IMPROVING RELATIONSHIPS
ONE EXPERIENCE AT A TIME
3 CATEGORY-DRIVEN ANALYSIS
MAPPING THE JOURNEY
Do you know what your customers truly want? Does
your company understand what customers go through
to achieve their needs in doing business with you?
Maybe it’s time for you to map their journey.
It’s critical to understand customer experiences throughout the full cycle of interactions. Customer Journey Mapping can be the best method to identify key customer touchpoints, provide a complete picture of the customer experience, and form the foundation for your company’s customer strategy.
4 CATEGORY-DRIVEN ANALYSIS
B-TO-B FOCUS – THREE KEY VIEWS
Walker collaborates with clients to carefully map all the complex
interactions that commonly include more people, more layers, and more steps in a business-to-business environment. What’s more, Walker’s approach goes deeper into the interaction stages to include not only the customer view, but internal views that affect the customer: • CUSTOMER VIEW – Business customers go through more and
different stages than just buying and using. Walker takes into consideration the different complexities and nuances of B-to-B including the stages of the buying process, implementation, payment, and usage. The journey map will illustrate what the customer is thinking, wanting, and doing.
• COMPANY VIEW – Another layer to add is the company side – for
every given customer stage, how is the company organized and resourced to give them what they want? And while most mapping highlights pain points or weaker interactions with customers, we think that noting the company’s unique strengths are a critical way to inform selling and marketing.
• CHANNEL PARTNER VIEW – Most B-to-B companies work through
indirect relationships–with channel partners, distributors, and others that own the day-to-day relationship with the customer. Given the critical role these intermediaries have in managing the customer experience, it is important to map their view as well.
5
HOW IT WORKS
• Customer Strategy Goals – The Journey Mapping process begins
by understanding customer strategy goals and clarifying the intent, situation, and measures of success.
• Internal Hypothesis – Next, Walker conducts in-depth discussions with
key stakeholders to identify initial hypotheses, including the broad stages of customer interaction and critical moments of truth • Customer-Facing Workshops – The most substantial stage of the
journey mapping process involves facilitated workshops with cross-functional teams. During these workshops, participants are guided through each customer stage exploring customer needs and desires, as well as understanding how the company is currently organized to support them. These workshops, facilitated by Walker experts engage both customers and employees, making them an important part of the company’s customer strategy.
• Customer Interviews – In parallel with the workshops, customer
interviews are conducted to reveal rich insights on key customer experiences, exploring and probing beyond what is achieved from survey feedback.
• Maps and Recommendations – In the final step the customer journey
map is built, fully analyzed with recommendations and action plans to implement the changes needed to fulfill the objectives originally set forth.
CUSTOMER STRATEGY GOALS
INTERNAL HYPOTHESES
CUSTOMER-FACING WORKSHOPS
CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS
MAP AND RECOMMEND
6 CATEGORY-DRIVEN ANALYSIS
JOURNEY MAPPING DELIVERS
Customer journey mapping is a process for establishing a direction. However, the ultimate goal is getting where you want to be! With this in mind, Walker’s approach to customer journey mapping achieves the following:
1. CREATES THE OPTIMAL LISTENING PROGRAM
By identifying what customers care about most, the map will guide customer metrics in place and also identify gaps where customer surveys or other channels can focus.
2. AFFIRMS ACTION PLANS, REVEALS OBSTACLES
Maps do this by revealing where the risks and value are from the customer viewpoint. Walker’s approach assures that focus is on areas where the material impacts are expected to occur.
3. GETS THE RIGHT PEOPLE ENGAGED
Journey mapping creates opportunities for a large team to work together, and creates new champions for your programs. With cross functional teams involved, silo conflicts will undoubtedly emerge. However, those conversations are the beginning of resolution of conflicts for the ultimate sake of the customer and your business.
Good maps are powerful tools that can be used to
support tactical and strategic design decisions. What’s
more, with engaged employees unified in their resolve
to improve the customer experience, real change can
occur and measureable results can be achieved.
FIND OUT MORE!
Talk to Walker to find out how we can help your company. We’ll listen to your business challenges and let you know how we can help.
VISIT: WALKERINFO.COM
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Walker Index S&P 500 Dow Jones Industrial Average NASDAQ
1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 20 1 1 2013
T H E WA L K E R I N D E X
The Walker Index is a stock index comprised of current Walker clients. Companies are included in the index only during their tenure as Walker clients. Companies attracted to Walker are committed to using the customer perspective as an impactful management tool. The Walker Index indicates these companies dramatically outperform the broad markets.
