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Customer & Buyer journey and touchpoints

Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in line with Customer experience (Cx) for engaged employees and customers.

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The economy evolves through the service economy to the experience economy. Nowadays, the customer – both B2C and B2B – expects a combination of a product or service with brand-related experience. In many sectors good products and services are no longer distinctive, you have the opportunity to purchase them wherever you like. The customer experience is increasingly becoming the distinguishing element regarding decision-making.

 

 

Reading guide:

  • Customer & buyer journey and touchpoints.
  • External orientation
  • Approach:
  1. Journey mapping
  2. Journey ervaring
  3. Integration of the customer touchpoints into the CRM-systems
  4. Journey management
  • More information

Customer & buyer journey and touchpoints.

Cx journey

Creating a positive customer experience starts with optimizing the customer or buyer journey and its touchpoints. With the result of a customer experiencing the same experience, regardless of the chosen channel. In addition, the optimization makes an important contribution to efficient business operations.

Customer or buyer journey?

In the customer market, only one person is involved in a journey: the consumer in question with his or her customer journey. In the business market, there are often several people involved in a journey, with – from different perspectives – the various buyer journeys of these people.

Quick wins

Quick wins can be achieved with the touchpoints by effectively integrating them into the CRM systems and/or other (customer information) systems.

External orientation?

A customer journey approach requires an ‘’outside to inside’’ orientation. How a customer experiences his or her journey through all the physical and digital customer interactions of the brand: the touchpoints. There is a specific customer journey for each process. For example, you could think of the orientation, the actual purchase, and service questions.

Approach, optimization of customer journey and touchpoints.

The optimization of the customer journey and its touchpoints is an important part of effective (experience) and efficient (business processes) customer centricity. Depending on size and complexity of a company, optimizing a journey and its touchpoints is a complex process. In many cases, this journey takes place through the various disciplines (silos) of a company, such as marketing, sales, and services. Organizational units with often conflicting interests.

Edwinbest.nl offers solutions for:

1) Journey-mapping

Journey mapping provides an overview of the possible touchpoints and the progress of the various – both temporary (marketing campaign) and permanent – customer processes.
The touchpoints are discussed in a pragmatic manner through a number of interactive workshops. There will be discussed in which part of which journey they play a role and how the whole can be optimized.

Results: clear insight into the journey of the customer for the various customer processes and the related touchpoints. What are the possible optimizations and how can they be realized?

2) Journey-experience

With journey mapping, the journey of a customer is considered from an internal perspective. Journey experience provides insight of how individual processes run, how touchpoints are experience, and what influence they have on the ultimate customer satisfaction and retention rate.
This part is a combination of internal analysis (journey mapping) and external analysis (journey experience). For the external analysis, (potential) customers and other relevant stakeholders (e.g., employees) will be interviewed. In addition, various customer satisfaction surveys will be initiated.

Results: clear insight into the journey of the customer for the various customer processes and the related touchpoints, and how these are experienced by (potential) customers. What are possible optimizations and how to achieve them.

3) Integration of the customer touchpoints into the CRM-system

The optimization of touchpoints is an important facet in improving the customer experience. EdwinBest.nl ensures that the touchpoints will be aptly integrated into the customer information system: the existing or the to be introduced new CRM solution.
What could you think of? Integrating the following into the CRM solution:

  • The web forms of a landing page;
  • The info mail address;
  • Questions via WA;
  • The handling of service requests through the various physical and digital channels.

Results: a 360 degree customer view by integrating all touchpoints into the CRM solution. With every touchpoint there is a (follow-up) process in CRM. This allows a (much) faster and more effective response to customer questions at lower costs.
optimalisatie van touchpoints is een belangrijk facet in het verbeteren van de klantbeleving. EdwinBest.nl zorgt ervoor dat de touchpoints treffend geïntegreerd worden in het klanten informatiesysteem: de bestaande of een nieuw in te voeren CRM-oplossing.

4) Journey management

Getting started with Journey management. Not an – one-off-  journey mapping initiative, but a process of continuous Journey mapping improvement. Central to the approach is the CX strategy, per improvement initiative Cemanatica offers a clear ROI consideration.

For Journey management purposes Edwinbest.nl offers Cemantica, with Cemantica manage out the entire journey management process:

CX management

 

 

Edwinbest.org is worldwide Cemantica distribution partner, looking for more information?

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About EdwinBest.org

I guide entrepreneurs and institutions with the transformation to successful customer-centric business. I manage this by aligning CRM with Customer experience (Cx) for engaged employees and customers. The effect of this? A flexible organization where the employee and customer are central to all facets of the business. Depending on context and issue, the several pathways vary from total projects (from strategy to implementation) to subprojects (masterclass, selection of a CRM solution).

 

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