<h2>What is customer journey mapping?</h2><p>Customer journeys can be complicated and are rarely linear, crossing multiple devices and channels. By aggregating and analysing your customers' journeys, you can better understand their pain points, behaviours, needs and expectations. The best way to plot out and analyse the data you collect from your audience is to carry out customer journey mapping.</p><p>A customer journey map brings their journeys to life visually, making it easier to see how their experiences flow across your brand's touchpoints - all the places where your customers can interact with you, both online and offline. It's a strategic approach to <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-experience/how-to-improve-your-brands-customer-experience" target="_self">improving your customer experience</a> and can be more effective than trying to understand and improve individual touchpoints at a tactical level.</p><h2>What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?</h2><p>It can improve your overview of the strengths and weaknesses in your current customer journey. By reviewing the journey your customers take when interacting and purchasing from you, as well as their needs, thoughts and feelings along the way, you'll better understand what your customers want from you at each stage and whether you're meeting those needs.</p><h2>When and why is a customer journey map used?</h2><p>Here are some popular examples of when and why you might want to use a customer journey map.</p><h3>To help better understand your customers</h3><p>Creating a customer journey map can be an excellent way to help your business better understand how customers engage with your brand. It can help colleagues across the business see how each touchpoint contributes to the customer journey.</p><h3>To identify gaps in the customer experience</h3><p>Dedicating time to a customer journey mapping project and visualising your customers' journeys can help you review and understand them and their experiences. Customer journey mapping can shed light on pain points or experience gaps you might need to know about.</p><h3>To improve your products and processes</h3><p>By plotting out the various touchpoints in a customer's journey with your brand, you can highlight problematic or inefficient processes that might lead to drop-offs or complaints. It can also help you to refine and enhance your products and services.</p><h3>To deliver relevant and effective communications</h3><p>Creating a customer journey map can help you to recognise your audience’s wants, needs, questions, and expectations. Use this information to create an insight-led marketing and communications plan. Delivering targeted and relevant messages at critical stages throughout the customer journey can help them feel appreciated as consumers.</p><h3>To prevent churn</h3><p>Every business has a churn rate – the rate at which customers stop doing business with your brand. Customer journey mapping can offer insight into where and why your customers might encounter problems or frustrations. By compiling your customers' experiences, you can identify areas of concern and plan to improve them.</p><h3>To close the deal</h3><p>Mapping out the customer journey will provide a clear indication of the touchpoints and experiences that lead up to the point of conversion. By matching your prospects' needs to how they're fulfilled in the moments before conversion, it becomes easier to exceed their expectations and deliver experiences that convert to sales.</p><p>A customer purchase journey is the path a consumer takes, from identifying a problem or need to purchasing from a brand and becoming a loyal customer. There are different versions of the customer purchase journey, which you can visualise as a funnel, but we've identified the five stages as:</p><ol><li>Problem or need</li><li>Search</li><li>Consideration</li><li>Purchase</li><li>Brand loyalty</li></ol><p>Our <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-retention/consumer-trends" target="_self">survey of 2,000 UK shoppers</a> found that businesses must listen, learn, and engage consumers at every customer journey stage.</p><h2>How to create a customer journey map</h2><p>Follow our four-step guide to learn how to create a customer journey map.</p><h3>1. List your customer touchpoints</h3><p>Start by creating a list of every touchpoint for your business. Consider where each touchpoint sits in the customer journey – from brand awareness to loyalty – and organise them accordingly. Think about how your audience might feel at each touchpoint and consider each potential obstacle.</p><h3>2. Identify your customer personas</h3><p>Use business data, market research, and your target audience characteristics to segment your customers into important groups and create customer personas. Select a persona to be the focus of your customer journey map. Each persona will have a different journey, so try not to tackle too many personas with just one map. Choose your most common persona (i.e. the one that represents most of your customers) and start from there.</p><h3>3. Gather research</h3><p>It's essential to make the most of the insights, feedback, and data you have about your customers. The more data-driven your customer journey map is, the more valuable it will be in meeting your journey mapping goals. Use several data sources to gather information for your customer journey map, including:</p><ul><li><strong>Customer satisfaction surveys</strong> – Use existing responses or create new surveys to get targeted insights into your customers' experiences. Look for the most mentioned touchpoints or themes across multiple touchpoints.