Category: research

Customer Journey Mapping (CJM)

CJM a Helpful Analytical Tool for CLV

Customer journey mapping is a common analytical approach to understand the steps, processes, interactions, and brand touchpoints for the progression of a non-customer to a loyal advocate.

These are the same steps that a brand needs to progress through in order to maximize customer lifetime value: from new customer acquisition to highly loyal supportive customer (and, of course, all the steps in between).

Example CJM

Here is an example customer journey map…

example cjm

As you can see, for each brand persona (personified representative customer of a target market), there are four each phases of customer development”

  • Awareness phase = before the consumer has a desire/interest in buying the product
  • Search phase = when the consumer is seeking to buy the product and is seeking and reviewing information
  • Purchase and consumption phase = the process of the consumer finally buying (after evaluation) and then consuming the product
  • And post-purchase = what happens to the consumer – in terms of customer satisfaction, attitude, and brand loyalty after their purchase

For more information – please refer to this external article on the top-level phases of the customer journey.

CJM Free Excel Template

Designing a customer journey map – like the one above – is now super easy thanks to this free Excel template, available for download… customer-journey-map-maker

This is an easy-to-follow, drop-down menu template that can build a CJM within minutes – like the one shown above.

Here is an image of the starting “blank” CJM and underneath is a video of how to use the free customer journey map Excel template.

free CJM template

Further Academic Reading

Understanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey

What makes for CRM system success — or failure?

Return on marketing investment: A Case Study of the Domestic Airline Industry in India (research paper)

Return on marketing investment: A Case Study of the Domestic Airline Industry in India (research paper)

This is an excellent research paper, ideal for anyone seeking a more detailed understanding of customer equity and customer lifetime value. The paper also provides good insight into the airline industry in India, as one of the co-authors is employed in the industry.

The paper constructs a framework for the integration of marketing strategy with customer lifetime value and customer equity within the airline industry. It has a significant return on marketing investment focus.

For a better understanding of the case study, here two paragraphs from the abstract of the research paper.

The authors present a practical model that can be of help to airline managers to trade off competing marketing initiatives and make them accountable. The model enables airlines to calculate ROI for any prospective marketing investment and to evaluate the realized ROI. The framework is based on the effect of marketing initiatives on firm’s customer equity, which is the sum of lifetime values of airline’s current and future customers. Each customer’s lifetime value results from the frequency of flying, average price of ticket, and brand switching pattern, combined with the firm’s contribution margin.

The drivers of customer equity include value (quality, price, convenience), brand (brand image, brand awareness) and relationship (loyalty program, CRM, knowledge of passenger). Airlines may analyze drivers that have the greatest impact, compare performance on those drivers with that of competitors, and project ROI from improvements in those drivers. The framework enables “what-if” evaluation of marketing ROI, which can include such criteria as return on service quality, return on advertising, return on loyalty programs, and even return on corporate citizenship, given a particular shift in customer perceptions. This enables the firm to focus marketing efforts on strategic improvements generating the greatest return.

Return on marketing investment: A Case Study of the Domestic Airline Industry in India by Dr. S C Bansal (Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management), Dr. Mohammed Naved Khan (Senior Lecturer Department of Business Administration Faculty of Management Studies & Research Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh) and Dr Vippan Raj Dutt (Manager, System/Maintenance, IT Department at Indian Airlines Limited.

You can download the paper here MROI_Paper_-_Domestic_Airline_Industry_in_India

And you can also download their supporting PowerPoint presentation here IIMA-ROMI_Presentation, which was presented at the “Return on Marketing Investments” conference jointly conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Zyman Institute of Brand Science at Goizueta Business School, Emory University.