How to include the customer journey in your business processes

How to include the customer journey in your business processes

The rapid changes brought about by digitalization confront companies with major challenges. They must respond as agilely as possible to fast-changing markets and a new customer sovereignty, without losing sight of their economic rationality.

In order to achieve greater efficiency and speed in the implementation of target group-oriented products and services, existing processes must be questioned and designed dynamically.

But that alone is not enough: the best processes are of no use if they are not consistently and uncompromisingly focused on the customer. If processes are designed to be focused on the customer, the solutions will also be customer-oriented.

But what does it mean to design processes in a customer-centric way?

A fact is: Customer orientation as a guiding principle alone is not enough to guarantee corporate success. For customers, their own needs are always in the foreground. They do not buy products or services solely because of a benefit. Rather, social and emotional aspects such as values and desires are decisive in a complete decision cycle. And customers themselves determine how they contact a company. They must therefore be integrated into processes with their needs and their interaction behavior. 

“From the (potential) customer's point of view, the customer journey begins from the moment they think about a need – long before they make a decision or actually buy a product."

A customer journey wrap up

A customer's purchase decision process is a particular form of the cognitive process that every human being goes through when making decisions: You become aware of a need, then look for ways to fulfill that need. After a complex mental act of prioritization, considering all influencing factors, a choice or compromise is made. After that, steps are taken to move toward and ultimately implement this decision. In the subsequent use phase, you learn from your decision, remember the decision-making process (along with its conclusions), and use it as a future reference.

Successful companies or organizations empathize with their customers' decision-making process. With B2B customers, it is even more important to understand their customer journey. A decision for a B2B product or service is only made every 5 to 15 years, depending on the topic. Moreover, no one is usually in a position to make this type of decision on their own – so the decision-making processes here are many times more complex than in a typical B2C journey.

Within a decision-making process, every person involved has a variety of ways to obtain different information and interact via so-called touchpoints, e.g., social or online ads, newsletters or blogs.

This means that if you, as a company representative, know the different behavior patterns of your (potential) customers, you hold the key to developing an optimal customer experience.

But: A well-defined customer journey map from the customer perspective is not enough – it must also be implemented! This is where process orientation helps.

 “Once the customer journey and its touchpoints have been developed and described, the biggest challenge is to effectively incorporate the customer's perspective throughout the company.”

Process-oriented customer journey

Instead of viewing the customer journey as a tool for individual units, a process-oriented approach across the entire company is more advisable.

The goal: aligning the entire decision cycle from the customer's point of view with your business processes.

To develop such a value creation process, it is necessary to specify the individual steps of the customer journey. This is because this sub-process includes not only the customer needs, but also the tasks that have to be mastered from the company's point of view in order to fulfill these needs.

Look at an example: In the customer journey, it was highlighted that the customer would primarily like to have data on the product life cycle and be contacted via social media during the first contact. In the corresponding sub-process, this wish is integrated into the tasks at the social media touchpoint. The customer's wishes in terms of speed of response are also taken into account.

 In typical process models, processes are structured using a top-down approach. By looking through process management “glasses”, this is achieved by linking the two control loops of strategic and operational process management.

Strategic phase

In this phase, the customer and product requirements are analyzed. In the so-called "customer model", for example, the following questions come up: Who are the target groups? Which touchpoints are used preferentially, how, and when? Do our communication channels fit in? The so-called "product model", on the other hand, deals with questions about functionalities and usage scenarios: When and how can a product/service be used by the customer? What needs do tangible products or digital services cover?

Operational phase

In operational process management, the contents of the customer journey are integrated in the "Develop target processes" phase. This holistic approach is important to anchor the customer view consistently right down to the operational level and thus in the company's day-to-day operations. This creates transparency, consistency, and likewise a pronounced agility.

 Apply your customer journey

Having looked at the conceptual approach, now the following question comes up: How consistently is this approach already used in my company?

You are probably in one of these two situations:

No customer journey: Customer orientation is formally addressed in your company via guiding principles and/or organizationally in marketing/sales. In this case, the initial development of a customer journey with the main focus on the customer's point of view is urgently recommended. This can then be followed by further work in the sense of the second alternative.

Customer journey exists: However, this is only half-heartedly used as a basis for sustainable customer orientation and control in your company. The challenge here is to develop a procedure that ensures that the existing customer journey is taken into account. Only in this way you can realize the associated customer satisfaction.

If you are in the second situation and a customer journey already exists at your company, this 3-step approach might be a good idea:

1.     Status check: Check the extent to which the customer journey has already been implemented and applied in your company or where there is a need to catch up.

2.     Prioritization: To prioritize areas for action, your top management should describe a short- and medium-term target state. The activities required to achieve this target state are derived from this. Possible steps can be specifically identified at the individual checkpoints.

3.     Roadmap: The next step is to draw up a concrete plan of activities (roadmap) for a medium-term period (2-3 years). The roadmap can be used by your top management as a basis for ongoing success monitoring and should be updated regularly. As a result of changes in behavior along the decision-making cycle, there is a constant requirement for your company to align itself as quickly as possible with this updated customer view using all fields of action.

Implementing the customer journey in a process-oriented manner

With a suitable software solution, the project of process-oriented implementation can be successfully realized. This gives you the opportunity to document your customer journey with the support of tools, to anchor it in your business processes and to monitor its success.

Create a unique experience for your customers!

In order to make the customer experience a success factor for your company, a procedure consisting of three components has proven itself within the framework of process-oriented implementation: the documentation of the customer journey, the integration into an existing process landscape, and the monitoring of the customer journey.

Document the customer journey: To begin with, document the customer journey to visualize the individual customer steps and create a basis for later analyses. Map all interaction points between the customer and your company.

Integration into the existing process landscape: To fully link the customer perspective with the existing business processes, the documented "customer journey" should then be integrated directly into an existing process landscape. Based on this customer-centric view, the journey stages and the customer steps can be directly anchored in the operational day-to-day business.

Monitoring the customer journey: Once optimization potential has been identified and implemented with the help of the customer journey, the question arises of how to ensure that the change measures have actually had an effect. It therefore makes sense to integrate all KPIs relevant to the customer journey, which allows you to measure them in real time.

 You see, with the right software-tool, you can make your customer experience a key success factor for your company and make your customers more than happy.

So: Gain a competitive advantage by integrating the customer journey map into your process landscape and respond to your customers' needs faster than your competitors!

Would you like to learn more about this topic? Are you looking for a software that allows you to integrate the customer journey into your process landscape?

We have a solution for you!

The standard function of our process management tool BIC Process Design includes the "Customer Journey Map" as a separate diagram type with matching symbols and enables a quick and easy mapping of your customer journey.

With BIC Process Design, you can map your customer journey with tool support and benefit from the advantages of a holistic, process-oriented approach – you have everything in one system as well as within one process landscape.

Sounds great? You can find more information on BIC Process Design at gbtec.com.