Service design is of immense use to companies that are looking for ways to enhance their customer's experience while using their product or service so that these customers have no reason to look elsewhere for the same product or service.
There are many techniques used by service designers in order to make this happen and customer journey mapping is one of them. Simply put, it is a visual representation of the actual user experience of a particular company's service. Being user centered, customer journey mapping provides these companies with excellent information about what gaps exist in the service they are providing and this provides them with the opportunity to use other service design techniques to fill in the gaps.
Journey mapping is usually done over a period of time in order to get a clear understanding of what the customer encounters when he or she starts or attempts to use a particular company's service. It will plot all the different touch points that occur when a customer is offered a service. Every aspect of interaction, including gestures, is very important and should therefore be plotted accordingly in order to have the most accurate journey map as possible.
The best journey maps have lots of personal data and insights because this is the foundation of a successful interaction. It also makes it very easy for the analyst to get a better picture of what customers are really looking for and what they actually receive. There are many human beings involved, and therefore the map has to be humanized as much as possible. While successful interactions give lots of useful information, failed ones are also very important because they give plenty of insight into what should be corrected urgently because it is driving customers away.
Many companies do not even know what the correct touchpoints are when their customers come to interact with them. As a result, they put in a lot of effort in the wrong places while they neglect certain important areas. Many steps also involve a duplication of effort whereas there are many more that do not even add any value to the experience. Journey mapping is therefore an essential tool to help them find out what these touchpoints really are so that they can work upon them. It is also possible to use this as a starting point for redesigning services so that interactions can be greatly enhanced. This is also an excellent way around which training programs can be designed. Many companies also use this tool in order to plan their strategies more effectively.
Companies need to keep changing their services in order to keep pace with changing customer requirements. This can only be done effectively with the help of customer journey mapping and other principles of service design. They are usually very simple and easy to implement but the results they offer are very powerful indeed. There are many companies that offer service design consultancy because of the growing awareness of how important this field is in today's world.