Consumer Journey MapEstimated Reading Time: just 2 min

A Consumer Journey Map is the typical experience a Buyer Persona lives when purchasing a product.

It is a representation of
– Tasks that are
• What the consumers are trying to achieve
• What the targets’ business/personal goals are
• What organizational/private goals affect their buying behaviour

– Questions that are
• What the consumers want to know
• What doubts may get them to give up on products
• What information and data references targets rely on
• How targets utilize and share content
• What types of content affect purchase decisions
• What content targets seek and when
• How targets obtain and receive information

– Touchpoints that are
• How the users interact with the organisation
• How they want to be contacted
• How they want to buy the company’s product/service

– Emotions that are
• What the users feel
• What unlocked drivers for decisions are
• What the unarticulated “why” reasons for decisions are

– Weaknesses that are
• What risks affect buying choices
• How targets balance consequences and payoffs
• How targets thinking affect “why” choices

These are mapped over time through the phases of
– Discovery: it is when a problem becomes clear in targets’ mind
– Research: it is when targets start to look for a solution to relieve a pain
– Purchase: it is when targets decide to buy a product/service to relieve a pain
– Delivery: it is when targets use the product/service and they experience the Value Propositions of the product/service
– After Sales: it is when targets experience some issues in being delivered wit Value Propositions

Consumer Journey Maps help companies to:
– Understand their Buyer Personas context
– Tailor their Funnels (therefore enhancing the Customer Experience)
– Maximize the KPIs of their Funnels
– Reach a Viral Loop

Building a Consumer Journey Map is about filling a table similar to the one below.

Many organisations already have some information about their Consumers.

Anyway, it is always better to do some extra homework in terms of researching.

There are two types of research that could be conducted:
– Quantitative: they are analytical researches made of Hard Data
– Qualitative: they are anecdotal researches made of Soft Data

Hard Data tell us what is happening while Soft Data tell us why something is happening.

Quantitative Researches are about collecting data from sources such as:
– Website Analytics
– Social Media (i.e. Facebook Analytics)
– Search Engine Data (i.e. Google Analytics)
– Event Base Tracking Tools (i.e. Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Woopra, Countly, Game Analytics, AppsFlyer and BareMetrics)

Qualitative Researches are about collecting data from sources such as:
– Customer Interviews (i.e. Qualaroo, Zendesk, Customerly, Survicate and Qerzy)
– Polls (i.e. Type Forms, Google Forms, Survey Monkey, Jot Form and Zoho Survey)
– Session Recordings (i.e. Smartlook, HotJar, Screensquid, SessionCam and Inspectlet)
– Usability Tests (i.e. Applause, UsabilityHub, UsabilityTools, WhatUsersDo, Usabilitest and Uxeria)
– Heatmaps (i.e. Hotjar, Sumo, MouseFlow, CrazyEgg and LuckyOrange)

All these information, when gathered, must be discussed in a team that has to involve a very heterogeneous set of skills and experiences to get an accurate picture of the typical experience of each Buyer Persona.

The process of building a Consumer Journey Map is iterative and the accuracy improves over time.

Therefore, it is not useful to focus on getting the perfect output, but it is better to get something to be tested and measured refreshing the researches used for gathering the information to build the Consumer Journey Map.