5 Steps to Creating a Customer Journey Map for Your BusinessTechnology by Ryan Neal - November 12, 20220 Customer journey mapping is a data-driven way to identify key moments in the overall experience of your customers. It’s also an excellent way to help you understand what they want and need, where they struggle with your business, and how you can improve your overall customer experience. This article will walk through each step of the customer journey map process so that you can create a map for your own company.Step 1: Identify your customer personasCustomer personas are a way to represent the different types of customers you have. They are made up of details about their demographics, psychographics, and behaviors.Here are just a few examples of personas:A husband and wife who love to travel and want a business that will help them plan their next trip abroad A student who is looking for part-time work during breaks from college In your own business, you’l need to come up with your own personas that make sense for the products and services you are selling.Step 2: Identify the channels used by your customers at each stage of their journeyIn this step, you will identify the channels used by your customers at each stage of their journey. For example, if your business is an online store and you are looking to create a customer journey map, then it’s likely that your customers would have visited your website or viewed videos on YouTube, or watched a product review on Facebook before deciding to visit the store. To find this out, you can use tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to see where your customers are finding you.Step 3: Identify the touchpoints of your customers and the goals they have at each stage of the journeyYou want to identify the touchpoints your customers interact with and what goals they’re trying to accomplish in each stage of their journey. Touchpoints are any place where you can interact with your customers, like a website, social media channel, email newsletter, phone call, or physical location. Once you’ve identified these touchpoints, think about the goals each customer is trying to accomplish when interacting with them.For example, a customer might have a goal of browsing your website for information about new products or services. Another customer might have a goal of purchasing one of those products online through your website—and then picking it up in-store at a later date (which is known as an omnichannel retail strategy, or bricks and clicks).Step 4: Gain a deeper understanding of your customer’s expectations and experienceThe next step is to gain a deeper understanding of your customers’ expectations, experiences, and touchpoints. To do this, you’ll need a map that shows the different stages in their journey and how they interact with your product or service at each stage. This will give you a better idea of what issues face your potential customers, as well as how best to engage them on social media and other channels during their journey:To do this, you want to start with understanding the different expectations of your customers. Understanding these will help you tailor messaging for each touchpoint within the customer’s journey – from when they discover your products or services online (the first point), to when they decide whether or not something works for them (the last point). For example, if someone has been referred by friends then it might be worth mentioning how seamless something is – whereas if they are researching solutions online then mentioning quality may be more appropriate.You also need to work to understand the different experiences of your customers. Every person has unique needs so creating an experience tailored around these needs will help ensure success in meeting those needs. For example, if someone wants advice on which product would best suit them before making any purchases then providing this information could increase conversions significantly.Step 5: Prioritize the most important moments in your customers’ journeysYou should now have a list of the most important customer moments in your business. Now it’s time to prioritize them, based on what is most important for your business goals and what will be most valuable to your customers. This step is where you can use both science and art to make the hard decisions about what needs to happen first, second, third, etc.There are many ways to do this. For example, you can prioritize based on how much revenue each interaction will bring in via leads or sales. You can also look at whether if there are significant costs associated with that interaction (e.g., shipping), if there are particular customer segments that need this information more than others, or if there is a particular moment that seems like it would be easier for you or your team members to handle, or if it would make more sense to be contracted out to your vendors or partners.ConclusionCustomer journey mapping is a powerful tool that any startup can use to understand their customers’ needs and improve their experience. It’s not just for big brands anymore; there are many ways to use customer journey mapping in your own business. By following these five steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective customer journey map for your own business.