Customer Journey Mapping
As a customer journey map captures what a user does, thinks, and feels, and what they are interacting with overtime, our visual mapping process first focused on storytelling and visualizing the entire but very specific interaction our target persona experiences when using HIKEO. In our model, we decided to use our main target persona (Bailey) and created the customer backstory based on her specific goals, needs, and user archetype.
As we focused on using our main target persona and already had the narrative descriptions of the customer nailed down from our previous work, the process of brainstorming the subsequent stages the customer would encounter through their interaction in the visual journey was relatively straight-forward. From there, our team defined the following 5Es:
Entice — How is someone attracted or made aware?
Enter — How does the user begin?
Engage — What is the core of the experience?
Exit — How does a user complete or finish the experience?
Extend — What happens after the using HIKEO?
Once the stages were defined, our team then captured what our user would be doing, thinking, and feeling throughout their journey in using HIKEO. These data points were heavily discussed and debated on by our team as we were adamant that the determined touchpoints would be based on our field research and qualitative research results. These touchpoints were then arranged on a XY-axis in which the x-axis depicts the time progression of Bailey’s journey while the y-axis depicts the valency of each stage of the experience.
This component of the mapping process was crucial as it helped our team log each basic interaction the customer had with HIKEO, and in turn Bailey’s thoughts, motivations, questions, and emotions through her journey using HIKEO. By narrating out the steps our main target persona would take through each phase of their interactions, we were able to uncover the true essence of her journey. The emotions and thoughts the user had were plotted along the same time progression as the touchpoints—along a single line across the entire journey phases, literally signaling the emotional “ups” and “downs” of the experience. By documenting the customers’ thoughts and actions using this method, we were able to understand our target customer base better, specifically their expectations, and in turn, tailor the HIKEO experience to their specific needs more.
We furthered the mapping process to include a portion of a service blueprint (as we only created a hybrid model in our earlier process). We added in the additional layers of frontstage actors, backstage actors, and business partners to the customer journey map because it would help extend our understanding of what support systems, processes, and employee actions would be needed to create the customer experience as we intended. By going a few steps further in the customer journey mapping process, we were able to uncover and identify how the inner processes of the HIKEO experience would function and be produced; it was a very enlightening process.