How to Map Your Customer’s Journey Through CRM?

What is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the stages that a customer goes through while interacting with your company. It helps to tell the journey of a customer, right from the start when he/she first came in contact with you until the forming of a long-term relationship, hopefully.

The idea behind customer mapping is to connect with the customers on a more personal level and gain an understanding of what is working for them.

Customers these days are more aware than ever before. They want their experience with the companies to be hassle-free and seamless.

They expect you to know and remember who they are and what they want so that the next time they interact with you.

Customers can pick up right from where they left off without having to repeat their needs to you. And this is what mainly customer journey maps strive to attain- to provide effective services and eventually improve customer’s satisfaction.

90% of consumers say that online reviews significantly influence their buying decision. Before buying a product, consumers want to know the opinion of previous buyers. Positive reviews on your products will help you gain a strong foothold, and the transition of buyers to the later stages of purchase journey will be more seamless.

Some extent of customer support was needed by 83% of customers before finally making an online purchase. Customers wish to remove any lingering doubts before making a purchase, and they want your help in that. By making sure that they are provided a satisfactory customer experience, you gain positive points from customers which can be useful in winning sales.

86% of senior-level marketers believe that it’s essential for companies to create a consistent customer journey.

Even though it has taken long for senior-level marketers to understand this concept, the verdict is clear. A cohesive and consistent customer journey is essential if you want to satisfy your consumers.

Email is checked by 91% of consumers at least once a day on their smartphones.

Email is a great way to attract the attention of your customers and send them reminders regarding your brand and what you have to offer them.

67% of the buyers‘ journey has gone digital.

This emphasizes the importance of online marketing for your business. Buyers have the option to access your products 24/7, and they are making the purchase decision individually without any help from your sales rep.

Did you know that 66% of smartphone users searched for products they saw on TV commercials on their phones?

Digitization has affected the world in several ways and also made people highly dependent on their smartphones. If customers see something they like or they are intrigued by on TV, they want to know more about it. And this information can be searched easily in a matter of few seconds via their phones. The convenience of phones being by their side all the time also has a significant impact on this habit. Marketers understand this and hence, have been using a lot of methods to drive consumers online.

72% of consumers use Google for research purposes.

Google is currently an essential research tool and has a strong presence all over the world. For a consumer who is in the early stages of researching a product or service, Google is the best option. That’s why your brand needs to have a robust online presence. It can be done by implementing strong SEO (Search engine optimization) tools and PPC ads that can help turn these leads into your consumers.

Stages in the Customer Journey

The customer journey can be divided into the following stages. It’s essential to note that each of the following steps requires a different marketing approach, and each approach used by you should be able to cover each facet of the customer’s journey thoroughly.

Awareness

In the awareness stage, the customer has just realized his desire for a product or service. He wants more information about the product, and that’s when he heads to search engines like Google for resolving the pain points.

An effective SEO strategy should be used to attract the attention of the customers. You need to make the customers aware that you have the required product/services that they need.

It is important to understand that it is a beginner stage. Hence, at the point of any information provided by you should be relatively neutral with restricted sales jargon. You should also try to avoid any unnecessary advertising.

The content that needs to be delivered by you at this stage includes:

1. Checklist

2. Ebooks

3. How-to videos

4. Whitepaper

5. E-guides

6. Industry research reports

By using our customer journey CRM services, you can measure and analyze incoming website traffic easily. Not only that, we help you attract better leads to your website. By using CentraHub’s marketing services, you’d be able to generate, track, and assign leads in a more improved and efficient way.

Consideration

The next stage in a customer journey mapping CRM is a consideration. Here, the customer has completed the initial research and now contemplating whether to buy or not the product or service that you are offering. He is also comparing your product and services with other similar brands in the market. The main steps undertaken by the customer in this stage are learning more about your products/ services, reading customers reviews, checking out what your competitors have to offer and so on.

At this stage, you are still providing vital information to help your prospective buyer in making the best decision. Most of the time its consideration stage where the customer might reach you for additional information through calling the number provided on your website, filling up the inquiry forms and reaching out to your customer support executives via emails.

Your job during this stage is to ensure the customer that you have what he needs and your product and services are the best options for him currently.

