Companies are increasingly concerned with the “customer journey“, covering any dealings customers have with their brands, products and services; it has become one of the key concepts associated with customer experience in recent years.  Companies are advised to map typical journeys of their customers, then analyse and discuss their implications and consequences with aim to ameliorate their customers’ experiences.

At the foundation of the customer journey underlies a purchase decision process, but the developed concept of a “journey” now expands beyond purchase decisions to a variety of activities and interactions customers (consumers) may engage, relating to marketing, sales, and service. This broad spectrum of reference as to what a journey may encompass could be either the concept’s strength (establishing a very general framework) or a weakness (too generalised, weak-defined). Another important emphasis accepted with respect to contemporary customer journeys accentuates consumers’ tendency to utilise multiple channels and touch-points available to them, especially technology-supported channels, in their pathway to accomplish any task. Furthermore, interactions in different channels are inter-related in consumers’ minds and actions (i.e., a cross-channel journey). This post-article reviews propositions, approaches and solutions in this area offered by selected consultancy, technology and analytics companies (based on content in their webpages, white papers, brochures and blogs).

Multi-channel, omnichannel, cross-channel — These terms are used repeatedly and most frequently in association with the customer journey. Oracle, for instance, positions the customer journey squarely in the territory of cross-channel marketing. But companies not always make it sufficiently clear whether these terms are synonymous or have distinct meanings. All above descriptive terms agree that consumers more frequently utilise multiple channels and touch-points to accomplish their tasks yet “cross-channel” more explicitly refers to the flow of the journey across channels, the connectivity and inter-relations between interactions or activities customers engage.

Writing for the blog of Nice “Perfecting Customer Experience”, Natalia Piaggio (5 Feb. 2015) stresses that for better understanding the end-to-end customer experience through customer journey maps (CJMs), focus should be directed to the flow of interactions between touch-points and not to any single touch-point. She explains that customers encounter problems usually during transitions between touch-points (e.g., inconsistency of information, company is unable to deliver on a promise, the next channel transferred to cannot resolve the customer’s problem) and therefore touch-points must be considered connectedly. Oracle notes in its introduction to cross-channel marketing that companies should see the big picture and consider how devices (i.e., laptops, smartphones and tablets) are being used in tandem at different points or stages in the customer journey (whether customers use their email inbox, the Web or social media). Paul Barrett (22 Feb. 2010), an industry expert contributing to a blog of Teradata, adds a nice clarification: when talking about (multiple) channels, moments-of-truth relate to individual and separate channels; yet in a cross-channel environment those moments-of-truth are connected into a customer journey. In other words, the customer journey puts moments-of-truth in context.  Therefore, cross-channel customer journeys refer to the flow as well as inter-dependencies of channels and their touch-points engaged by a customer.

TeleTech enhances the salience of the multi-channel and cross-channel aspects of the customer journey but further adds some valuable observations (TeleTech is parent company of Peppers & Rogers Group as its consultancy arm). First, they propose an association between all three terms above when defining a customer ‘path’ or ‘journey’:

Multichannel signifies the digital and physical channels that customers use in their path to purchase or when seeking support for a product or service. Omnichannel represents the cross-channel path that customers take for product research, support and purchasing.

Notably in the view of TeleTech, “omnichannel” is more directly associated with “cross-channel”. Also noteworthy is the inclusion by TeleTech of physical and digital channels. TeleTech emphasise the need to characterise different customer personas, and construct a map for each persona of her typical journey through channels and touch-points; thereafter a company should be ready to notice changes in customer behaviour and modify the map accordingly (“Connecting the Dots on the Omnichannel Customer Journey“, 2015 [PDF]). Nevertheless, Jody Gilliam contends in a blog of TeleTech that companies should attend not only to the inter-relations between touch-points but also to the (reported) mood of customers during their interactions. It is important to describe and map the whole experience ecosystem (The Relationship Dynamic, Blog: How We Think, 19 July 2013).

• Teradata addresses the complexity introduced by the use of multiple channels through a customer journey from an analytic viewpoint. They propose a multi-touch approach to attribution modelling   (i.e., evaluating to what extent each touch-point contributed to a final desired action by the customer). Three model types for assigning weights are suggested: unified (equal) weighting, decay-driven attribution (exponential: the later an interaction, the higher its weight), and precision (customised) weighting.

