Customer experience (CX) is growing in importance and companies have realized the need to prioritize client care. More than two thirds of marketers who are responsible for CX say their companies compete mostly on the basis of CX (Gartner Customer Experience in Marketing Survey). That means getting that client in the first place is of vital importance.

The Importance of a Customer Journey Map

Creating a customer journey map allows businesses to strategically plan, organize, and execute a successful customer experience. Wealth management firms can create a plan for each aspect of their business whether that means connecting a new client to an advisor or creating an appointment for an existing client. By mapping out the client touch points, businesses can see the flow of interactions for each different persona or client type, which provides great insight on how to keep your clients happy and earn more work from them. As we also explain in our infographic, journey maps are part of an overall successful and engaging client experience. 

How to Map Out the Customer Journey

Determine who you are mapping for

The customer journey map that you are creating should be made for a specific type of client or a specific persona. Knowing who you are creating a map for will make it easier to determine what the overall goal of working with this client is and where the map should lead to. During the process of determining who your clients are and working to understand them – keep in mind that you will be mapping for more than one type of client.

Clients will interact differently with your business depending on which stage they are in with an advisor or firm. It’s important to involve key people from each team to create buyer personas so that all aspects of client relationships are covered and well represented.

Understand your client’s goals

Once you know what your personas are, it’s time to understand what your clients want to get out of working with a wealth management firm or a financial advisor. Some ways to get to know your client’s goals is to track what they come to your website for, their search history, ask them to complete a survey, or review their past communications with the firm.

Understanding your client’s goals will make avoiding pain points easier as the client will not want to have their time wasted – they will want to get straight to the point of what they came to your firm for. The overall end goal of the customer journey should essentially meet your client’s goals while doing good for your firm and advisors as well.

Use a tool to map out customer touchpoints

Knowing how and when to communicate with your clients builds the client relationship and makes them feel satisfied with your business. Some client touch points may be more important than others, for example, the first time an advisor meets with a client in person may be more significant than an email down the line. Although, it is important to figure out what works best for your clients and make notes for each persona.

There are a lot of online tools that can be used for optimizing CX, but in specific, a tool for mapping out client touch points is the most useful for seeing an overview of the entire customer journey. One tool we like to use is Smaply because it has a great feature that allows you to begin by building personas of your clients and then map out a custom customer journey. In your map you will want to show the importance of the touchpoint, the medium you expect to use, and any other details that will help your business to keep the client happy. We have a video you can see here on how to use Smaply to create a customer journey map.

Identify roadblocks and inefficiencies

As you continue to reference your journey map, client roadblocks will become easier to identify. A roadblock is any point in the customer journey that inconveniences your client, slows down a process, makes repeated work for your advisors and clients, or something that seems to be detering clients from continuing to work with your firm. This is just part of the process when your business is trying to optimize their CX for all client personas – it will take time to work out all roadblocks and client pain points.

As you find these roadblocks it is a good opportunity to survey your clients to further engage them and get their feedback about where your firm could improve. Acknowledging the firm’s roadblocks as areas of improvement will be very helpful to optimize the overall CX.

Continually revise and make improvements

Like any business process, there is always a way to refine and innovate the steps. The same thing applies for a customer journey map – things will change overtime, including the personas or who you’re creating the map for. This is something to keep in mind, especially if you notice a change in your client’s satisfaction.

These changes can include implementing new technology, including your clients on more internal communication, or how often you contact your clients in general. Keeping up on current trends like collaboration software is a good place to start for continual improvements. Another thing to keep in mind is that your team should always be up to date on the latest version of the businesses customer journey map – this will help your firm and advisors to avoid mistakes and to keep your clients satisfied.

If you have any questions or comments, reach out to us at hello@xtiva.com. Stay tuned for our video, coming soon, on creating customer journeys online.