Businesses are changing the way they analyse their marketing tactics. This is a slow process in a complex area but in simple terms, the smartest companies no longer view customers as being at the receiving end of a sales process, as someone they’ve identified, wooed, persuaded and sold to, but are increasingly evaluating their corporate sales processes from their customer’s point of view.
This is a profound change, but one that has been proved to have significant benefits, not least the fact that the companies leading in customer-orientated experience delivery consistently outperform the market in terms of their stock price. It’s also a shift that’s gaining traction in the B2B space, where customer decision cycles are more complex than in the B2C environment but are still founded on the need for efficient, personalised and human interactions.
One of the most effective gateways to changing your business’ perspectives is the creation of a digital customer journey map in order to visualise the multiple elements and touchpoints that form the unique sales process of your company.
I’d argue that in today’s digital world, one which is becoming increasingly fragmented when it comes to customer touchpoints, investing time in a mapping process such as this is more than just useful or interesting; it’s crucial.
This process shouldn’t be rushed and actually there’s no need for it to be digitised, at least in the early stages. However, if this mapping process is completed with rigour and attention to detail, the impact on a business can be profound.
Here are some tips that may be helpful if your business wants to complete its own customer journey map:
1. Learn lessons from the B2C world
B2B customers are not so different from those in the B2C world. They have range of needs both tangible and emotional, and your customer journey map should reflect this. It’s been proved that the basic need for a product, its function price, etc. comprises only 20 per cent of a customer’s decision-making process, with 80 per cent founded on social and emotional needs such as prestige, identity and pleasure.
What’s true for B2C should also apply to B2B, and your customer journey map should account for these human, non-corporate factors.
2. Accept that it won’t be simple
B2B customer relationships do, of course, have an identity distinct from their B2C equivalents. They are likely to be far more complex, involving multiple stakeholders and decision-makers on both sides. Your customers may only buy once from you every 10 years, but this purchase may be of a highly specialised nature.
Therefore, take the time to map the multiple stages in your customers’ interactions with your business. Understand that the process, when mapped, is unlikely to be simple, but embrace this complexity and use logic to ensure you maintain clarity.
3. Capitalise on the insight and support of your team
Don’t attempt this process on your own. Your team are the experts in your buying cycle so involve them when compiling your journey map. It’s likely there’s insight tucked away in all corners so make this a collaborative project, one that can unify and inspire your whole business.
4. Don’t fixate on sales
Of course, the primary motivation for shifting towards a customer-orientated view of your business is the hope that the insight gained will lead to an increase in sales. However, if your attention is drawn too readily by your bottom line, then you risk obscuring the holistic approach needed for effective journey mapping. Focus on the widest possible picture and let the profits take care of themselves.
5. Embrace the opportunity of CRM
When complete, your customer journey map becomes a crucial document that should rest at the centre of your business, capturing best practice and sharing it with all of your employees. However, you can leverage even greater value from this process by integrating its lessons within your CRM solution.
By utilising a modern CRM solution, you can choreograph all of the customer touchpoints within your business that you’ve worked so hard to map. You can ensure that the full customer decision cycle is made clear to everyone who needs a view of it; you can prioritise and automate your expertise and monitor and track multiple processes to ensure success.
I strongly believe the customer-orientated model of business is not something for the future, but a feature of the most successful companies trading today. We can all be better at it of course, but I’d recommend this process of customer journey mapping as a means to make sense of an increasingly fragmented digital world.
Ultimately, businesses need to keep in mind the experience they themselves expect, namely seamless, efficient communication and service; customer journey mapping is an excellent step towards achieving this.
