Framework and Cases of Customer Journey Management

Integration and renewal, digital transformation creates a new customer management journey. This article describes the framework of customer journey management in detail around this topic, and further verifies the value of customer journey management through practical cases.

1. The customer era has officially arrived

Over the past decade, I have been doing research on customer experience and have been interested in digital tools and platforms. I have published a number of books on customer experience (Customer Experience 101: From Strategy to Execution and Customer Journey: A Customer-Centric Battle Map).

The concept of customer journey management was born out of the three major growth dilemmas faced by enterprises in the digital age: first, competition among enterprises is fierce in the digital age and the threshold for brands to enter the market has become lower; second, the pace of innovation is getting faster and faster and the product iteration cycle is getting shorter and shorter; third, customer acquisition is difficult and the churn rate continues to rise.

In this context, the touchpoint dividend of the digital age is accelerating the promotion of customer journey management into the vision of enterprises. The randomness and uncertainty of user behavior are increasing, the contribution of a single touchpoint to conversion rate is decreasing, and the relationship between enterprises and customers is gradually evolving into "customer-driven".

Previously, customers were more of a passive recipient, and brands communicated their brand value to customers through mainstream authoritative media. However, the rapid development of mobile Internet has enabled users to occupy the high ground of public opinion, and the trend of "individuals surpassing brands to become the largest media production and communication entity" has gradually become prominent, and the customer era has officially arrived.

In this process, the company's business model has also undergone three core changes: the shift in delivery from products to experiences, the shift in focus from traffic to scenarios, and the shift in perspective from a single touchpoint to a customer journey.

It can also be said that in the current context, digital technology will break down products and services (whether physical or digital) into increasingly fine and increasing touchpoints. The future experience is the perception formed by the journey based on the combination of these touchpoints. Companies will place more emphasis on consistency, relevance, personalization and efficiency among channels, scenarios and touchpoints.

According to Google's global search popularity rankings (2004 – present), the search popularity of "customer experience" and "customer journey" continues to rise. "User experience" once ranked high but has been gradually surpassed by "customer experience".

Initially, the concept of "user experience" originated from the design field, especially the product field, which emphasized more on single touchpoints. It has been on the rise since 2000, but has slowed down in recent years. However, "customer experience" has emphasized multi-touchpoint and multi-channel customer journeys since its inception. After the touchpoint dividend arrived in the digital age, it has accelerated its growth, far exceeding "user experience". At the same time, "customer journey" will be on par with "user experience" around 2022, and will show a trend of surpassing it.

From the perspective of the customer journey, the experience does not start when the user uses the product, but when the user first hears about the brand or when a need arises. In the customer-centric development stage of an enterprise, the deliverable is the experience, and enterprise growth requires continuous optimization of the experience to achieve.

2. Overview of the Journey Management Framework

By leveraging digital means and providing scenario-based experiences around the end-to-end customer journey, we can meet customers' real-time, personalized needs, help them achieve their current tasks and goals, and guide them to the next step in their customer journey, stimulate further demand and interaction, and achieve business transformation and sustainable growth.

The experience-driven growth of enterprises based on customer journey needs to be combined with business scenarios. With in-depth insights into customers' real needs and preferences, customers can be guided step by step to complete the journey transition, which is continuously extended and repeated. In this process, enterprises and customers complete interaction and realize value exchange to maintain sustainable growth. In this regard, we can summarize the journey management framework as follows:

First, basic element management, including touchpoints, personas, scenarios, use case management, and key customer journey identification.

Second, journey map drawing. Draw customer journey maps according to various scenarios and purposes, and update them.

Third, journey testing and analysis: Analyze customer journeys based on data integration and optimize journeys.

Fourth, journey orchestration and automation: Use digital technology to orchestrate and automate touchpoints and customer journeys.

Fifth, journey chorus: cross-choreography and collaboration of different customer journeys inside and outside the enterprise.

Sixth, journey optimization and innovation: Optimize and innovate the experience of journeys and touchpoints.

3. Case Study: Setting up a Customer Journey Manager to Build a Journey-Based Insight and Action System

Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the oldest and largest banks and financial services companies in the UK, hopes to become the number one bank in terms of service, advocacy and trust. The bank said it faces two major challenges in its digital transformation: customer experience and measurement and insight.

As we all know, data insights are particularly important for enterprises to implement customer journey management. How to avoid marketing activities being like "fireworks", which are brilliant but fleeting? In this regard, the Royal Bank of Scotland has set up the position of Digital Journey Manager to help it manage the experience of customers in the process of interacting with the bank. "Our service is composed of many small journeys like this, so we will also organize ourselves in the way of journey managers." The bank refers to the model of product managers, and the journey manager is responsible for the journey experience of each customer, which has pioneered the establishment of journey manager positions in the financial field and has become the company with the most journey managers in the world.

The journey manager is responsible for the operation of the entire journey and cooperates with other team roles, including the journey analysis manager, journey optimization manager, journey design manager, etc., to participate in and provide cross-functional expertise and insights to jointly support customer journey management. Specifically, the bank's specific implementation steps for building a journey-based insight and action system through the journey manager include the following four steps:

1. Implement the journey manager program and deploy a content management platform.

Digital content is an important part of improving customer experience. It may be an online activity, an automatically switched banner image, or a text message/push/pop-up message... When an enterprise implements a digital marketing strategy, these digital contents will become an important component of a certain stage, channel, or touchpoint in the customer journey.

2. Deploy a tag management system with a unified journey perspective.

Enterprises achieve in-depth data analysis by establishing a labeling system, in which each label is constructed with the customer journey as the main line after the enterprise completes customer journey analysis and orchestration, rather than collecting data from all channels and throughout the customer life cycle that is separated from business scenarios.

3. Data equality, complete the distribution of hundreds of real-time data dashboards.

The purpose of data analysis is to visualize and apply data, and to assist enterprises in formulating personalized and precise marketing strategies.

4. Carry out content marketing to optimize customer experience and implement personalized strategies, and continue to optimize based on data feedback.

Finally, combined with my personal consumption experience, I would like to summarize my experience of customer experience and customer journey: First, the customer journey design of enterprises usually has a clear target customer group and a clear understanding of the labels corresponding to the target customer group, such as the time and place of entering the customer journey. Second, the role of promoting the leap of the customer journey plays a vital role in customer experience. Third, realize the integration and real-time integration of customer insights and customer operations, and guide the implementation of operational strategies based on analytical insight results.

Author: Sensors Data