Every company taps their audiences with certain marketing touch points, may it be the website, social media channels or in-store experience in case of the retailers. Every touch point provides an experience to end users. This experience can be either good or bad, but there is a need to understand this user experience and provide a better customer experience moving forward.
Talking about customer experience mapping in the context of websites particularly, it’s a tool through which you identify how your visitors behave on your website, the experience that the site provides to them and whether there is a need to overhaul the current user experience.
A good customer experience mapping plan will help revamping the following elements of your website easily, in case if needed:
Navigation
The website navigation can be a major turn off if not dealt with properly. You may have an amazing navigation setup or one that needs improvements, your experience map will help you know where you stand and what improvements you need to make. It might bring into light facts like - Certain links do not redirect to the right page, the scrolling is too lengthy or that users are not happy with the horizontal scrolling. Mapping what pages your visitors view and in what order can help you organize them better. Also identifying how they like surfing on their hand held devices will let you improve the mobile navigation.
Metrics
Experience mapping can reveal the reasons behind essential metrics like bounce rates, device open rates, most clicked elements, CTA placements, time spent on a particular page, etc. as it helps you getting into the users’ shoes. And doing so will assist towards improving specific elements and creating a higher uniformity in the website’s appeal. For an instance, if your survey findings mention that users like the jewels product category page more than the home page, identify ways to better the home page. Likewise, if users like reading your blogs for longer time, but quickly bounce when they surf other pages, may be you need more catchy information on those pages.
Cross channel experience
As multiple platforms are used to get in touch with a brand, one needs to study the users’ experience on various devices and on various platforms that ultimately lead them to the website. The role of experience mapping in this context is to answer questions like - Is it easy for people to reach your website through your social pages? Is the cross-device UX consistent? Is your brand’s personality expressed uniformly across touch points? Once you map the users’ experience for all these factors you can offer a cross channel experience that is in sync with your website.
Customer support and after sales support
As most of the major sites are providing a live chat support or after sales customer support, it’s now imperative for website owners to map whether customers and visitors are happy with such support or there is a need to overhaul such support on the website. You might have better forms for customer support, knowledgeable live chat support executives at their disposal or good ticketing system for an instance. If your customers already like your prompt support, delight them with additional information on new products and services, discount opportunities or getting social with the brand.
Payment, privacy, legal and refund policies
Policy compliance helps build trust and results into creation of positive user experiences. Experience mapping can help you determine whether your users feel that there is a gap between your policies and their compliance or not. It’ll also help you in identifying the reason behind this gap. You can bridge this gap to invoke higher trust in customers and provide them a better UX.
In-store experience
How about the in-store experience? Is it consistent with the online channels and website? Is your POS material prominent enough? Can people easily spot different products in your store? Is the payment process simple to follow just like your online store? Do you offer easy check-out options? Based on the insights the mapping provides, you can offer your customers a better in-store experience that is in sync with your online-store experience. This can hike your conversion rates and brand salience sizably.
This is a list of just the major points that a customer experience map will help revamping in your website, but there are many other factors, which need to be included for a complete website overhaul.
We would love to know your take on experience mapping and the elements you would consider while doing the exercise. Drop a line in our comment box, we’d be more than happy to know your insights.
Webby Monks
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