Successful customer centricity through customer journey mapping

Find out how customers really think and act!

What triggers customer attrition? At what junctures does customer loss occur, and at what points do satisfied customers turn into enthusiastic fans? More specifically, when does their approval level shift?

To answer these questions directly:

The Zendesk Trend Report highlights a striking fact: 50 percent of customers are willing to switch to a competitor after having just one negative experience. This figure underscores the delicate nature of customer loyalty and emphasizes the significant effort required to maintain it. This is precisely where customer journey mapping comes in.

Thinking about processes from the customer’s point of view

The peak-end rule illustrates the critical impact of positive and negative moments during a customer’s journey, particularly emphasizing the significance of their last point of contact. According to this rule – even if a service or purchasing process starts off exceptionally well – a negative experience at the end can overshadow the entire journey. This negative impression tends to be amplified, diminishing the likelihood of recommendations or future purchases.

To prevent this from happening, successful companies employ customer journey mapping. This approach allows businesses to thoroughly analyze processes from the customer’s perspective – beginning to end. By identifying expectations, needs, thoughts, and emotions encountered during digital processes at each phase, companies can visualize the entire journey. The emotional curve throughout the process often resembles a roller coaster ride, where both positive and negative moments play significant roles. The crucial anchor points for future entrepreneurial success, however, lie in the moments of frustration and dissatisfaction. These instances provide valuable insights for effective consulting and enable the development of targeted optimization measures.

Personas: Who are my customers?

An essential prerequisite for effective customer journey mapping is the definition of personas, which involves identifying ideal-typical representatives of the customer base. This process is carried out collaboratively with the client. Transitioning from the assumed expert perspective to adopting the customer’s viewpoint might not come naturally to everyone, but it is a crucial step in the process. The effort is undoubtedly rewarding, as it leads to gaining valuable new insights into the customer experience.

Going on the customer journey together

valantic collaborated with Mainzer Stadtwerke Vertrieb und Service GmbH to conduct this customer journey mapping process for their e-mobility offerings. At this point, we would like to extend our gratitude to Mainzer Stadtwerke for the pleasant collaboration. The customer journey mapping resulted in a significant boost in customer-centricity. Additionally, the internal collaboration within the organization witnessed notable enhancements and optimizations.

Following the initial persona definition, valantic organized a comprehensive workshop to delve deeper into the customer journey mapping process. The workshop encompassed a total of eight process phases, carefully examining each stage of the customer journey. Each of these phases was thoroughly explored from the perspective of the personas identified earlier. By adopting this approach, specific actions and strategies were derived.

How do the personas engage with the website? What online and offline touchpoints do they encounter? Which interfaces are involved in the actions they perform? And equally important: What are the thoughts of the personas, and how do they feel? These questions about thoughts and feelings allow us to identify areas where the process might not be optimal from the customer’s point of view. Occasionally, this segment of the workshop can be quite frustrating but it’s well worth it.

At the same time, quick wins arise almost immediately as well. The gathering of project participants from various departments presents the perfect opportunity to directly address questions, problems, or misunderstandings stemming from missing information. This enables us to promptly tackle these issues and immediately implement solutions.

Ultimately, all participants gain a comprehensive and profound understanding of the process. They grasp the customer’s perspective, comprehend the roles of other process participants, identify current weak points, and become familiar with the ways to improve them.

In conclusion, the project with Mainzer Stadtwerke Vertrieb und Service GmbH has yielded numerous positive outcomes that will significantly enhance customer loyalty, for instance:

• The shared customer view breaks down silo thinking, fostering a unified approach.

• The method enhances the understanding of customers, leading to more informed decisions.

• Emphasizing a customer-centric approach strengthens collaboration across different departments.

• The end-to-end perspective facilitates the comprehensive identification of opportunities for optimization.