The scope of the customer journey — Consensus is not easy to find on what a customer journey encompasses. On one hand, professional services providers focus on particular components of a journey (e.g., interactions, digital touch-points, purchase or service), on the other hand there are attempts to present at least an all-inclusive approach (e.g., reference to a “customer lifecycle”). It may also be said that a gap currently exists between aims to cover and link all channels and the ability to implement — some of those companies talk more openly about their challenges, particularly of including both digital (e.g., web, social media) and physical (in-store) channels, and linking all types of channels during a journey of a given customer.  Orcale relates specifically to the problem of identity multiplicity, that is, the difficulty to establish the identity of actually the same customer across all channels or touch-points he or she uses, since overcoming this challenge is essential to unfolding the whole journey (“Modern Marketing Essentials Guide: Cross-Channel Marketing“, 2014 [PDF]). This challenge is also echoed by Nice, termed as identity association (Customer Journey Optimization [webpage]).

Another key issue that needs to be addressed is whether a customer journey includes only direct interactions between a customer and a focal company through channels where it operates (e.g., call centre, website, social media) or are there other activities consumers perform towards accomplishing their goal to be accounted for (e.g., searching other websites, consulting a friend, visiting brick-and-mortar stores).

• In a blog of Verint (In Touch), Koren Stucki refers to a definition of the customer journey as a series of interactions performed by the customer in order to complete the task. Stucki thereafter points out a gap between the straightforward definition and the complexity of the journey itself in the real world. It may not be too difficult to understand the concept and its importance for customer engagement and experience, but capturing customer journeys in practice, identify and link all channels the customer uses for a given type and purpose of a journey (e.g., product purchase, technical support) can be far more complicated. Understanding these processes is truly imperative for being able to enhance them and optimise customer engagement (“Why Customer Journeys?“, 16 Sept. 2014).
• Piaggio (Nice) also related to the frustration of companies with difficulties in mapping customer journeys. She identifies possible causes as complexity, technical and organizational obstacles to gathering and integrating data, and the dynamic nature of consumer behaviour. She then suggests seven reasons to using CJMs. In accordance, in their brochure on customer journey optimization, Nice see their greater challenge in gathering data from various sources-channels and of different types, and integrating the data, generating complete sequences of customer journeys; three main analytic capabilities they offer in their solution are event-sequencing and visualisation in real-time, contact reasoning (predictive tool), and real-time optimization and guidance (identifying opportunities for improvement).
• In their first out of four steps to a customer journey strategy — namely map the current customer journey — IBM state that the customer journey “signifies the series of interactions a customer has” with a brand (IBM refers specifically to digital channels). Importantly, they suggest that customer journeys should be mapped around personas representing target segments. The CJMs should help managers put themselves in their customers’ shoes (“Map and Optimize Your Customer Journey“, 2014 [PDF])..
• In the blog of TeleTech (How We Think), Niren Sirohi writes about the importance of defining target segments and mapping typical customer journeys for each one. Sirohi emphasises that all stages and modes engaged and all activities involved should be included, not only those in which the company plays a role. Next, companies should identify and understand who are the potential influencers at every stage of the journey (e.g., self, retailer, friend). Then ideas may be activated as to how to improve on customer experiences where the company can influence (“A Framework for Influencing Customer Experience“, 16 Oct. 2014).

Customer engagement — This is another prominent viewpoint from which companies approach the customer journey. Nice direct to Customer Journey Optimization via Multi-Channels and Customer Engagement. Verint also present customer journey analysis as part of their suite of Customer Engagement Analytics (also see their datasheet). The analytic process includes “capturing, analysing, and correlating customer interactions, behaviours and journeys across all channels”.  For IBM, the topic of customer journey strategy belongs in a broader context of Continuous Customer Engagement. The next steps for a strategy following mapping (see above) are to pinpoint areas of struggle for customers, determine gaps to fill wherein customer needs and preferences are unmet by current channels and functionalities they offer, and finally strategize to improve customer experiences.

• Attention should be paid not only to the sequence of interactions but also to what happens during an interaction and how customers react or feel about their experiences. As cited above, Gilliam of TeleTech refers to the mood of customers. Verint say that they apply metrics of customer feedback regarding effort and satisfaction while Nice use text and speech analytics to extract useful information on the content of interactions.

