent providers, for they were worried about the transition timeframe.

On the other hand, we onboarded customers within a time frame of 24 to 48 hours. We started talking about it in the market, and this was one of the reasons why we were able to churn a number of customers in the last few years.

How Does Customer Journey Mapping Enhance Customer Experience?

Customer journey mapping isn’t about identifying touchpoints; it is about understanding and improving customer interactions at every stage.

A McKinsey study found that organizations that excel in customer journey management increase customer satisfaction by 20% and revenue by 10-15% while lowering the cost of service by 15-20%.

Here are some ways customer journey mapping enhances CX.  

Identifying and Eliminating Friction Points

Businesses assume they know where customers face challenges, but mapping the actual journey reveals hidden friction points.

I use a discount brokerage app for my equity transactions. I was frustrated with the multi-factor authentication that I had to use to access the app. So, I moved to another app where the multi-factor authentication was replaced by biometrics. While the first app understood the need for multi-layer security, it did not bother about the user experience, which the second app understood.

Personalization and Creating Seamless Omnichannel Experiences

Customers today use multiple channels to communicate with brands – voice, email, social, website, mobile, chat, and messaging apps. You need to ensure consistency and continuity across these touchpoints.

I use a completely integrated travel booking app. Based on my usage, it suggests things that I would need. Recently I planned a holiday with my family. I used this app to book my flight tickets, hotel with special instructions, and cabs to and from the airport. Besides, I also booked cabs using this app for me to travel around to the chosen destination.

Initially, I did not book cabs as a part of the package. They anticipated my needs, and I received multiple texts from the app asking me to book them in advance at a discounted price. With the offer thrown my way, I booked the cabs as well, and I couldn’t be happier.

All of these were smooth and completely personalized to my needs.

Besides, understanding the competitive landscape helps you position your offerings advantageously both for yourself as well as for your customer, as discussed in the previous section, where I gave a personal example of how we are churning customers.

Businesses that prioritize customer journey mapping don’t just solve problems, but they stay ahead of customer expectations.

When you start using customer journey mapping as a tool, you will see higher satisfaction, stronger loyalty, and sustained growth. The question isn’t whether you need customer journey mapping; it’s whether you can afford to ignore it.