People interact with brands via multiple channels including various online platforms (websites, email campaigns, Facebook ads or mobile app interactions). This includes your company website, mobile applications, social media channels and customer support calls. After a financial transaction with your organisation, the buyer now becomes your customer. At this point, it is critical to track this customer journey and improve on the overall CX. So how can you map this data and create actionable insights from this? A customer journey tracking tool is what you need.

What is A Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map represents a customer’s interaction with your company. This happens over multiple steps and over a duration of time. A map will help you see the pathway of an existing customer’s relationship with your brand. Marketers can track pain points, high friction touchpoints, trace their interactivity with the support team and map their satisfaction levels. This map provides a plethora of information that can help you optimize a customer’s experience.

Customer journey tracking maps also take into account customer emotions and sentiment in an effective way. Creating high engagement points will encourage greater retention rates and extend the customer lifetime value. The key point is to make the customer’s experience memorable and seamless.

What is a customer journey mapping tool?

A customer journey mapping tool is software that tracks the customer’s involvement with the company from start to finish. It maps their satisfaction metrics, their relationship with the company and the usage of products/ services the company has to offer. A tool will track these critical metrics and share data-driven insights with the stakeholders and marketing departments. A user journey mapping tool can also capture customer feedback surveys across active omni-channel platforms.  This tool will display critical metrics, insights and customer data on the dashboard. 

A user mapping tool will collect actionable data, analyze it , segregate it and share a visual report for an overview. 

What is A Customer Journey Analysis?

As the name suggests, customer journey analytics is the process of analyzing every customer interaction with your business across multiple touchpoints. It contains customer data collected from the customer journey map. This entails satisfaction metrics from NPS, CSAT and customer effort score surveys, sentiment analysis, their interaction over websites, social media conversations and interactions with the support teams. A comprehensive analysis helps you track down user behaviour and is represented on visual graphs, charts and dashboards.

What is a Customer Journey Analytics Dashboard?

The journey analytics dashboard is a visual overview of a customer journey map. It documents various stages of a user’s journey and experience with the brand. It contains critical information and metrics visible for stakeholders and key decision makers. A dashboard’s main purpose is to integrate data on one platform across touchpoints such as ad campaigns, websites, product usage etc. It improves sales and marketing, retention rates and business growth.

8 Key Elements to Check in a Customer Journey Mapping Tool

The pathway of a consumer with your brand is not static or linear. It comes with multiple touchpoints, pain points, and other critical instances. Mapping this data can become complex multiplied by a huge user base, (especially when your business is spread globally). Since each user’s journey is unique, a great tool can help you manage this customer journey real time and in a personalized fashion. Using a customer journey mapping software can help you close feedback loops, close CX gaps and reach business goals faster.

Here are some of the key features and elements to look for, if you want to optimize the customer journey. Use a great customer journey mapping tool for any business:

1. Keeping it functional for CX professionals:

A tool should provide a user-friendly experience. This includes allowing businesses to easily map, visualize, and analyze customer journeys without extensive technical knowledge or training. Additionally, customizability features, such as the ability to personalize templates, layouts, and visual elements are important for tailoring the mapping process.

A user’s journeys can get complex over time. Hence a simple yet effective and functional design should be able to unify all the data over one dashboard. Additionally, a functional design can also be dynamic to represent the dynamic nature of a buyer’s relationship with the brand.

2. Create customer personas and map them:

Customer persona is the art of creating a fictional person that represents your target audience in the real world. It is extensively done by organisations to identify the target user base. In a user journey map, similar customer personas might still have some similarities of their journey with the brand. Despite this, there will be some differences. A good journey mapping tool should enable you to import existing personas into the map. This segmentation of the audience will help you curate better marketing strategies for CX.

3. Multi-channel data integration:

A well-equipped journey mapping software dashboard will combine offline and online data sources. Data sources include customer feedback and satisfaction surveys, people’s activity and interaction over virtual channels or with organisation’s team members. Omnichannel platforms bring a rich collection of consumer’s data. The tool should have the capacity to integrate data from active omni-channels and unify this information over a one-stop-dashboard view. This integration will reflect the preferences, behaviours, actions and demographics of your target audience.

