Mapping your customer journey is a critical step in your overall marketing process. It allows you to visually see how easy (or difficult) it is for potential customers to retrieve the information they require from your business.

If a customer’s journey is complex and long, this will often lead to a lower conversion rate and a less than desirable experience. Shorter customer journeys that are easy to navigate are more likely to generate a higher number of conversions, leading to return customers and a positive experience with your brand.

Mapping an extensive customer journey can be time-consuming however, once you have this blueprint, it provides you with incredible insight into parts of your business that you can improve to increase your customer base and conversion rate.

What is a customer journey?

Your customer journey is an overview of each of the steps a customer is required to take when they engage with your brand. These steps include the actions they need to take when first landing on your webpage, through to purchasing your product or submitting a contact form for more information.

A poor or complex customer journey is often the leading reason why a consumer doesn’t complete a purchase on a website. If your website is hard to navigate, is not mobile responsive, or has a large amount of text, it’s more than likely that your online customer journey is less than desirable.

Having a website with a complex user journey is often a major reason why traffic from paid advertisements don’t generate as many leads as you were hoping. If your advertisement is bringing your target audience to a website that is hard to navigate, they likely won’t stay long.

How do I map my customers’ journey?

The most effective way to map your customer’s journey is to look at how a customer would typically first engage with your business. Put yourself in their shoes. What steps would you take and what would you search to end up on your website?

Once you’ve landed on your website, take yourself through each of the steps required to complete a purchase, find information, or complete a contact form. Note down how many times you need to click on different pages, scroll through long pages of text, or how many times you click ‘back’ to try and find the information you’re after. Make sure you note how many steps it takes to end up at the end of your journey (eg. purchasing a product).

I find that mapping a customer journey on a whiteboard or a piece of paper with post-it notes is easier than typing the steps on a computer. It provides you with a visual representation of your sales process, and often highlights any major gaps, duplicate steps or issues within your website structure.

I’ve mapped my customer journey and it’s not looking great. How can I improve this?

The good news is, there are usually multiple quick wins you can execute to improve your customer journey.

1. Take a look at where the largest pain points are in your journey. Why are these painful, and what can be done to fix these? If you found it hard to find information on your site, consider creating a new tab within your navigation menu to improve your user experience. If there is too much text on the page and you had to scroll for a while to find the information, review and remove any unnecessary wording.
2. Try to keep up with the trends and your competition. Review your competitors’ websites and customer journey. What steps have they removed that you could replicate? Draw inspiration from a website that you love visiting. What makes this website so great, and what steps of the journey can you implement in your own website?
3. Implement short surveys with clients or customers. Asking for feedback is a great way to gauge the extent of changes you may need to consider making to improve your customer journey. At the end of an online transaction, implement a short survey form, asking customers to rate your website and sales processes. Review this data for any pain points that seem to be common among multiple users.

Overall, mapping your customer journey is imperative to the longevity of your website and the expansion of your customer base.

Don’t be afraid to make as many changes as needed to ensure the journey is engaging and simple.

If you require more information about how to streamline your online customer journey, reach out to our digital marketing team here.