The companies who always put their customers into their hearts are always the most profitable ones. They are always more beneficial than their competitors in the market. The most significant profitable factor for the companies can be focussing upon the strategy of the customer journey.
The journey of the customer is based upon the complete lifecycle from awareness to loyalty. It helps in planning the communication strategy of the organization by matching with the customer expectations. The process involves mapping the journey and identifying the gaps in the communication between the customer and the company.
What is a Customer Journey?
A customer journey refers to the total experience a customer has with the organization. It includes all the interactions of the customer with the organization across various channels and touchpoints through every channel or touchpoints.
Companies generally use various channels to communicate with customers. But often fails to relate and connect each one with the journey of the customer. Mapping customer journeys are like bread and butter for those professionals involved in customer experience. The customer journey mapping provides a holistic view of the complexities of the different teams and departments collectively working together.
Customer Journey Gap Analysis
Customer Journey Gap Analysis refers to finding out the gap between the customer experience and the customer expectation. It also includes analyzing the internal cultural, and organizational gaps that may create barriers in realizing the future state vision.
The gap analysis is done to examine any deficits that are needed to be improved in the future across the following five dimensions:
The gap of Customer’s Perception
It refers to finding out where the experience meets the customer’s expectations. It also refers to finding out the areas of improvement where the customer expectations are not matched with the experience.
The Knowledge of Decision Maker’s gap
refers to the belief from the experience of the decision-makers based on which they make the decisions. These may not match with the customer expectations of the present as well as the future. So it’s necessary to make sure that the decision-makers start assessing the current customer’s views and opinions and make decisions according to that for better customer satisfaction.
The gap in The Knowledge of The Employee
It refers to a gap in the knowledge or training of the employee that doesn’t match the customer’s expectation. It may lead to not being able to deliver according to the customer’s needs. It may act as a failure to retain the customer for future selling by the organization.
The gap in The Enablement of an Employee
It refers to the gap between the delivery of the employee, which doesn’t match the actual customer expectation. This gap is due to various factors associated with the business, such as technological factors, process barriers, etc. These factors may affect the delivery of service to meet customer satisfaction.
The gap in Customer Communication
It refers to the fact that the promises made to the customers are being delivered. There can be a gap in the promise made and actual delivery to the customer, affecting customer satisfaction.
It has been seen in a study that about 86% of the customers are ready to pay more price for products and services which match the customer satisfaction. To ensure that the customer’s experience is a positive one, it’s necessary to map the gap and bridge the gap between the customer experience and their expectations so that there is no gap between them.
The employees must understand that the customer’s journey cannot be drawn from their perspective. So, it’s required to put your legs in the customer’s shoes. It will help them to understand the customer’s point of view. Customer feedback can be a significant step in understanding the customer’s experience and also their expectations.
Following are some of the questions that can be used in driving the customer’s journey process:
- What happened inside the company that led you to search for a new one?
- What is the process by which you research finding a new product?
- How were you able to find this company where you had visited just now?
- How important do you feel is the free trial in the process of buying a new product?
- What led you to choose this company over that of a particular other company?
These questions can help the company understand the customer’s perspective about their company and map the gap to meet the real expectation of the customer. It will also help to prepare efficiently for the future journey of the customer.
