Blog details

Create An Outstanding B2B Customer Journey Map

Author: ClaritysoftUploaded: 06/04/2018

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward technology—not the other way around,” said Steve Jobs.

 

Building a company that focused on the customer experience worked for Steve Jobs, and it can work for you too.

 

From Rolodexes to Customer Experience

In the 1990s, we moved from digital Rolodexes to customer relationship management (CRM) systems, which helped companies to centralize customer data and sell more successfully.

 

In the new millennium, as B2B customers became more educated and connected than ever before, companies recognized the need to focus more on their customer’s needs. CRM now supports the entire customer journey, enabling companies to keep prospects and customers engaged throughout their journey and provide excellent customer experiences. To do this, they need to start with a customer journey map.

 

What is a Customer Journey Map?

When you go on vacation and have to drive from one destination to the next, you map it out with all the steps along the way. The same is true of the customer journey.

 

The customer journey map shows how to take your prospects from recognizing a business need to the ultimate destination: being an advocate for your brand. Developing your process and systems around a customer journey map empowers you to put your customer at the center of your business universe, thus, providing the following benefits:

 

Creates a Consistent Brand Experience

The customer journey map provides a blueprint for delivering a consistent brand experience. That’s because it outlines how your associates, or brand ambassadors, need to interact with prospects and customers at each step along that journey.

 

Builds Customer Trust

Trust builds over time. Thus, each interaction can either reinforce or destroy trust. As trust deepens, the bond between your organization and your customer is harder to break.

 

When you understand the buyer’s journey, you know what questions they ask along the way. You can answer those queries through informative content and one-on-one conversations. These are the bread crumbs that move prospects and customers closer to their destination.  Because each interaction is designed to meet or exceed customer expectations, customers start to trust your company.

 

Increases Customer Engagement and Satisfaction

If you provide what your customers need as they move along the customer journey, they will stay engaged and satisfied.

 

Also, you can gather customer satisfaction data for overall performance as well as for each step or customer touch point. This research enables you to prioritize and address weak points, continually tweaking your process to boost customer satisfaction.

 

Improves Customer Retention

Customer satisfaction, of course, helps to increase retention rates, which has a tremendous impact on profitability. In fact, working with Bain & Company, Earl Sasser of Harvard Business School discovered that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%.

 

A Typical B2B Customer Journey Map

Are you motivated to get started with mapping the customer journey? To help you, here’s an outline of a typical B2B customer journey. Your prospect goes through the following steps.

 

Identifies a business problem or need.

Does some research and determines a category of products, solutions or services that may help solve his or her problem.

Searches for information about this category and learns about your company or product.

Visits company websites, views other marketing materials, and talks with colleagues in the industry.

Inquires about your solution.

Is contacted by one of your associates who, ideally, provides a rapid response, answering questions and providing advice in a professional way.

Considers your product…and some others. Your company’s job is to help during the selection process in a consultative, educational way. Respect the Golden Rule: treat customers as you would like to be treated as a customer.

Chooses your product and officially becomes a customer.

Your company provides the product or solution.

To ensure that your customer gets the most benefit from your product, you provide training and support.

On an ongoing basis, you check in with them to make sure your product is meeting or exceeding their expectations and to determine what else you can do to help. While there may be opportunities for upgrades and cross-selling, deepening the relationship is also essential.

The customer becomes a brand advocate, enthusiastically telling others about your product and company.

Claritysoft can help you to achieve success with Customer Relationship Management. To learn more, contact us now.