The content that needs to be delivered by you at this stage includes:

1. FAQ

2. Demo video

3. Case study

4. Product webinar

For this stage to be successful, your leads need to materialize. If you aren’t sure why leads visit your website but keep leaving without undertaking any action, we have just the right solution for you. If leads aren’t maintained properly, they will eventually lose interest in your brand and even unsubscribe from your emails and offer letters. And you don’t want that. Centrahub’s sale CRM will not only create a unified platform containing all your leads information and record any reactions made by them. But it will also create personalized marketing campaigns for your prospective customers so that they retain their interest and ensure the right treatment of your leads.

Purchase/Sale

The third stage is when your customer finally makes the purchase. By now, your customer has done all the necessary research and is well informed about the product/services you offer. This is the stage where the buyer reviews should be focused on. As already mentioned above, studies have proved that buyers are relying on peer to peer reviews more than ever. They want to know the opinions of previous buyers; hence, not having any review or negative reviews for your products and services can have an adverse effect on their buying decision.

Your job during this stage is to satisfy the primary question lingering in the minds of your prospective consumers, “why should we choose you”?

The content that needs to be delivered by you at this stage includes:

1. Coupon

2. Customer reviews

3. Free demo

4. Case studies

At this stage, you shouldn’t overexert your sales staff with repetitive chores like manual deal tracking. By upgrading to Centra CRM, you can automate deal tracking and nurture the sales deals via emails, Sms, and calls from inside the CRM itself.

Service

This is the stage where the customer purchases your product/services. But they don’t want to purchase a product, and they want a seamless after-sales customer experience as well. Your job is to provide them with an immaculate customer experience that helps in building a long-lasting relationship with them. Efficient customer service is also vital in the development of brand loyalty, which is, in fact, the next stage of the customer’s journey. A study by Forbes says that customers across the world have an average satisfaction rate of 86%. Brands need to provide accurate and responsible services that they guaranteed initially to provide.

But how should you deal with an unhappy customer?

The way a company responds to complaints have a significant effect on its reputation. Ideally, every business would like to have only positive feedback, but that’s not possible. Hence, you should try to accept the negative feedback as they come and make ways to handle them appropriately.

The ideal way to handle negative feedback is by responding courteously and assuring the customers that you’re doing your best to find a solution to their problems. You should try to make them feel heard and empathize with their situation, and it will pay off in the long run.

The content that needs to be delivered by you at this stage includes:

1. Follow up calls

2. How to regarding the product

3. Feedbacks

Want to create effective web forms but don’t know how? Use Centrahub’s automation marketing tools to create sophisticated HTML web forms without any technical experience.

Loyalty

This is the last stage of the customer journey and probably the hardest to achieve. Most of the companies believe that creating a sale should be the ultimate goal, but that’s not really the case. The truth is, this stage is arguably the most important one of any customer’s journeys. Did you know that acquiring a new customer would cost you 7 times more than retaining an existing one?

It’s tough to create the feeling of trust in a prospective customer to turn him into a buyer, and hence once you have been able to gain the trust, you should pull all the stops to maintain it as well. If all the things are done right, these customers can also turn into advocates of your brand. They will speak nice things about your company, refer you to their friends and family and create a strong word-of-mouth advertisement for you free of cost.

The content that needs to be delivered by you at this stage includes :

1. Surveys

2. Requests for testimonials

3. Coupons

It’s not easy to create happy customers. We help you measure and analyze your customer service efforts that can not only build your reputation but also create loyal customers. You also get the option to create and share these reports with your team members on a single platform.

Conclusion

Mapping the customer’s journey is the pulse of every business. It can help you and your business in several ways. Customer is the true king. Great customer experiences can lead to more revenue and customer loyalty. Ignoring the importance of customer journey mapping is just going to harm your business and is no longer a viable option.

And the customer journey map for sales comes with so many advantages. By creating a seamless experience for your customers, you can understand customer’s behavior better. You can then focus adequately on each channel by using real data and deliver more personalized services. This will help in improving your ROI and sales cycles exponentially. And this can only be possible by implementing a CRM system. If you still aren’t sure why your business needs a CRM system and how will it benefit you, give us a chance to explain.