This document discusses journey mapping conducted by Northern Tool + Equipment to better understand their customers' experiences. It defines journey mapping and describes Northern Tool's mapping process. The mapping revealed opportunities like improving cross-channel customer experiences and consolidating customer data. It emphasizes using journey maps to align customer experience strategies across channels and provide frontline employees with better customer support tools.

1. Tooling Around a Journey Map
A Case Study of Northern Tool + Equipment
Jen Eckert
Senior Consulting Partner
Director, Customer Experience Consulting

2. Synopsis Journey Mapping Defined
Why Should You Consider Journey Mapping?
The Journey Mapping Toolbox
Outcomes from Journey Mapping
The Importance of Voice of the Customer
Lessons Learned
Call to Action
A solid understanding of your
customer and their journey with your
organization must be the foundation
of your Customer Experience strategy.
So, do you REALLY know your
customer? In this session, we will
share the tools you need to
successfully map your customer
journeys, and explore how this
valuable information can be used to
identify and address pain points for
your customers and employees;
leading to delighted customers, more
engaged employees, and improved
bottom line.

3. What is a Customer Journey?
The customer journey is the
complete sum of experiences
that customers go through
when interacting with your
company and brand.

4. What is a Customer Journey?
the act or process of directly
perceiving events or reality.
ex·pe·ri·ence
ik-’spir-ē-ən(t)s/
interact
/,intər’akt/
brand
/brand
to act together; to come together
and have an effect on each other.
name, term, design, symbol, or any
other feature that identifies one
seller's product as distinct from
those of its competitors.

5. Customer Journey Mapping
Discover Evaluate Buy Access Use Maintain
• Identifying the experiences your customer will have
with your company and brand through the phases of
the customer lifecycle.
 What touch points will the customer have?
 What channels will they use?
 How well does that touch point work (from the customer
and colleague perspectives)?

6. Journey Mapping Case Study: Northern Tool + Equipment

7. Frequent
Direct Mail
Campaigns
90 Brick and Mortar Locations
Online Retailer

8. Contact Center Ecosystem
Cross Channel Contact Strategy
Challenge Result
Limited to no integration between
channels
Social E-Commerce Video Next
 Customer Service Rep must ask for information already provided by the
customer.
 Unable to pin point areas within the applications that should be
enhanced to improve containment rates.
 Additional call volume to contact center and longer handle times.
Disparate data sources  Significant manual effort to compile consolidated reporting.
 Inability to analyze interaction trends – contact reasons,
containment/failure rates, cross-channel volume.
Disparate Point of Sale (POS) systems  Limited visibility into sales across channels.
End of life ERP  Limited visibility into stock availability.
. . .
Retail
Store
Live
Call
Fax
Contact Center Channels

9. Meet Jim
(and his family…)

10. Meet Jim
Successful Small Business Owner and Master of Many Trades

11. Meet Jim
Successful Small Business Owner and Master of Many Trades

12. It’s 1986…
Jim needs to purchase a
new air compressor for his
new boat dealership.
What He Wants
• A Good Brand
• A Fair Price
• To Purchase from
Someone He Trusts
• To Know that the Seller
Will Stand Behind the
Product

13. So, how did Jim research his options?

14. When it came time to purchase…
He could have placed the order via the telephone, or mailed
in the order from the catalog, but…
Would you have purchased a $3,000 piece of equipment
site-unseen?

15. And, if he was happy (or upset) about his purchase?

16. What He Wants
• A Good Brand
• A Fair Price
• To Purchase from
Someone He Trusts
• To Know that the Seller
Will Stand Behind the
Product
It’s 2014…
Jim needs to purchase a
new air compressor to
replace his old one.

17. So, how does Jim research his options?

18. When it comes time to purchase…
He could drive 200+ miles to the nearest store, but…
He is much more likely to place an online order

19. And, if he is happy (or upset) about his purchase?

20. The Lesson in This
Jim’s Purchasing Journey Evolved Over the Years
What He Wanted
A Good Brand
A Fair Price
To Purchase from Someone He Trusts
To Know that the Seller Will Stand
Behind the Product
What Changed
Methods for Researching Products
Options for Purchasing
Technology
Comfort Level of Buying “Sight
Unseen”
Ability to Influence Other’s Future
Purchase Decisions

21. Contact Center Ecosystem
Cross Channel Contact Strategy
Challenge Result
Limited to no integration between
channels
Social E-Commerce Video Next
 Customer Service Rep must ask for information already provided by the
customer.
 Unable to pin point areas within the applications that should be
enhanced to improve containment rates.
 Additional call volume to contact center and longer handle times.
Disparate data sources  Significant manual effort to compile consolidated reporting.
 Inability to analyze interaction trends – contact reasons,
containment/failure rates, cross-channel volume.
Disparate Point of Sale (POS) systems  Limited visibility into sales across channels.
End of life ERP  Limited visibility into stock availability.
. . .
Retail
Store
Live
Call
Fax
Contact Center Channels

22. Journey Mapping
Tools
+ +
Participant Expectations:
• Be willing (and able) to put yourself in the mindset
of the customer.
• Be open to learning about aspects of the customer
journey that don’t necessarily pertain to your role
in the organization.
• Recognize that the end goal is to create a more
seamless customer experience.
• Accept that journey mapping will require
significant effort (and time).

