Customer Journey Maps: How to Extract Value
Tale as old as time
You did it! You put up colorful post-it notes all across your conference room walls like there was no tomorrow. The rainbow aesthetic is mesmerizing, you know every inch of “that one” process that has been giving your customers headaches for decades. You even have some personas going. You know, Millennial Michelle: too cool for the branch and does it all online, Caller Carl: calls twice a month to confirm the deposit went through (yes, this is a thing), and all the other usual suspects. You’re so excited, you present it to everyone within a 10ft radius, like new parents do with photos of their kids, (yes yes I’m guilty of that as well…my daughter’s a Rockstar *shrug*). 1 month goes by, then the Quarter, then the year….
Post- mortem
What the heck happened? To figure it out let’s take a high-level look at what Customer Journey Maps are all about. Time for some bullets:
What Customer Journey Maps don’t do
- Magically fix your processes
- Spontaneously make customers happier
- Automate NPS improvement
What they do (to name a few)
- Gain visibility into your processes
- Have greater appreciation for what customers go through when they interact with your company
- Give you a starting point to improve the madness
WWUBD – What would Usain Bolt do?
Olympic level runners need hi-tech shoes to run their race, but the shoes don’t do the running, Usain Bolt does. (note: you are Usain Bolt in this analogy…*whisper* soak it in) Customer Journey Maps are your Nikey’s….they put you in the game, but then it’s time to do some heavy running my friend.
Secret Sauce
For the purpose of this article, I’ve omitted several steps in the methodology for driving CX and customer journey mapping efforts. I will be detailing each step extensively in an upcoming article, stay tuned. (Can you avoid scope creep in writing? I think that’s exactly what just happened)
CX Angel Ninja tip #1: Don’t forget the Back-office
If your customer journey map only includes the client-facing part of the journey, you’ve only got half the put favorite circular food item here,let’s go with tortilla. Whether we like it or not, there’s some Willy Wonka level factory stuff going on behind the scenes at your financial offices that have indirect impact on your customers. Like what? Take loan origination, that your underwriting team takes 10 days to chug along paperwork that the Rocket Mortgage’s of the world do in 1 day…not cool. And not cool = customer attrition. That’s why it’s important to map out the back-office in parallel so you get the whole picture and put yourself in a position to identify what needs a ‘fixin’. But wherever will you keep track of all these improvement opportunities? Spoiler: answer below.
CX Angel Ninja tip #2: Make a Backlog
During and/or right after the creation of the Customer Journey Map you need to create a backlog of improvement opportunity initiatives that you identify throughout the process. A common example is: “Why do I have such a high call volume regarding X new product?” It may turn out there was no information online about X new product, which prevented the possibility of customer self-service, which resulted in a non-cost-effective + non-customer-friendly interaction. Hence, you’d add to your backlog the need to create a landing page on your financial services website with the necessary information to address the blatant gap. (this should’ve been done pre-launch *frowny face*, but that’s for another article). Some of the columns you’d include in the backlog are opportunity name, opportunity description, business unit(s), KPIs to be impacted, relevant strategic pillars, complexity, dependencies, stakeholders, and most importantly person responsible for completion.
CX Angel Ninja tip #3: Getting it done
A customer journey map by itself is fluff, akin to the “inspirational” office posters of the late 90s; sure they’re pretty, but they hold no stand-alone value. In order to be of use, you have to get the things you put on your backlog done. Sounds simple, but the bigger the company – the more players, more dependencies, and sometimes more drama. What it boils down to is that the same team that leads the creation of the customer journey map has to have either the ownership or the empowerment of seeing this through to the end. You can do both simultaneously? Yes, it’s like weird science Schrodinger’s cat explanations of two things existing at once, you know…like watching TV while you check Facebook. This can happen through influencing, networking, negotiation, bartering, C-level sponsorship, or just good old-fashioned teamwork for the good of the customer. (unless you’re in a fintech this last one is a bit tough to come by, don’t give up…there’s always a way).