Connecting the dots of a customer journey from the first touchpoint of marketing to the point of purchase, can be a lengthy and time consuming task. But with use of a proper CJM software, this task can be performed efficiently as well as within a stipulated time. Read more about CJM tools here.
Let’s take a look at some features, that one should look for in a journey mapping tool:
1. User Interface:
If coding is the only way to move things around, mapping the journey of every customer, across every touchpoint, on multiple points of the day can become a tedious task. Thus, the software should have built-in drag-and-drop capabilities for frictionless and easy visualization. Also built-in design templates/storyboards/dashboards instantly make the UI better and easy-to-use.
Some platforms are particularly extensive in their capabilities which makes them difficult to have a hands on experience with. This would make teams invest more time in learning how the tool works then actually utilizing it. Thus, a tool should have a simple yet creative UI with how-to-use videos for ease.
2. Collaboration and sharing features:
Since the pandemic, transitioning to a digital front has become a necessity. Cross-functional teams should be able to access, customize, and share data across the platform seamlessly, instead of having to share it via other means.
Presenting an actionable CJM to the team is as important as the process that goes into the making of a CJM. The maps made by the software should thus be ready-to-share without any extra efforts.
3. Draft revision control:
Journey maps which could previously be made by tracking customer from the first touchpoint of marketing to the touchpoint of purchase, has now changed to multiple channels and a lot of additional complexities. ‘Tracked changes’ have thus proven to be a boon for teams for now they can track and restore previous versions of the documents seamlessly. Thus, with 0 data loss issues.
4. Intuitive journey building:
A CJM software isn’t just for data visualization but should also provide intuitive insights that can help organizations in churn reduction, decision-making, and enhancing CX. Another important feature should be the metric analysis of the strategies of the organization, as to what kind of impact each strategical change has brought about in a segment of customers journeys.
Also, while the tool can extensively chart out points of failure, it should also be capable of giving out probable data-driven solutions. This can help organizations understand the pain points and the needs of a customer and at the same time have a solution in hand to resolve it. This would surely improve customer acquisition, retention, as well as experience as a whole.
5. Pinpoint areas of struggle:
The most important aspect of a CJM software should be the capability to pinpoint the areas where the customer is struggling. By correlating large amounts of data including rage clicks, erratic mouse movements, and multiple screen rotations with the use of AI, organizations can identify the exact page that is driving their audience away. With this feature stakeholders can analyse on a micro level where their customers are struggling.
6. Omnichannel data integration:
Considering the availability of a plethora of touchpoints and channels, data should be collected from diverse locations. These could including social media, online reviews, web analytics, sales and marketing systems, online surveys, browsing data, in-store data and others.
With all this data in hand, having to manually input all data into the software can take ages. Instead, a software should be capable of integrating real-time web analytics data with the data that is already present in the system into a meaningful journey.
7. Behavioural analysis:
End to end performance examination of a customer’s behaviour can help organizations decide customer lifetime value, and thus which customers to invest in. These kind of intuitive features can be utilized at the time of rewarding loyalty as well as to relieve bottlenecks when it comes to customers that are predicted to discontinue using the service.
Customer journey orchestration is another feature which might prove to be beneficial. It is an individual approach to a customer in regards to the successful personalized interactions with them. Using artificial intelligence, orchestration can uncover real-time insights that can help businesses understand and improve CX on a personal level.
8. Empathy maps:
Buyer personas are a representation of an organization’s ideal customer based on the demographic customer data. Empathy maps are answers to what a customer thinks/feels/says/does. These 2 tools help an organization have an insight into the customer and thus empathize with their customers. Thus a CJM software should have these integrations.
Conclusion:
Moving forward with the right tool in hand, organizations can seamlessly formulate insightful customer journeys that can be leveraged for making customer-centric decisions. Also, by zooming in on the journey, an organization can identify the make-or-break situations of their customers, which will allow them to focus on the actions that invited those situations. But this is all the software and its outcomes. Running hand in hand with the implementation of these tools should be the CX strategy with defined goals that would come into action after the results of these tools show up. There should be a continuous loop of the testing tool and output based improvements.
