Create Your Customer Journey Map
We don’t know what it’s like to work with ourselves and travel down our own customer journey map. The best you can do as the business owner is put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes - imagine yourself in their situation and see things from their perspective.
And you can compare this to any journey you’ve traveled on. Sometimes you use a map or your GPS and you hope the information is accurate, but you are thrown off by any unexpected obstacles, like detours or traffic. These things make the travel experience totally different. You want to eliminate any obstacles or time sucks on your customer journey map.
Mapping out your customer journey allows you to be intentional with your interactions. Once you identify the right systems and processes to provide your customers with excellent results, you can also:
• Predict potential issues ahead of time
• Develop a higher level of client satisfaction
• Establish longer working relationships
• Increase your income
Mapping the Customer Journey
Many of my customers come to me for guidance on how to map their customer journey effectively. I start by asking plenty of questions, the first ones being who their ideal customer is, what their pain points are, and how they are going to provide solutions for those pain points. Here are some other questions for you to consider.
Where do your clients find you?
Are your clients coming from social media? Are they referrals from other experts or past clients? Collecting this data tells us where to market to find more of your ideal client so can set a strategy for marketing and lead generation.
What’s your onboarding process?
You should have a set process for sending quotes and proposals, and a simple onboarding process for the client. These are the precursors to delivering stellar service. These things are determined by the type of services you offer - are they "done for you”, “done with you”, or instructional, such as courses or groups. Some services are built around an intricate framework. If it's “done for you” services, how do you collect info, how do drafts and approvals go back and forth, etc.
How do you manage your projects?
Maybe you’re doing all the work, or maybe you’re delegating tasks or homework to the client. Either way, clear communication is crucial for things to run smoothly. What type of systems will be best for you to track progress? Do you need to share documents, or use a communication tool like Voxer? No matter what you use, you want your client to feel important and guided from beginning to end. They should always know where you are on the project timeline.
What’s your offboarding process?
As you wind your project down, think about the deliverables. What do you have to make sure the client has and understands? Do they need guidelines or resources to successfully move forward independently? It’s the best time to get feedback and testimonials while the experience is fresh in their minds. Then how will you stay in touch, so they will remember you when they need your services again.
Small Wins
This may take a few rounds of really defining and redesigning the journey. Even if your customer journey is simple, when we go over it we search for small opportunities to make a bigger impact on the outcome. Maybe you didn’t put a scheduler in place initially, but now you’re booking a lot of discovery calls and you want to spend less time doing so. Or you take a lot of notes during meetings, and you want to use less paper and take less time to document things. Maybe you want to streamline the payment process. We can always find small tweaks to make the process better for both the customer and the business owner.
The main question is, how do you want your clients to feel when they’re working with you? That’s the foundation of your customer journey. Taking the time to map this out gives you the time and space to consider the client’s point of view.
I’d love to help you develop a clear customer journey map for your business. You can set up a call here.
P.S. Ready to stop spinning in place and get to the other side of your goals? Here are several ways I can help:
Download my free weekly planning guide - it will help you become more intentional with your time, develop a clear action plan for your week, and ensure that you are focusing on activities that will move your business forward - Download Now
Join our next CEO Power Planning Session and spend two and a half hours ON your business. During this facilitated workshop, you’ll set and prioritize your next 12-week goals, break them down into an executable action plan and create a resource plan - Join the Wait List
Apply for the next Close the Gap Program and stay on track to achieve your most important goals. 1:1 support and guidance on prioritizing goals, creating a plan and putting structure and routines in place. Then 12 weeks of group support around execution - Apply today