What You Need to Know About Customer Experience Maps

Last, and perhaps the most important, it should include the type of emotion the customer expresses or feels during each of these stages. If a 20-something male is feeling annoyed in the car dealership's waiting room because Barney reruns are playing on a low-quality TV, the experience should be noted. And companies should try to factor in relevant information about the external conditions a person experiences during a task or touch-point.

HOW SHOULD IT LOOK?

You might say that customer experience maps are all over the map. One might look drastically different from the next. Some take the form of closed loops, others are more linear; some are color-coded, others black and white. No matter the shape, a map should be pleasing to look at, since you'll be expecting a team to consult it frequently to better understand how to operate.

Travel-lodging company Airbnb took this seriously, going so far as to hire a Pixar animator to illustrate its map. An enterprise that enables people to rent out their living space online as a cheaper alternative to hotel rooms, it has to consider multiple types of customers. Those who use the website to post their offerings, though playing the part of seller, are also a customer of sorts, as they are expecting service from the website. Likewise, those renting out the space are another type of customer. Airbnb used Disney's Snow White as a model for its map, and the idea of storyboarding as an inspiration for how to illustrate the processes.

It's easy to forget that the members of a company are also a form of customer themselves, but workers are also seeking the path of least resistance. If you can provide a good experience to users when they're consulting the map—which will help them understand the various parts of the company and how they should be working together—that's just more incentive for them to use it.

WHY CREATE ONE, AND WHAT IS IT FOR?

The reasons for creating a CX map might seem obvious. You create a customer experience map with the ultimate goal of better understanding your customer and improving his experience in some way. Right? Well, sort of. Though that's the idea, it's also not as ideal or easy to reach as it should be.

Businesses should think through the areas that give their customers the most challenges. This way, they will avoid spending time, money, and effort on something that they probably won't use—which happens more often than it should, experienced thinkers in the industry point out. "The big problem [with customer experience maps] is that everyone has one, but they don't change what they do based on it," says Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM, who delivered a presentation on customer journey mapping at the Customer Experience Conference in March.

One way of avoiding this potential hurdle is to have a specific goal in mind. Experts recommend that companies have a clear idea of how they're going to use their map, and to what end. If, for instance, a company's objective is to improve brand perception, it should create a map that focuses on sharpening any interactions that pertain to that sphere. If it wants to improve customer pain points, it should focus on the customers' emotions and thoughts during those interactions.

HOW TO GET STARTED

No two companies are alike. Similarly, no two customer experience maps are exactly alike. Each map must be tailored specifically to meet the needs of the company in question. No matter how similar two companies are, they should never expect that they can duplicate another company's customer experience map and implement the same strategies to the same effect.

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