Journey Maps and the Customer Funnel
There is no pre-defined one size fits all solution to creating a customer journey map. There will always be a multitude of different use cases (many of which can never be predicted in advance), but a journey map should never attempt to cover every possible scenario. An effective journey map is one in which the various experiences and expectations of a customer are considered in terms of how their goals and behaviors align with product features. The focus of the map should be to drive greater adoption of the product and to provide value when creating features to address specific user scenarios. In many ways, journey maps serve as expansive and detailed process flows.
Most journey maps can be distilled down to a basic construct: What does the customer want, when do they want it and how do we give it them? As companies from all industries search for sustainable growth and brand recognition in the digital economy, journey maps can capture the insights, which will transform certain users from having an awareness of a product or service to becoming brand ambassadors. How to identify triggers to propel users through the customer funnel is the primary purpose of the journey map.
The first step when producing a meaningful journey map is to understand the needs and goals of users in order to engage with them through the various features. Conducting user research and crafting proto-personas helps to understand and describe these requirements.
The customer funnel can be best be described as the process by which users find out about a product or service and are guided into using or buying it.
Ideally they would eventually evangelize about a positive experience with that product via their social network. The funnel usually starts with a large pool of individuals, which narrows down to a small, yet critically important group of super-users.
Below are the 5 simple steps we use when crafting a journey map and how we then use it to build products that drive users willingly through the customer funnel.
- Understanding Users’ Needs, Goals and Behaviors
Understanding the behaviors of users comes from conducting research and synthesizing that information into proto-personas. This helps in gaining a deeper understanding of the way in which users engage with a particular product or service. It also provides most of the information presented in a customer journey map.
- Building the Journey Map
The simplest method for creating a journey map is on a whiteboard or a large sheet of paper. It should be a group exercise involving designers, developers and business stakeholders as each have unique insights into how users interact with the company and their services.
Start by choosing an individual proto-persona from the previous exercise and create profiles of their needs and goals based upon their engagement with the product or service. Detail the types of features that would be required to address these needs and where in the customer journey they would be most likely to utilize them. If a user is just starting their journey with your product, they may need to create an account, whereas if they want to evangelize the product to others they will need an easy way to share with others.
- Refining the Feature List
The feature list should be one of the major components of a successful journey-mapping phase. A basic understanding of how the product or service will address the users’ needs produces a long list of features. Refining that list usually entails creating a feature value matrix, which lists and describes individual features and assigns a weighting to the relative business value, user value, and technical effort involved in building each feature.
- Feature Prioritization
With a good idea of how valuable necessary features are to the business and users (and how difficult they are to build), the process of prioritizing the list of features begins. This can be done visually through an adaptation of the Kano model to show on an axis the categorization of features into basic, performance and delight as shown in the diagram
- Creating a Product Roadmap
Features that are seen as having low business and user value as well as being very difficult to develop are likely to be placed on a product backlog or possibly slated for a future release (or re-evaluation). Features with a high business and user value that are easy to develop, will be key drivers for the product build and inspire confidence amongst sponsors and investors in the success of a future release or creation of a minimum viable product.
Frequently business decisions dictate the initial direction for the product roadmap. However this direction can change when the evidence is gathered from conducting these exercises and user validation emerges to underpin a clear strategy for increasing user adoption and improving customer engagement.
When undergoing a digital transformation, companies use journey maps to help identify new product offerings and ways to engage with users to increase loyalty as they progress through the customer funnel. The goal of this process should always be to understand the context in which users are currently using features and explore ways in which building new (or improving existing) features, can enhance the users’ experience through their journey with your software.
