CSG International : Customer Journey Map

Accurate data gives you an accurate picture of how customers act. You can use this information to optimize your processes and enhance customer experiences.

Your business must leverage multiple data sources to get a holistic view of consumer behavior. To maximize the customer journey mapping experience, leverage deeper insights using both solicited and unsolicited data to enrich the process.

1. Use Requested Data to Understand Verbalized Actions

Consumer feedback your organization has already gathered or is currently gathering, such as through surveys like Net Promoter Score (NPS), provides a simple start to the customer mapping process. You can also ask for customer feedback through social channels. Asking for consumer volunteers allows you to begin translating valuable, accessible data into actionable customization preferences almost immediately. It also can quickly identify friction points, as unhappy customers are often eager to voice their complaints.

Solicited information helps you understand the customer's point of view without making assumptions about their actions. Of course, consumers may not share everything with you. Just as some may be looking to air grievances, others may identify positive interactions with your business but forget to mention vital information that you could have used to boost CX.

Solicited feedback is helpful, with a few limitations. When asking customers for feedback, remember:

• It's about timing:It's ideal to get feedback when an interaction is fresh in a consumer's mind. That said, knowing when to ask for feedback can be tricky if you don't know all the possible journey routes consumers may take.
• It's an overview: The consumer will give feedback on the experience they had at the time you sent the survey, addressing that specific encounter and touchpoint. You won't get details about the customer journey as a whole.
• It's partial:You are taking your customers' word regarding what they plan to do. What they actually do may be different. Solicited feedback only gives you a slice of the truth.
• It's limited:You must consider the sample size. If you are trying to investigate a specialized customer journey, you may have few consumers willing to share feedback. The limited scope may not provide the insights you need to optimize the customer experience.
• It's a glimpse:Direct feedback is a snapshot of one area. Your systems gather and analyze customer data, but may not combine this information with solicited feedback. When uncombined, responses only provide a segment of the overall picture.

2. Use Unprompted Data to Understand Non-Verbalized Actions

Unsolicited or unprompted data includes any actions and behaviors consumers don't tell you about. Unsolicited data provides valuable contextual information that your systems collect, like purchase or browsing history. You can gather the data from various sources:

• Your website
• Social channels
• Third-party sites
• Customer calls
• Chat transcripts
• Frontline staff feedback
• Operational sources

Although unsolicited data is nuanced, it can offer deeper insights into customer journeys and CX. Gathering data from multiple sources and touchpoints showcases details consumers often omit or forget to share with you during prompted feedback requests.

By leveraging the power of natural language understanding (NLU) that detects sentiment, intent and effort while offering 100% real-time feedback gathering, you can get significant insights into customer behavior.

Unprompted data is:

• Automated, which means you benefit from a perfect response rate that better reflects your consumer's thoughts and feelings at each step of the journey.
• Not limited by sample size or response rates. With zero limitations, you can establish an accurate customer journey map rich with valuable insights.