How to create a retail customer journey map

Here are the six basic steps to follow in order to create an accurate retail customer journey map for your business.

Know Customers Inside Out

If you want to know what customers think about your brand, all that you need to do is ask them. How would you do this? Customer surveys, it is. You can find out the answers to many crucial questions like why customers prefer your product, what are the things they like & dislike about your brand, what new features would they like to see in your products, by employing customer surveys.

Step 1: Fix a goal

Define the overall goal of your retail customer journey mapping project. This will help you determine which customer actions you need to track and analyze.

Moreover, depending on the size and scope of your retail operation, the goals may range from increasing online sales to improving in-store experiences.

Step 2: Select your tracking tools

Next, we gather the data associated with each retail customer journey stage. This data can be collected through a variety of sources such as website analytics, surveys, or interviews.

In order to gain an accurate picture of the retail customer journey, it’s important to collect data from all stages.

Step 4: Plot the touchpoints

The third step is to identify the touchpoints in the retail customer journey. If you want to create a truly omnichannel retail experience, you have to enable the customer to smoothly transition between multiple touchpoints.

To map out your touchpoints, you can break down your stages further into specific customer actions. These can be actions such as browsing online reviews, clicking on an ad, visiting a store location, creating an account or reaching out to customer service.

Step 5: Flesh out the map

The fifth step is to analyze the available data and expand on your retail journey map. This involves looking for patterns and trends as well as identifying any potential areas of improvement.

Once it’s plotted out, the retail customer journey map can then be used to inform decisions on how to optimize the retail customer experience.

Step 6: Update the map

Finally, it’s important to regularly review and update the retail customer journey map as new data is collected over time.

This will help ensure that your retail business remains up-to-date on consumer behaviors and preferences, allowing for better optimization of the user experience.

Retail customer journey map example: Amazon

We all know Amazon as the world’s largest internet retailer.

But, as this map of Amazon shows, it is also jungle-like in the scale of its ecosystem, with subsidiaries and verticals that include:

• AI
• Groceries
• Books
• Live streaming
• Healthcare
• Digital content services, and more. Phew!

To keep things simple, here’s a basic, imaginary example of what a retail customer journey map would look like for Amazon’s online shopping app.

Now, let’s break down the touchpoints aka customer actions by the three basic stages.

For the above stage, we can use a combination of sign-up forms, site/app analytics, CSAT and CES surveys to collect data.

In the above phase, it’s crucial to use analytics to monitor abandonment. Additionally, timely reminders, hassle-free checkout forms, flexible delivery options and a guest checkout option can help craft a smoother shopping experience.

In this phase, we can use the following tools to get data on the touchpoints above:

• NPS® surveys
• Rating scale surveys
• Multiple-choice forms
• Qualitative feedback in the form of reviews, etc.