</li><li><strong>Customer reviews</strong> – Customers usually leave reviews if they are happy or frustrated. Analyse your <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/product-and-service-reviews" target="_self">reviews</a> to see where these moments take place.</li><li><strong>Customer experience metrics</strong> – If you already use <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-experience/net-promoter-score" target="_self">Net Promoter Score</a>, Customer Effort Score, or another method of collecting customer feedback, <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/advanced-analytics" target="_self">analyse the data</a> you receive to look for themes or popular topics.</li><li><strong>Surveys</strong> – Reaching out to existing customers can be helpful in gathering research for your journey mapping project. On-page <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/surveys" target="_self">surveys</a> can collect insights to understand their website experience better.</li><li><strong>Website analytics</strong> – Analyse how touchpoints are contributing to your website traffic, which ones drive sales, where the most drop-offs occur, and which pages are causing frustration.</li><li><strong>Website searches</strong> – If your website has search functionality, review the results to see which topics or questions your customers seek.</li><li><strong>Competitor research</strong> – Research your competitors and their touchpoints to identify areas where they outperform you and could potentially <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-acquisition/customer-acquisition-guide" target="_self">acquire new customers</a>.</li><li><strong>Conducted interviews</strong> – Sitting down with a panel of your customers or target audience can be invaluable. Ask questions to understand their expectations of your brand and how they found the customer journey.</li><li><strong>Site navigation maps</strong> – Analyse your website navigation, looking at how people move from page to page to complete their goals. It should provide a logical and straightforward experience that turns website visitors into customers.</li><li><strong>Chatbots and FAQs</strong> – Use analytics to see which FAQ pages get the highest engagement and better understand where your customers struggle with their experience with your brand. Chatbot queries also provide valuable insight into common support topics.</li><li><strong>Insights from sales</strong> – Conduct research with your sales team to find out the most common customer and prospect questions, frustrations, expectations and needs.</li></ul><h3>4. Identify elements to include in your customer journey map</h3><p>Your customer journey map can represent different stages in the customer journey. Start by analysing the current state of your customer journeys to highlight how your prospects and customers interact with your business in real-time. We've identified the key journey mapping elements:</p><p><strong>Current state:</strong> Current state journey maps offer insights into how things are currently working and flag any issues or areas for improvement. By starting with the current state, you'll create a benchmark map to improve on, helping you track any wins from your improvements.</p><p><strong>Day in the life:</strong> Day-in-the-life customer journey mapping plots the typical day of your focus persona. This type of map shows you when your customers interact with your brand when they might engage with your products or services, and which problems they might face as the day progresses.</p><p><strong>Future state:</strong> If you know the current state of your customer journeys, it's much easier to plan ahead and identify how to deliver new customer experiences. Future state journey maps are driven by your brand's vision for customer experience, focusing on creativity, ideal scenarios, and ideation.</p><p><strong>Service map:</strong> Service maps focus on what happens behind the scenes regarding delivery and operations. They combine the scenarios the customer faces with scenarios affecting your organisation and are most effective when created by colleagues from different areas of your business.</p><h2>Customer Journey Analysis</h2><p>Whether you use Google Analytics on your website, Facebook Analytics for social media, or track your customer data using another platform, it's important to analyse your customers' journeys. If you have multiple sources of website and marketing tracking, you should be able to collate the data to identify the following:</p><ul><li>Your customer demographics, including age, gender and interests</li><li>Common customer website journeys</li><li>The best-performing sources of traffic and referrals to your website</li><li>Customer contact volumes</li></ul><p>To find out what customers say about your brand, look at your customer reviews and use social listening tools to track conversations involving your brand name. You can also set up short surveys, email follow-ups, or interviews to better understand the journey your customers take with you.