Customer journey mapping is a powerful customer experience (CX) tool. In addition to being a simple way to upgrade experience across an organization, journey maps can spark new and innovative ways for a company to deliver upon its brand promises.
However, brands often use customer journey mapping to gauge current customers’ experiences and stop there. That isn’t always enough. For instance, brand leaders may want to create new experiences, anticipate future challenges, stay ahead of advancing technology, or realign experiences to meet the long-term goals of the business. These are just a few instances where future state journey maps are essential.
This article explains how future state journey maps work, why they’re so important for businesses, and how to start using them to enhance customer experiences.
Future state customer journey mapping is a strategic tool that helps business leaders design new customer experiences, identify high-ROI opportunities, and align experiences with the organization’s goals.
Future state journey mapping is different from current state journey mapping. Current state maps identify friction points plaguing existing customers and propose solutions. No doubt there is value in this, but if a company is looking to be more innovative or use journey mapping to create new experiences, then starting with the future state is a must.
Future state maps ask, “How can businesses wow customers with a brand new experience rather than simply sprucing up an existing one that fell short?” That means throwing out all preconceptions and letting opportunities reveal themselves.
With technology advancing and customer experiences changing quickly, future state journey mapping is more important than ever. There are several benefits to designing and implementing future state journey maps:
Besides enabling a market-differentiating CX, journey mapping can set a foundation for future strategic decisions. It provides the insights that enable brands to innovate organization-wide instead of operating in a constant state of triage.
It may feel overwhelming to launch a future state journey mapping initiative from scratch, but there are a few simple steps business leaders can follow to get started. Here’s how to kick off future state mapping:
Start by determining what the business wants to accomplish over the long-term. It’s also important to conduct customer persona work in order to identify who customers are and determine which customer segments the business wants to target.
Gather input from everyone who could contribute to a successful future-state vision. Draw in feedback from stakeholders, team members, external partners, and customers.
If the team can adopt the right mindset, Andrew Reise finds that most clients benefit from starting with the future state first. This involves a collaborative effort with employees across many departments, customers, and outside industry experts. Be sure to incorporate customer research and personas, as well as ensure everyone understands the corporate strategy and brand promises.
Collect any CX data the business has on-hand and conduct additional research about the current customer’s experience. Use technology, such as speech analytics, surveys, and interviews to formulate as complete a picture of the customer’s experience as possible.
We also advise to not only focus on the interactions a customer will have with the brand but to also examine the entire customer ecosystem to understand what may influence them. To get started, ask:
This approach helps business leaders understand how the company fits into a customer’s life and how companies can surpass expectations.
Identify which interactions and moments are influencing customer experiences in a disproportionately strong way. Then list out the most promising ideas for improving the customer’s experience. Use this information to assign value to each potential solution and prioritize strategies.
In this stage, CX leaders give the best solutions a clear form and plot out the journeys customers will take following implementation. That includes analyzing the technology, resources, and input that each potential strategy demands—as well as their ROI. It’s also important to identify where the business will need to secure buy-in and what it will take to get stakeholders onboard.
In order for future state customer journey maps to lead businesses to their goals, CX leaders need to create and implement a plan to execute the vision. That means establishing ways to prove ROI, building a business case, and assigning teams to see the future state strategy through to completion.
Future state customer journey maps can unveil new opportunities to deliver outstanding customer experiences, and following journey map best practices can get businesses started on that path. But when it comes to perfecting customer journey maps, this article just scratched the surface. Read The Ultimate Guide to Customer Journey Mapping to learn how to master journey maps and use them to elevate customer experiences.