10 Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Journey Management

All the digital channels that companies are implementing in customer service are largely satisfying users, since customers expect to be able to choose their preferred communication channel with call centers. This is where an important factor comes in for the result to be successful: the need for proper management of the customer journey.

10 Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Journey Management

Customer journey management is a relatively new discipline and organizations that are starting to implement it need to understand the concept that they can develop when applying it.

1) What Is The Customer Journey?

The Customer Journey is the trip, the path that a customer travels through the different points of contact and interrelation with the organizations.

These may include purchasing a product, obtaining information about products or services, or resolving a problem, among others.

2) What Is Customer Journey Management?

Customer journey management is an ongoing approach to measuring, optimizing and establishing the experiences that users have while interacting with a company. It seeks to predict what customers need at each stage of the journey, understand what they expect to experience at each stage, and proactively engage with them to meet those needs and expectations.

Customer journey management efforts should focus on entire journeys from start to finish, not just individual touch points. Going back to the example where a customer clicks on a link in a promotional email and is taken to the company’s website, both touch points (the email and the website) can be great, but if the web does not recognize the customer from the link you clicked and automatically apply the promotional discount, that is an approximate transfer that negatively affects the trip in general.

3) What Are The Objectives Of Customer Journey Management?

The demands of today’s consumers are clear: they want speed, convenience and ease of use. Another main goal is to shape and control the journey so that users are guided to the next step. Moving customers and prospects through the sales funnel in this way is important, but driving them to their final destinations also improves their experience.

Regular analysis also helps companies identify the most valuable journeys as well as determine predictors of success, allowing organizations to make informed investment decisions.

4) Why Should Companies Manage The Customer Journey?

Today’s journeys, with all their possible touch points and pathways, make management a necessity. Customer experience (CX) has become a differentiator, and according to Gartner, more than two-thirds of companies compete primarily based on CX. This approach is driven by customer expectations. Brand experiences impact customer loyalty and spending behavior. For example, PwC found that 32% of consumers would leave a brand after just one bad experience, and another study by the same consultancy indicates that 73% of them value experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions.

Customer journey management enables companies to create satisfying experiences by enabling the following capabilities and benefits:

• Trip optimization.
• Proactive intervention.
• Prioritize investments.
• Track trip performance.
• Reduce costs.
• Improve the quality of call center interactions.
• Increase revenue.

5) What Are Some Tools And Techniques For Managing Customer Journeys?

Companies that “go out of their way” to deliver optimal customer journey management create dedicated customer journey teams and treat the customer journey the same way they treat products.

The customer journey management teams have the following tools and techniques at their disposal:

• Mapping of the customer journey.
• Customer journey analysis.
• Establishment of the customer journey.

6) Should all customer journeys be managed?

The short answer is no. There are too many paths for customers to follow and not enough resources to manage them all. Companies should prioritize the trips they manage based on criteria such as business value, strategic importance, frequency of use and impact on CX. Optimizing touch points and transfers should benefit all channels, even those that are not actively managed.

7) What Is The Role Of The Contact Center In Managing The Customer Journey?

While a dedicated team may be responsible for managing the customer journey, contact centers play a vital role in overall success. The support journey is a critical factor, and the call center is the primary point of contact and owner of transfers along this journey.

As part of optimization efforts, call centers may be required to:

• • Offer omnichannel experiences.
  • Personalize interactions.
  • Reduce queue times.

8) What Are Some Keys To The Success Of Customer Journey Management?

Managing the customer journey is a critical and complex task. Companies will get better results if they follow these keys to success:

• Make the most of data to understand your customers.
• Take a holistic approach: It’s not just about marketing or the website.
• Invest in technology or budget.
• Set goals and regularly measure progress.
• Choose the right journeys to manage based on what’s important to your customers and your business.
• Align and involve the entire organization.
• Implement a unified source of customer data.

9) How to measure the success of customer journey management programs?

The best way to measure success is to capture journey performance from start to finish, rather than just at individual touch points. For example, travel analytics software can calculate a travel excellence score (JES).

A JES is designed to measure the quality of the customer experience from the perspective of the customer journey, across multiple channels, and over time. It takes into account hundreds of touch point attributes along with variables like satisfaction scores and customer sentiment.

Comprehensive metrics like JES allow organizations to pinpoint deficiencies, measure the effectiveness of improvements, and assess trip performance over time.

10) How To Start With Customer Journey Management?

Whether a company is just starting out on the journey toward customer journey management, or planning to improve its current practice, consider hiring expert journey management consultants to develop strategy, assess current status, share best practices and recommendations.