</p><h2>Customer Journey Mapping Tools</h2><p>Customer journey mapping tools can help you maximise every <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-retention/what-are-customer-journey-touchpoints" target="_self">customer touchpoint</a> that a prospective shopper has with your brand before buying, helping to improve your conversion volumes and, ultimately, your bottom line. Here are seven customer journey mapping tools to get you started:</p><h3>1. Smaply</h3><p>One of the top mapping tools is <a href="https://www.smaply.com/" target="_blank">Smaply</a>. It offers three tools – journey mapping, persona mapping, and stakeholder mapping – helping you get to grips with the entire customer journey.</p><h3>2. Lucidchart</h3><p><a href="https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/examples/customer-journey-mapping-software" target="_blank">Lucidchart</a> is a purpose-built customer mapping tool that 99% of Fortune 500 companies use. It offers a range of integrations, helping you to import data automatically from your website, social media channels, and analytics.</p><h3>3. Canvanizer</h3><p>If you're looking for a simple, straightforward and free-to-use tool, <a href="https://canvanizer.com/" target="_blank">Canvanizer</a> is a good choice. Choose from various templates to help with customer feedback, SWOT analyses, and social media strategy planning.</p><h3>4. OmniGraffle</h3><p>Although not purpose-built for journey mapping, <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle" target="_blank">OmniGraffle</a> helps you create diagrams that easily explain complicated ideas. You'll need to manually add information from your data sources, but the tool will simplify your customer journey mapping process.</p><h3>5. PowerPoint</h3><p>Customer journey maps are usually presented as flow charts or diagrams, which you can easily create using PowerPoint. The template below is a good example of how simple your customer journey map can be.</p><p></p><figure style="text-align: center"><div data-img-caption-container="true" style="display: inline-block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/SvhQFlwFIK51BIDq9_247FeipWsvferCqXhjyqLuB-MJlq_Y20MinELPAYQYIqWTYwPD_CF6cFQZB-7P4QafMbl4zNv3_DaMBu_yujh6BmgMbrLL80Y8oKMjMTk-2mXOY5iSCcj2TsG3si7SRZYRZkA" width="624" style="text-align: center;" /></div></figure><p>Credit: <a href="https://slidesgo.com/theme/customer-journey-map" target="_blank">slidesgo.com</a></p><h3>6. Google Analytics</h3><p>If you're new to customer journey mapping, <a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/" target="_blank">Google Analytics</a> has information to get you started. For example, it can show you your customer behaviour flow, which explores how people make the most common journeys on your website.</p><h3>7. UXPressia</h3><p>Finally, <a href="https://uxpressia.com/" target="_blank">UXPressia</a> is another purpose-built software solution that uses customer personas and journey maps in tandem to create a storyboard with commentary, quotes, problems, and customer experiences at each point in their journey.</p><p>Collecting customer feedback is a key part of your customer journey mapping process. To find out more about how you can use your customers' opinions to understand them – and your business – better, <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/enquiry/get-in-touch" target="_self">get in touch</a> with a member of our team.</p>

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The Ultimate Guide to Customer Journey Mapping

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A guide to customer feedback: how to use feedback to better your business

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A Guide to Customer Feedback: How to Use Feedback to Better your Business

<p><span><span>In an era when three in four people say they avoid advertising altogether, what information do consumers trust? Customer feedback.</span></span></p><p><p><p>Feedback provides so much more than social proof, though. If you’re not currently collecting ratings and reviews, or you are but feel like you could get more from them, you’re in the right place.</p><p>Here’s everything you need to know about customer feedback, the benefits it can offer your business, and the right software to moderate it.</p><h2>Why is customer feedback important?</h2><p>Here are four key reasons why you should be collecting, showcasing and analysing ratings and reviews:</p><h3>1. To support your customers</h3><p>According to Feefo’s 2019 Consumer Trends Report, 96% of UK consumers use reviews in some way and 64% read them before making a purchase. But shoppers don’t always trust what they see online – 72% of them worry about fake feedback. Invite-only reviews, which are guaranteed to come from your genuine customers, are a great way to support prospects as they decide whether to buy from you.</p><h3>2. To boost conversion rates</h3><p>Adding customer reviews to your website can massively increase conversions, especially when they are displayed on product pages. In fact, people are 270% more likely to buy a product with five reviews than one without any reviews. <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/customer-stories/salon-services" target="_self">Our work with the hair and beauty company Salon Services</a> also shows that customer spending rises by 294% when reviews are showcased online.</p><h3>3. To monitor internal performance</h3><p>By analysing the customer feedback you receive, you can keep tabs on how well each branch, store, and member of staff is doing. Tools like Feefo’s Insight Labels make this easy, as you can track reviews by categories like staff names, branch locations and product types.