3 methods to utilize CRM data to create customer journeys

Understanding the customer journey is critical to assisting individuals in achieving their objectives. As a result, many businesses create customer journey maps that depict their customers’ behaviors and decision-making processes.

Unfortunately, in today’s multichannel business world, developing a single map that reflects the whole customer experience may be difficult, if not impossible. For example, although some consumers are upfront and honest about their motives and intended results, others are not. Some consumers prefer face-to-face interactions, while others prefer nonverbal communication methods such as email, social media, or text messaging.

How can you possibly create a single document that reflects the customer experience when there are so many personalities, objectives, motives, and communication styles to consider? One method is to start small and gradually expand your customer journey map.

Here are three mapping exercises to assist you in using CRM data to create various kinds of client journeys for your company.

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1. Establish your ICPs and personalities.

Client journey planning is pointless unless you have a very detailed knowledge of your ideal customer. Before you begin path mapping, make sure you have a clear understanding of your perfect customer profiles (ICPs) and personas. Consider the following questions if you don’t have an ICP or personas:

• What industry would you sell to if you could only sell to one?
• What is your main focus within that industry?
• What are the firmographic features of your ideal client inside your ideal sector and niche? (For example, revenue amount, line of business, staff count, and so on.)
• Which of the businesses you’ve previously worked for were less than ideal? Why?
• Who are the individuals with whom your business interacts (job titles, responsibilities)?
• Which job titles are most likely to make purchasing choices for your goods or services?
• In the purchasing process, who are the gatekeepers and other stakeholders?
• Who will be the end-users or purchasers of what you offer?

When creating ICPs and personalities, there’s a lot to consider. It’s understandable if you don’t have all of the answers. Use your CRM data to create reports that can assist you in answering complex issues. Your sales staff may also provide you with first-hand information to help you double-check your assumptions. Gather all of the comments and start simplifying them in preparation for the next stage.

For example, a company that manufactures and sells assembly line equipment might potentially have many ICPs and personas. However, focusing on one sector at a time for customer mapping purposes may be beneficial—primarily if purchasing habits and customer service needs differ substantially by industry. Rather than attempting to fit all industries onto a single map, the manufacturing firm would be better served by creating separate maps for automotive, healthcare, and so on. The first stage would be to list the ICP and persona(s) for each business as follows:

2. Within each ICP, analyze CRM data for closed-won deals.

It’s time to utilize data from your CRM to discover patterns that are similar to each journey after you’ve identified your main ICP(s). Identity won sales that fit inside your target ICP by drilling down using tags or custom data. Make sure you choose a date range that includes enough data to be helpful.

• Do you see any resemblances? Some things to keep an eye out for are:
• In the path from awareness to closeness, similar exchanges occur.
• On your website, content that was often downloaded or watched
• Marketing emails that aided in closing deals
• Lead sources that accounted for a significant portion of completed transactions
• The personalities that were engaged in typical consumer purchasing procedures
• Objections were raised throughout the sales process.
• The average length of time it took to conclude each transaction.
• Details of the post-closing process and implementation

Note: Analyzing closed-lost transactions may be enlightening as well, but if you have enough closed-won data, you may not need to do so.

To get a more comprehensive picture of the client profile, use accurate deal data. Returning to our manufacturing scenario, the automotive ICP for the business could look like this:

3. Begin creating a client journey map.

You’re ready to start building a basic customer journey map now that you’ve supplemented your ICPs and personas with accurate data from your CRM. What is the most appropriate format for your company? Because there isn’t a one-size-fits-all template that works for every sector and use scenario, here are some pointers for creating a basic yet effective customer journey map:

Layout in a grid

The majority of customer journey maps use a graph-based style with horizontal and vertical axes. Above the grid, it’s critical to have a clear understanding of your ICP and character. This might be an excellent spot to put your fictional identities with names and pictures if you’ve created them. Keep in mind that each map should be tailored to a single persona/ICP combo. Start with the most powerful persona if you have multiple client journeys to map. You may always merge or remove specific maps later if they are incredibly similar.

Axis horizontal

From pre-awareness through a pleased client, the horizontal axis of your graph will most likely correspond with particular phases that consumers go through. Although it is preferable to explain the stages from your client’s viewpoint, you may use your internal sales pipeline language. You may use the term “research vendors” instead of “first talks.”

Axis vertical

Some customer journey maps attempt to cram as many criteria as possible onto the vertical axis. This may result in an overpowering experience, defeating the point of mapping in the first place. As a starting point for your y-axis, choose three to four essential criteria. Customer behaviors, emotions, and ideas, as well as frequent arguments, are all excellent examples. More may easily be added later.

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Improve customer journeys.

Innovative businesses recognize the significance of creating accurate and effective customer journey maps as the business world changes at an even quicker pace.

Are you unsure where to begin? Maintain a straightforward approach. Make use of information that currently exists in your CRM. Instead of stressing about design impacts, concentrate on the business impact. And, after you’ve created your client journey map, put it to good use!

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