The New Rule: Don’t map all your customers in one journey!

You know what I mean, and yet it seems difficult for brands to truly understand and achieve the meaningful level of proficiency.  You know how it works, and yet how to go about it puts many brands out of league.

Now, every customer journey is unique. Jack may prefer to order his shirt from his smart phone via e-commerce while Jill loves to have a phenomenal in- store experience. While Jack enjoys the location-based services that notify him of his favorite food outlet having a discount right now, Jill has a palate for different tastes but would love to receive real-time notifications from the best shoe stores. Albeit, a factor that intercepts all journeys is knowing your customer well enough to engage them successfully.

Where every customer has a distinctive journey – an experience that is exceptional and awesome at the same time can be arranged because each and every touch point comes as an opportunity to nurture the customer relationship. It doesn’t really matter how fragmented the journey appears because the correct combination of marketing solutions, data management and analytics can help to harmonize and orchestrate with that journey.
It’s a whole new world now. You’ve heard of the Big Bang Theory – well not that one – I’m here talking about the explosion of channels and real-time communications that took place. But not many organizations dare to introduce the new practices required to create the unique and positive customer experience.
Digital disruption is what triggered the New Big Bang and it has opened channels for consumers to explore, experiment with, play around and talk about them too. So, with the new wealth of online and offline channels, businesses face a new challenge everyday keeping pace with the increasingly multifarious customer journey.
What big steps can and should the organizations be taking? Well, top of the list is integration – integrating the systems and achieving a unified and single view of the customer is key because the customers live in the NOW. And this is how the customer can be engaged at the right time, at the right place.
Secondly, by conducting analytics, data management, reporting and insights it’s possible to  monitor the channels that are performing and thus help to achieve a clear competitive advantage on top of a bigger and better ROI.
You’re wondering how the bigger and better ROI right? Well, the fact of the matter is that the multichannel customers spend three to four times more than single-channel customers do. For that you need to be always there where your customers are. And trust me, they’re everywhere!

Organizations need to turn to technology with more alacrity than ever to overcome the (tending towards critical) challenges! There needs to be system that allows seamless collaboration and integration –

• The massive data volumes need to be analyzed, and that too at unprecedented speeds. Remember, the time is now!
• Campaign managers should design campaigns, with innate data explorations and provide personalized customer experiences and consistency across all channels
• CMOs should be making vital business decisions to deliver the exceptional experiences on all channels – websites, retail stores, mail order catalogs, direct mail, email, mobile, etc. The ball may be in the consumer’s court, but let’s make it convenient for them to hit it back to us!

The three simple ways to set the court right are as follows:

1. Create and maintain a single view of the customer across all channels.

Having a single view of the customer doesn’t mean having a lot of customer data. It’s not just the data itself that is important; it’s what you do with it. And the customer view needs to evolve. Customers change. Businesses change. So why shouldn’t your customer view change with that? That means bringing in new data, refreshing old data, building new models, updating old ones, etc.
2. Establish a multichannel marketing platform.

This can be done by employing advanced analytics, campaign management and digital marketing.
 
3. Create consistent customer experiences across all channels.

What value is there in a positive online experience if a customer’s in-store experience is negative? If you treat each channel as a distinct entity, you run the risk of turning customers against you if you fail to deliver consistency.
The reality is that digital disruption is here to stay – and it’s only through integrated touch points that intimate customer relationships can be developed. It’s vital to optimize the multi-channel campaigns and customer interactions individually to truly understand and better the customer experience. This is the New Big Bang, and it has created new worlds of experiences for the consumer, and new chapters for organizations to master.
Would you like us to help implement some of these OR just knock off your ideas and seek 2nd opinion on your cross-channel customer journey mapping initiatives? Reach out by filling the form below:

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