</p><p>Using reviews in this way allows you to spot products and services that should be improved or stores that require further investment. You can also use positive reviews to motivate staff by rewarding those who receive excellent feedback.</p><h3>4. To understand your customers’ experiences</h3><p>Collecting and analysing feedback across the entire customer journey can help you dig deeper into the experiences of shoppers, their loyalty to your brand, and so much more.</p><p>Feefo’s Customer Sentiment Insight tool uses AI to automatically identify themes in your reviews. If topics like ‘delivery’ are constantly mentioned in a negative context, this will be highlighted to you, so you can find out what’s going wrong and how to make it right.</p></p></p>

<h2>Using feedback to connect with your customers</h2><p>There are several ways you can use reviews to build better relationships with buyers and improve their loyalty to your brand:</p><h3>1. Create a personalised experience</h3><p>Whether you’re trying to convince your customers to take advantage of an offer or you’re asking them for their honest feedback, you need to speak to them as individuals. Our Feedback Request Manager allows you to build and design feedback campaigns, so you can ask the right questions to the right people at the right time.</p><h3>2. Respond to all feedback</h3><p>Write a review takes time and effort – so when people leave feedback be sure to thank them (whether good or bad!). While we recommend responding to as many reviews as possible, you’ll want to prioritise negative feedback, as this gives you the opportunity to repair broken relationships. You may even be able to turn those one- and two-star ratings into five stars.</p><p>When responding to negative feedback, get in touch with the customer privately so you can fully understand their situation and fix any issues. Once you’ve done as much as you can, respond to the review publicly, so other potential customers can see you provide an excellent service, even when things go wrong.</p><p>For more tips on how to reply to customer comments, check out our<a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-experience/responding-to-reviews-guide" target="_self"> complete guide on dealing with positive and negative feedback.</a></p><h3>3. Tell people when their feedback made a difference</h3><p>Customer reviews should help inform any changes you make to your business. And when you improve something thanks to that feedback, it’s important to let people know.</p><p>Whether you’ve increased the responsiveness of your customer service team or fixed a problem with your website, use your marketing channels to show customers you listen to all feedback – good and bad.<span><span></span></span><span></span><span></span></p>

<h2><span>How to choose a customer feedback platform</span></h2>
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<p>If you want to make the most of your customer feedback, you need the right platform. Every platform offers something different, so it’s important to pick one that’s right for your business. Here are some key considerations to think about:</p>
<h2>Choose whether you want to collect open vs. invite-only reviews</h2>
<p>One of the biggest decisions to make is whether to opt for an invite-only platform like Feefo, where you only get feedback from verified buyers, or an open platform, where anyone to leave feedback about your business whether or not they’ve purchased from you. Here are the benefits and drawbacks of each:<span></span><span></span></p>
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<h2>Invite only platform:</h2>
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        <p>Beat the fakes - No one can post fake reviews on your website, as only genuine buyers are invited to leave feedback.</p>
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        <p><span>If someone visits your website but doesn’t engage or make a purchase, you can’t collect feedback from them (unless you run surveys).</span></p>
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        <p>Trust your data - With real feedback from real customers, you can be sure that fake reviews aren’t skewing your <span>data – so your business decisions are always backed by valid insights.</span></p>
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        <p><span>As only real buyers can leave feedback, you may collect fewer reviews than you would with an open platform.</span></p>
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        <p>Win more customers over - People are 15% more likely to buy when reading a verified review over an anonymous review. They want to hear from customers who have genuinely interacted with your brand.</p>
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        <p><span>You must proactively reach out to customers for feedback – Feefo makes this easy with an automated email or text message that we send to each of your buyers.</span></p>
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        <p>Streamline the feedback process - Customers don’t need to sign up or log in to leave a review, because their feedback is tied to a specific sale or interaction, so you already know who they are. This means they can share their thoughts with you quickly and easily.</p>
