Digital and Physical Customer Journey Optimization
It is 2023 and we have been talking about digital business models for a while now, but existing infrastructure setup and architecture approaches don’t live up to the service expectations of customer 2.0.
New tools, approaches and integration strategies are of the essence.
As a consumer we are expecting services to be tailored to us
even more so if we opted in to share our valuable consumer preference data in exchange for customized solutions, products and discounts that reward us for our loyalty.
However, only a handful of companies have mastered enabling this mass 1 to 1 personalization of their products and services based on a multitude of insights – each in different data sets and through different channels and what’s worse that it is being collected at different stages of the customer journey of interactions with our products of brand information.
A new breed of business and IT tools allows us to manage these customer journeys at every part of the customer life cycle from the initial exposure to demand generation followed by the purchase and then post purchase loyalty management.
Throughout this life cycle for every transaction our customers and prospects have many opportunities of distractions along the way – this is even excluding the fact that we often overspend valuable marketing dollars to show our overexposed advertisement across different channels to existing customers vs targeting valuable new prospects with similar preferences as our target customer segments.
An Ernst & Young study shows that
In the digital age it is easy to lose track of your customers and prospects when they switch from
Source: 2022 Study Ernst & Young
- online to offline,
- from the webpage to the mobile app,
- from our corporate website to the competitor website
- and being shown non-tailored content when personalization at the right moment would matter.
Here are tools that can help optimize the customer journeys (on the front end visualization layer – aka webpage, mobile app):
- DMPs for consumer identification,
- DSPs for media spend optimization,
- Journey Mapping Solutions to plan for the customer lifecycle interactions with our products
In order to be effective across existing channels and digital channels using these tools needs to be accompanied by advanced business intelligence platforms that companies likely already invested in but the seamless integration of data and technologies is key here to take full advantage of your customer data mart.
Armed these accelerators customer journeys can be mapped out and optimized for content displays and identifying customer IDs across devices and channels by assigning a unique IDs that are linked to device IDs with consumer profiles and tags on our corporate ecommerce website.
As businesses continue to evolve, the importance of providing a seamless customer experience has become increasingly apparent. In order to do this, it’s important to understand your customers on a deeper level. That’s where journey mapping of customer personas comes in. By understanding your customers’ journeys and mapping out their experiences, businesses can optimize customer experience and ultimately drive additional sales and increase customer lifetime value.
The essential steps for consumer journey mapping are awareness, considerations, purchase, retention and advocacy:
A customer journey map is a framework that enables you to improve your customer experience.
The customer journey map documents the customer experience through their perspective, helping you best understand how customers are interacting with you now and helps you identify areas for improvement moving forward.
Great customer journey maps are rooted in data-driven research, and visually represent the different phases your customers experience based on a variety of dimensions such as sentiment, goals, touch points, and location intelligence.
The secret sauce to successful customer engagement platforms is to manage the data and insights seamlessly across department boundaries and cross platform to make informed decisions at the right point in time of customer journey key events.
Journey mapping is the process of visualizing a customer’s journey and understanding their experience at each touchpoint with your business. By mapping out your customers’ journeys, businesses can identify pain points and areas of opportunity to improve the customer experience.
Today’s data driven businesses are integrating marketing and digital initiatives with their business intelligence investment to plan out customer journeys pro-actively based on big data insights derived from a multitude of data sources that are enriched with big data algorithms and predictive business intelligence to optimize the customer journey every step of the way.
According to a recent study by Forbes Insights and Sitecore, “78% of global marketers believe that personalized customer experiences are critical to their company’s success” (source). By understanding your customers’ journeys and creating a personalized experience, businesses can build stronger relationships with their customers and increase their lifetime value.
“Journey mapping is an effective way to identify points of friction in the customer experience and prioritize solutions that can make a real impact on customer satisfaction,” says Kerry Bodine, customer experience expert and co-author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.
One example of a company that successfully implemented journey mapping is the online retailer, Zappos. By mapping out their customers’ journeys, Zappos was able to identify areas where they could improve the customer experience. This led to their decision to offer free shipping and returns, which helped to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The benefits of using DMPs and journey mapping don’t stop at customer satisfaction. According to a report by McKinsey, “companies that excel at customer experience grow revenues 4-8% above their market”. By creating a personalized and seamless customer experience, businesses can drive additional sales and increase customer lifetime value.
In addition, journey mapping can also help businesses to understand their customers on a deeper level. Journey mapping can provide a more nuanced view of customer behavior, enabling businesses to understand why customers do what they do and what motivates them.
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