4. Customer action tracking and activities:

A user journey mapping tool usually notifies team members of actions your customers have undertaken. A detractor might have rated 2 on the NPS scale. A sales representative can jump into action to close the feedback loop. Action tracking can save churn risk, detect detractors and passives and identify their pain points for future course of action. Action tracking enables brand representatives to capture negative reviews, save online reputation, close feedback loop and keep records of action taken for respective customers.

5. Real time collaboration for a better customer journey:

Collecting information over online and offline channels can become complex. Apart from collecting feedback from CX surveys, a journey mapping dashboard should enable real time data tracking. This enables teams to collaborate in real time. It should be possible for decision makers to edit, share , view and create journey maps. It is a document of prime importance as it also determines the overall customer success. While you add new product and service upgrades, it will influence customer engagement rates over time. To capture authentic feedback over time, a real-time collaboration is frequently necessary. One can also obtain real time data over Google analytics to drive businesses forward.

6. Dashboard integration with other software tools:

Smart integrations can remove manual inputs and inaccurate guesswork. The main purpose of integration is to save time, bring together complex information under one umbrella and make data-driven decisions for better collaboration. Integrating existing data sources along with smart tools is easier to follow. There are tools to help you conduct sentiment analysis, identify emotional metrics, understand qualitative and quantitative responses and track pain points on the dashboard. An ideal journey mapping software will have everything you need under one roof.

7. Robust user journey mapping for every industry:

Some industries have a lifelong customer journey with their user base. This includes banking and finance and the automotive industry. A well equipped mapping tool will enable companies to create unlimited persona, track a lengthy journey that will refine over time. Every journey map is dictated by industry size, the user base and location. A global brand will have a complex user journey to map their target audience and study consumer behaviour. A robust mapping software should not limit you or your business.

8. Advanced reporting and analytics features:

An effective customer journey mapping software comes with the ability to collect and analyze data to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences and satisfaction levels. These features allow businesses to visualize quantitative data and generate comprehensive analytics reports. Market trends are highly influenced by what people do and purchase. The features should include real-time data analytics and provide up-to-date insights on the latest market trends. Analysis also entails visual representation of quantitative data, advanced reporting features including the ability to assess customer behavior and emotions (via sentiment analysis). Access to customer engagement data can empower teams to make informed decisions and drive better customer experiences.

How to Select the Right Customer Journey Mapping Tool?

Selecting the right customer journey mapping tool requires careful consideration of several factors. Businesses need to define their requirements, evaluate their budget and ROI, and assess vendor support and updates. Opt for a journey mapping tool that aligns with their needs, delivers value, and supports their long-term success.

Defining your requirements

Some key factors to consider when defining requirements include:

• Considering interface and user experience, as a tool with an intuitive interface and user-friendly features ensures ease of use.
• Assessing different customer journey mapping techniques supported by the tool.
• Ensuring effective yet important customer journey stage mapping features are available.
• Analyzing whether the tool provides access to authentic customer feedback via surveys and satisfaction metrics.
• Ensuring real-time customer journey mapping software capabilities.

Considering budget and ROI

Businesses need to assess the pricing plans, features, and capabilities of different tools, and consider the long-term value and benefits they offer. Some key points to keep in mind include:

• Evaluating the pricing plans and options available, including free versions, free trials, and different pricing tiers.
• Analyzing the features and capabilities offered by each tool and assessing their value in relation to the pricing.
• Considering the impact of the tool on business ROI and impact on seamless team collaboration.
• Assessing the vendor support and updates provided, as ongoing support and updates are essential for long-term success.

Assessing vendor support and updates

Assessing vendor support and updates is crucial when selecting a customer journey mapping software. Some key points to consider include:

• Evaluating customer reviews, testimonials, and feedback related to vendor support.
• Assessing the timeliness and efficiency of customer service, including response times and issue resolution.
• Checking whether the tool provider offers regular updates, new feature releases, and bug fixes to ensure the tool remains up to date and relevant.
• Considering the availability of user documentation, training materials, and resources to assist with tool implementation and usage.
• Analyzing the reputation and track record of the vendor in the customer journey mapping industry.

Conclusion

Conduct customer journey tracking using Merren’s CX dashboard tools. The easy-to-comprehend user interface is a no brainer for the modern day marketer. Capture trends and patterns and view your journey analytics over the interactive dashboards. It is time to supercharge your CX efforts and drive business growth and increase retention rates. Utilize the 14 day free plan by Merren without any credit card details.