Why Do I Need Data in My Journey Maps?

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Are you adding data to your journey maps?

Back in 2015, I wrote a post titled Hey! You Got Your Metrics in My Journey Map!In it, I advocated for mappers to add data to their journey maps. I wrote that… 
 

…mapping tools had to evolve because people failed to see the value in mapping with the then-current approaches; in addition, maps were not proving to be that catalyst for change that they are designed to be. In order to be that catalyst, maps have to be actionable. And the only way they can be actionable is if you have some data to support or to drive that action. Executives love data and metrics, right? Data-driven decisions are all the rage, and rightly so.

What kind of data? There’s no shortage of data, right?! Obviously, the data needs to be related to the journey you’re mapping, but here are some examples of the types of data you can add to the map.
 

  • Voice of the customer/customer listening data, including reviews, ratings, diagnostics, and verbatims
  • Emotion data, especially from qualitative sources, e.g., text  and voice analytics, sentiment analysis
  • Persona data: incorporate what you learned about the persona for which you’ve mapped that might help you improve the overall experience
  • CX metrics, including NPS, customer satisfaction, customer effort score
  • Other customer data, including interaction, transaction, customer lifetime value, reason for call, number visits to site, where they went on the site, etc.
  • Operational/call center metrics, including agent performance, call volume, first call resolution, hold time, time to resolve, # transfers, channels used
  • Business data: for a lack of a better way to label it, this data is all about the business impact, which will then be used to prioritize moments of truth; it’s revenue, profitability, retention, cost to fix, time to fix, effort to fix, impact to fix type of data.
  • Artifacts, including call recordings, videos, invoices, receipts, pictures, documents, screenshots, etc.

 

Clearly, if you’ve started mapping with butcher paper and sticky notes, which I highly recommend, you’ll need to digitize your maps and have them in a journey mapping or journey analytics platform that supports integrating various data sources into the map.

There are a lot of reasons to bring data into your maps. Data is a critical ingredient for improving the customer experience. It helps us to understand our customers, make better decisions, and deliver the experience they expect.

Other than bringing the maps to life, why incorporate data in your maps? Data helps or allows you to…
 

  • Measure the journey (each of the steps and the overall journey)
  • More deeply analyze the experience and facilitates understanding
  • Identify and clarify high points and pain points in the experience – what’s going well and what’s not
  • Understand where channel optimization needs to occur
  • Bring additional customer perspectives and behaviors (outside of those in the room) into the map, shifting the map and the process from one that’s been fairly qualitative to more of a quantitative effort
  • Shift the perspective from inside-out to the outside-in by adding another component (data) to put the experience in the customer voice
  • Make the maps actionable
  • Add validity and credibility (because there are multiple data sources or feedback channels and because it’s now quantitative rather than qualitative)
  • Identify key moments of truth
  • Prioritize improvements

 

These last two points are important ones to make: the maps themselves don’t identify or prioritize moments of truth. You must use feedback, data, and metrics to do that.

The world is now awash in data, and we can see consumers in a lot clearer ways. -Max Levchin, PayPal co-founder

Read the original post here.