Customer Journey Mapping: Building the Right Team

Once you’ve decided to invest the time and resources into creating a customer journey map, you’ll likely have a ton of questions: How do we start a customer journey mapping initiative? What research does journey mapping require? How do we gather the data? They’re all great questions, and ones that should definitely be addressed, but don’t be tempted to get too far ahead of yourself. First thing’s first–you need to gather the right team to make your customer journey dreams a reality. So, let’s dive into the importance of getting the right team involved in a customer journey mapping initiative, and what that team might look like.

The Team Matters
Including the right stakeholders in a customer journey mapping process sets the tone for the rest of the initiative. So, gathering a cross-disciplinary team of core members should be the first–and, most important–step in the process. Although it may seem counterproductive, this may mean you need to involve a large number of people in the process. But, it is essential because there is rarely ever one single person within a company that knows everything about the current customer journey in detail.

Involving the right stakeholders also helps to develop buy-in early on in the process. Because there is a good chance the end result of your journey mapping exercise will result in a number of changes, getting key stakeholders on board early in the process can ease any transitions later.

Here’s Who To Invite to the Party
Now that we’ve discussed why gathering the right team is so important, what are the key roles to consider while developing a customer journey mapping initiative? Below is list of the types of roles that you should involve in the process:

• Executive Sponsor: It’s critical to have a member of the leadership team supporting this cross-functional initiative because it will impact every aspect of the business.
• Marketing and Communications: Your marketing team is a crucial part of any customer journey mapping initiative. Their perspective is vital because they typically own a large number of the touchpoints between your brand and customers. They also have access to a number of different analytics about customer behavior.
• Customer Support: Your customer support team hears from customers every single day and has a pulse on how customers feel about your brand.
• Sales: The members of your sales team have an important perspective about what drives prospects to purchase and can share a great amount of insight into how prospects perceive your brand.
• Product: It’s key to have a representative from your product team participate in the customer journey mapping process since they have in-depth knowledge about your product offering. They also know the current product roadmap, which will prove to be helpful as you work to map out improvements.
• Finance: By having a member of your finance team involved, you’ll have access to financial information, hear their insights and feedback on the customer journey, and have someone that can help with any financial models that need to be created.
• HR: Your HR team knows a great deal about your employees, which can come in handy as you start to map out any new initiatives.

With customers’ expectations and behaviors constantly changing, it’s more important than ever for brands to undertake customer journey mapping initiatives. One of the most important first steps is gathering the right team. Involving key stakeholders from the start makes sure all of the time, effort, and resources invested in customer journey mapping pays off to improve the overall customer experience.

To dive deeper into customer journey mapping, check out our guide: A Roadmap to the Ideal Customer Journey