Customer Experience Map Definition
The customer experience map is a simple diagram that helps break down a customer’s experience and what you want them to use, learn, and remember. This template is perfect for creating a sample experience or auditing an existing one.
The customer’s experience is a pivotal factor in their overall journey, and optimizing it is one of the best ways to improve their satisfaction. In order to enhance their experience, you need to map out what you want it to look like and compare that to what it currently looks like.
While completing a more holistic customer journey map is an essential part of this process, we will focus on analyzing the ideal customer experience here.
Customer Experience Map Template
The customer experience map is organized into three columns. These three columns are expanded upon below, and we add some prompting questions to help create action from your insights.
What do you want them to learn?
This column is focused on what the customer should learn from the process. Depending on your product, this could be informative, experiential, or something else. This will really depend on what you offer and what your customer needs.
What do you want the user to learn by using your product? Why is it important that they learn this? Think about specific stages in the journey and how you can map ideal learnings to each one.
What is available for them to use?
This section relates to the tactile elements of your customer’s journey. What are the specific tools or features they use throughout their journey?
This section can have a big impact on their experience and should be thought of in relation to the “learn” and “remember” sections. What people use is the vessel for how they learn or what they remember, so remember to think about this with nuance.
What do you want them to remember?
This column is focused on the key takeaways from the user’s experience. Do they remember it positively or negatively? How does this affect their willingness to return? Think about the things they will ideally remember about their experience, then you can think about how to optimize those opportunities.
How to create action
Brainstorming ideas for each of these columns is really helpful, especially when you think about specific stages of a customer journey in the process. Mapping this process not only clarifies your vision for the customer experience but should also help highlight where their current experience isn’t aligned with your vision.
After you finish adding notes to each column, start brainstorming ways that you can optimize the customer experience to hit all of the notes in your customer experience map. This allows you to create a lasting impact for your customers instead of leaving it on the table.
Benefits of Experience Mapping
Experience mapping is one part of a greater customer journey, but it can still be extremely beneficial to spotting problem areas. Here are some of the main benefits of using a customer experience map.
- Increased Empathy: Creating a customer experience map increases empathy between you and your customers. This is a good way to put yourself in their shoes and take an honest evaluation of where their needs are being met and where you’re falling short.
- Helps Target Customer Needs: The key to creating a positive customer experience is understanding their needs. Using a customer experience map helps plot your vision clearly, and in the shadow of this vision, you can see the ideal way to meet the customer’s needs.
- Integrates Collaboration: Without incorporating multiple perspectives into the process, you can easily miss an important factor of the customer’s experience. Using a customer experience map on Fresco allows you to integrate collaboration into the experience mapping process, improving accuracy and adding credibility to all of your findings.
- Helps Predict Behavior: When mapping out an ideal experience, you can envision the ideal patterns of behavior you expect the customer to follow. This provides a measurable baseline when auditing your customer experience and is a crucial factor in determining where to optimize your product.
Fresco Customer Experience Map Example
In this example, we walk through the proposed experience of a customer buying a Tesla online.
From the view of Tesla, they want the customer to learn some key things about their cars: Dependability, how they’re made, quality, and the specs of each model. These items are prioritized in the learning process and will be reflected in the information the customer is shown.
When it comes to using the site, Tesla wants to make it easy and clear what people are doing when they purchase a vehicle. Everything should have slightly futuristic implications of using it to align with the overall brand image. This includes options sliders, interactive videos, models, and a simple checkout flow.
After the “use” step, you begin thinking about things the user should remember about their experience. These will be overarching values that will be touched on throughout the process, including innovation, value, impact, and sustainable tech options. All of these values are part of the Tesla brand and make the experience memorable.