      </td>
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<h2>Open<span> platform:</span></h2>
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<table class="styled-table">
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        <p>Get lots of feedback - With an open platform, anyone can search for your company and leave a review – so you may be able to collect more feedback faster.</p>
      </td>
      <td><span>Anyone can leave feedback, even if they haven’t interacted with your brand or purchased from you. This opens the door to fake reviews from competitors and spam accounts, which can put your reputation at risk and skew your data.</span></td>
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      <td>
        <p>Hear from non-buyers - If someone visits your website or branch but doesn’t make a purchase, they can still leave feedback about your brand.</p>
      </td>
      <td><span>Flagging and removing fake feedback is challenging, as it’s difficult to spot a fake review from a real one unless the writer gives proof of purchase.</span></td>
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      <td></td>
      <td><span>Open review platforms tend to operate like comparison sites, which means you risk losing potential customers to competitors.</span></td>
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      <td></td>
      <td><span>Customers often have to create or sign into a profile to leave a review, which is time-consuming and may put them off giving feedback.</span></td>
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  </tbody>
</table>
<p></p>
<p></p>

<h2>Decide where and how you want to display your reviews</h2><p>The best way to show off your positive feedback is by using widgets that work for your company and industry.</p><p><a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/collect-reviews" target="_self">Review platforms</a> offer different widgets and products, so establish what you’d like to achieve with your feedback before seeing what’s out there. That way, it will be much easier to narrow down which platform is right for you.</p><h2>Check the moderation rules</h2><p>Even if you’re using an invite-only platform, you may still get a review that is inappropriate from time to time – for example, one that contains bad language or is talking about the wrong product. In cases like this, you need to be able to flag feedback. A good, trustworthy platform will have clear moderation guidelines to determine whether a review should be removed or not.</p><p>Businesses should not be able to remove any review they want. If that worries you, it shouldn't – 52% of consumers become suspicious if there is no negative feedback on a product or service they want to buy.</p><p>Make sure you read a platform’s moderation guidelines before signing the dotted line. You can read Feefo’s moderation guidelines <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/5707407/Websites%20Pdfs/Review_Moderation_Guidelines.pdf" target="_blank">here.</a></p><h2>Getting more customers to give feedback</h2><p>Follow these key tips to encourage buyers to leave a review:</p><h3>1. Make your invitation enticing</h3><p>We all receive dozens of emails every day. Ensure yours stand out with a clear subject line and a message that incentivises to your customers to leave feedback.</p><h3>2. Thank people for their time</h3><p>Everyone likes to feel appreciated. Thanking someone, even before they have gone through with providing feedback, puts them in a position to do as you ask.</p><h3>3. Dare them to be honest</h3><p>People love sharing their opinions with others – it can feel extremely freeing. Use that to your advantage by daring your customers to leave an honest review about you. Encourage them in a cheeky way, or you can keep to a formal tone.</p><h3>4. Draw attention to what you want them to talk about</h3><p>This is especially useful if you require feedback regarding a particular product or service, or if you have recently launched something new. In your email, use the key words you want your review to focus on in a bid to guide your customer in the right direction.</p><h3>5. Tap into their sense of social responsibility</h3><p>We all want to feel like we are making a difference. Reviews give people the power to have an influence, so they provide a great opportunity for you to tap into the need for social responsibility.</p><h3>6. Use humour</h3><p>Humour is always a great tactic, especially if something has gone wrong. Maintain your professionalism, but also show your personality (if that's part of your brand image and tone). Customers are more likely to engage with a brand they can relate to.</p><h3>7. Encourage sympathy</h3><p>Tell your customer how hard you’ve worked and what efforts have gone into getting them the right product. You could even name a member of staff that made their experience possible. Tell them that your business depends on their happiness and that it starts with them giving you feedback.</p><h2>Start collecting customer feedback, your way</h2><p>At Feefo, we’re proud to be a trusted, invite-only review platform. That's why over 6500 brands trust us to help develop their <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-experience/how-to-improve-your-brands-customer-experience" target="_self">customer experiences</a>. Get in touch with our team today to find out what we can do for you.<span></span><span></span><span></span></p>