23. Journey Mapping
Tools
Customer Persona
The characteristics of your target customer, including
the tasks (s)he is trying to accomplish in his/her
journey, the channels/media (s)he may use, and
his/her expectations from your company.
BEFORE you start, be sure you
have a thorough understanding of
the customer you are examining
Characteristic Comments
Social Savvy Late adopter to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but frequently
visits online communities and forums specific to their trade or personal
interests.
Tech Savvy Highly mechanically-inclined, but a late adopter to the use of technology. This
persona likely has a PC/laptop, and a smart phone, but may not use all the
smart phone features. This persona may also have a tablet device, but most
likely uses it mainly for internet browsing.
Optimism Will spend significant time researching product options/pricing online, but
when needs assistance beyond general order placement, will likely fall back
to placing a telephone call to a Contact Center, versus investing more than a
few minutes using other available self-help options.
Tasks
•Research Product(s)/Options (NT+E will not be the only place they
have looked)
•Price Comparisons (89% of customers will compare prices)
•Order/Purchase Product
•Locate Product Information (Post-Sale)
•Product Support (Post-Sale)
Channel
•Web-Site
•Catalog / Contact Center
Media
•Telephone Call
•Email
•Fax
•Web Chat
Expectations
•Price and Value are Critical
•NT+E Will Stand Behind the Products
•Want to be Known
•Ease to Purchase
•NT+E Accountability
•Product Knowledge and Support
•Easy returns
•Quick Delivery Time
•Discounted or Free Shipping
•NT+E “Has Their Back”
•Account Management
in your journey!

24. Journey Mapping
Process

25. Journey Mapping

26. Journey Mapping
Breaking it Down
Touch Point
An interaction that the customer may
have with the company or brand.
Rating
How well (or not well) is that interaction
working? Is it easy for the customer (and
employee) to do business with you?

27. Journey Mapping
Breaking it Down
Channels
What options does the customer have in
interacting with your company during each
touch point?

28. Journey Mapping
Internal and External Factors Will Drive the Journey

29. Journey Mapping
Internal and External Factors Will Drive the Journey
At the beginning of
the Customer
Journey, NT+E was
very much in control
of the journey.
As the journey
progressed, external
factors (namely
customer
perceptions)
became increasingly
important.
Customer
experience is critical
to creating and
maintaining brand
loyalty and
advocacy!

30. The Importance of Voice of the Customer
Targeted telephone
interviews
Surveys
Posting the Journey
Map for employees
to review/provide
feedback
Validating your Journey Map before taking action

31. Journey Mapping
Strengths
• Easy to research products and place orders
• Concise and accurate product
documentation
• Quality products
• Brand that invokes pride of ownership
• Stand behind the products sold
• Effective at driving traffic to e-commerce
site
• Multiple marketing strategies to encourage
customer loyalty
Opportunities
• Varied CX depending on channel
• Limited ability to share key information
across channels
• Difficult to enact customer service and
loyalty programs
• Time consuming for CSRs to locate
important customer/product information
• Inability to personalize the customer
experience
• Challenges in product fulfillment
What did this Journey Map Reveal?

32. Journey Mapping
Critical to Forming Your Customer Experience Strategic Roadmap
• Aligning Customer Experience across all channels
• Providing consolidated customer information and purchase history to all front line employees
• Aligning Contact Center rep performance measurements/pay structure to the Customer
Experience strategy
• Providing reps with better tools to support the basic CX philosophies of “Know Me”, “Help Me”
and “Value Me”
CX
Focused
KPIs
Omni-
Channel
Contact
Center
Virtual
Contact
Center
Consistent
Cross
Channel
Experience
Cross
Channel
Integration
Consistent
Agent
Message
Proactive
Customer
Service
Voice of
the
Customer

33. Lessons Learned
Tips for Making your Journey Mapping Exercise a Success
Be sure to include cross-functional team members
Don’t rush the process
Revisit the journey and the touch point rankings
Validate your findings with your customers
Recognize that the customer journey will evolve and change (just like Jim’s purchasing
journey)

34. Lessons Learned
Tips for Making your Journey Mapping Exercise a Success

35. Call to Action
Prepare
Identify your Target
Persona
Assemble a cross-functional
team
Set expectations
about participation
and the process
Create
Start by Defining
the Persona
Brainstorm about
the touch points
Document the
channels
Rate the touch
points
Review
Identify the journey
drivers and
moments of truth
Re-visit the Journey
Map within the
cross-functional
team
Solicit feedback
internally and from
your customers
Getting Started

36. Questions?
“…many companies and interactive agencies have
gotten so caught up in the persona and journey
map hype that they skip the research phase and go
straight to crafting these documents based on what
they think they know about customers… Your end
goal is deep customer insights, which just happen to
be encapsulated in these particular formats.”
Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine
Forrester Research
“Outside In”