Key issues in improving customer engagement that professional services providers recognize as crucial are reducing customer effort and lowering friction between channels. Effort and struggle by customers may arise during interaction in a single touch-point but furthermore due to frictions experienced while moving between channels. Behind the scenes, companies should work to break down walls between departments, better co-ordinate functions within marketing and with other areas (e.g., technical support, delivery, billing), and remove silos that separate departmental data pools and software applications. These measures are necessary to obtain a complete view of customers. At IBM they see departmental separation of functions in a company, and their information silos, as a major “enemy” of capturing complete customer journeys. Ken Bisconti (29 May 2015) writes in their blog Commerce on steps that can be taken, from simple to sophisticated (e.g., integrated mapping and contextual view of customers across channels), to improve their performance in selling to and serving customers across channels, increase their loyalty and reduce churn. Genesys see the departmental separation as a prime reason to discrete and disconnected journeys; continuity between touch-points has to be improved in order to reduce customer effort (solution: omnichannel Customer Journey Management). Piaggio (Nice) suggests that input from CJMs can help to detect frictions and reduce customer effort; she also relates to the need to reduce silos and eliminate unnecessary contacts. Last, TeleTech also call in their paper on “Connecting the Dots” to break down walls between customer-facing and back-office departments to produce a more channel-seamless customer experience.

• Technology and analytics firms compete on their software (in the cloud) for mapping customer journeys, the quality of journey visualisation (as pathways or networks), their analytic algorithms, and their tool-sets for interpreting journeys and supporting decision-making (e.g., Nice, Verint, Teradata, TeleTech while IBM intend to release their specialised solution later this year).

Varied approaches may be taken to define a journey. From the perspective of a purchase decision process, multiple steps involving search, comparison and evaluation up to to purchase itself may be included, plus at least some early post-purchase steps such as feedback and immediate requests for technical assistance (e.g., how to install a software acquired). In addition, a journey of long-term relationship may refer to repeated purchases (e.g., replacement or upgrade, cross-sell and up-sell). Alternatively, a journey may focus on service-related issues (e.g., technical support, billing). How a journey is defined depends mostly on the purpose of analysis and planning (e.g., re-designing a broad process-experience, resolving a narrow problem).

As use of digital applications, interfaces and devices by consumers grows and expands to perform many more tasks in their lives (e.g., in self-service platforms), we can expect reliance of CJMs on digital channels and touch-points to become more valid and accurate. But we are not there yet, and it is most plausible that consumers will continue to perform various activities and interactions non-digitally. Consumers also see the task they need or want to perform, not merely through the technology employed. Take for example physical stroes: Shoppers may not wish to spend every visit with a mobile device in hand (and incidentally transmit their location to the retailer). Don Peppers laments that companies have designed customer experiences  with a technology-first, customer-second approach whereas the order should be reverse. Undertaking a customer perspective is required foremost for effectively identifying frictions on a journey pathway and figuring out how to remove them  (“Connecting the Dots”, TeleTech). Excessive focus on technologies can hamper that.

Bruce Temkin (Temkin Group, Blog: Experience Matters) provides lucid explanations and most instructive guidance on customer journey mapping. However, it must be noted, Temkin advocates qualitative research methods for gaining deep understanding of meaningful customer journeys. Quantitative measures are only secondary. He does not approve of confusing CJMs with touch-point maps. His concern about such interpretation is that it may cause managers to lose the broader context in which touch-points fit into consumers’ goals and objectives. Temkin puts even more emphasis on adopting a form of Customer Journey Thinking by employees to be embedded in everyday operations and processes, following five questions he proposes as a paradigm.

There are no clear boundaries to the customer journey, and doubtful if they should be set too firmly — flexibility should be preserved in defining the journey according to managerial goals.  A journey should allow for various types of activities and interactions that may help the customer accomplish his or her goals, and it should account not only for their occurrence and sequence but also for content and sentiment. A viewpoint focusing on channels and touch-points, leading further to technology-driven thinking, should be modified. An approach that emphasises customer engagement but from the perspective of customers and their experiences is more appropriate and conducive.

Ron Ventura, Ph.D. (Marketing)