How to Map Customer Experience to Derive Qualitative Insights

The multiplicity of digital channels has given opportunities for businesses to engage with their customers and provide them with a better omnichannel experience. However, this can have its share of challenges as well. Statistically speaking, around 71% of customers seek consistent performance of applications across channels, but only 29% of them get it. Today, customers look for a personalized experience across digital channels and do not hesitate to leave for better alternatives.

Customer experience has become the differentiator for businesses to remain competitive given that it is not always possible to determine the quality of offerings across companies based on products and services and pricing alone. Customers, irrespective of the touchpoints, expect the delivery of quality services, swiftly and consistently, including the response to their queries on the first contact. According to SQM research, there is a 15 percent drop in customer satisfaction when their queries aren’t resolved on the first contact. Since so much depends on the customer experience (CX), businesses want to map CX using various customer experience assurance tools to gain qualitative insights.

Benefits of CX mapping

Creating the right level of customer service requires possessing the right resources, tools, and approach. It involves handling every aspect of the customer journey - voice calls, social media channels, emails, SMSs, webchats, and app usage. The benefits of mapping the user experience monitoring for businesses include the following:

Get a holistic view of CX: The process gives qualitative insights into customers’ end-to-end journey when using the products and services of a business. The journey may involve a wide range of customer activities, from brand awareness to renewing. Thus, instead of dealing with the individual interaction or touchpoint, it gives greater insights into customer behavior and procedural lacunae, if any.

Better understanding of CX: Any user experience monitoring exercise allows businesses to understand and experience the customers’ perspective when the latter interacts with the former through various lifecycle stages. Customer sentiment analysis can be done when a trained interviewer conducts in-depth interviews with customers interacting with a business’s touchpoints. It offers valuable insights into customer interactions and contributes to a greater understanding of CX.

Find opportunities to improve CX: A CX mapping exercise using customer experience assurance tools can offer valuable insights on customer expectations at every touchpoint or interaction. It demonstrates how well the company meets such expectations or the opportunities for improving CX. As an outside-in approach, real user monitoring allows businesses to apply feedback or correctives to the resources, tools, and processes with the aim of improving business value.

Greater Visualization into CX: CX mapping can be obtained in a graphical medium and used to depict a visual portrayal of the customer journey across the value chain. The same can be shown to the business stakeholders to make them understand the issues and opportunities surrounding CX. Remember, the stakeholders need to understand the CX map, for only then can they show the willingness to implement the much needed solutions.

Developing an action plan: The customer experience insights can be the basis for developing an action plan to eliminate or minimize issues surrounding the business’s touchpoints. The insights can be in the form of dissatisfaction or negative customer emotions about the brand or any other aspect of CX.

Key steps of CX mapping

The essential steps to mapping CX are as follows:

l Identify the lifecycle stages of interactions (from brand awareness to renewing) that customers are likely to experience when coming across a touchpoint.

l Identify the touchpoints (social media, email, webchats, marketing, call center, Interactive Voice Response, and others) that customers are likely to approach when dealing with a business.

l Focus on what the customer feels, thinks, sees, says, hears, and does to understand his or her emotional landscape.

l Identify the moment of truth (resolving an issue promptly or greeting a customer) for every touchpoint the customer is likely to experience.

l Identify customer personas (students, retired, business people, homemakers, and others) for whom CX insights are needed.

l Understand customer needs and pain points through a customer survey or in-depth interviews.

l Create an affinity diagram by organizing ideas visually and classifying them.

l Map or plot customer interaction and touchpoint experiences for every customer.

l Identify the emotional experiences of customers from interviews and document the same for every interaction.

l Select the improvement suggestions and document them for every touchpoint.

l Use the insights to create and implement an action plan to improve CX.

CX mapping leading to scenarios or discoveries

The data obtained through CX mapping can help you discover scenarios or reveal insights into what drives brand loyalty or what turns customers off. The other aspects gained from mapping CX include:

l Ways or means to improve customer satisfaction.

l Touchpoints to business creating friction or hassles for the customer.

l Identify areas of service delivery or products that drive brand loyalty.

l Identify areas that can contribute to customer retention or areas where new products or services can be introduced.

Conclusion

In the competitive business landscape where every business is running after its target audiences hoping to generate leads and convert them into customers, it is imperative to understand what the user thinks, feels, says, and experiences when visiting or interacting with your digital touchpoint. Since customers are wont to expect consistent service of high-quality 24 x 7, businesses have their task cut out. They should map their customers’ experiences by leveraging a customer assurance platform. Thereafter, they ought to identify the pain and wow areas, develop qualitative insights from them, and implement them in the right earnest.

Stark is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results