The key to success for any home services business is the ability to appeal to and retain your customers. To do this, you have to understand your audience — you must learn about how they interact with your brand and why they engage with your business the way that they do. This will inform how you can most effectively target them through your marketing and sales strategies.
One way to learn more about your customers on a deep level is through the process of customer journey mapping. In this blog post, we’ll review what a customer journey map is, why customer journey maps for electricians can be so beneficial, and how to create a customer journey map for your electrical business.
Customer Journey Map
A customer journey map depicts the customer journey. It is a visual representation of the paths that your target audience and customers take when interacting with your company. This includes how they engage with your products, services, and brand in person (e.g. in a brick-and-mortar store) or online (e.g. via your website or social media).
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map — or a user journey map — shows the experiences and interactions your customers have with your brand across every channel throughout the buyer’s journey. It gives you insight into every touchpoint (e.g. in your store or on social media, live chat, or email) your customers have with your business — from the moment they become aware of your company through their time as loyal customers — and the actions they take at each of those touchpoints.
What is customer journey mapping?
Customer journey mapping is the process of actually creating journey maps for your customer engagements and interactions. Journey mapping is valuable for a number of reasons. Let's cover some of those benefits next.
Benefits of a Customer Journey Map
As an electrician, you may now be asking yourself, “Why is customer journey mapping important?” Customer journey mapping allows you to step into your customer's shoes to gain insight into:
Who your customer personas are
Your customers’ needs
Your customers’ pain points
Your customers’ emotions throughout the customer lifecycle
As a result, this information directly impacts your ability to improve:
Customer satisfaction throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey
Customer loyalty and retention
User experience (UX)
Customer success
In other words, the information you get from customer journey mapping gives you actionable insight into how to grow your electrical business and increase revenue.
How to Create a Customer Journey Map
Work through the following steps to create a customer journey map for your electrical business.
1. Gather your buyer personas.
Your buyer personas, or your user personas, are the groups of people your business aims to target and/or already successfully targets. You should plan on creating customer journey maps for each of your main personas
2. List the touchpoints your persona has with your business throughout the buyer’s journey.
Next, think about the touchpoints that your customer persona has with your brand throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey. This means considering the five stages of the buyer’s journey — awareness, research, consideration, purchase, and support — and listing what touchpoints they have along the way.
Ask yourself the following questions to help with this process:
When does this persona become aware of their electrical problem? What are the touchpoints here?
When does this persona research potential solutions to their electrical problem? What are the touchpoints here?
When does this persona consider using you as their electrician versus your local competitors? What are the touchpoints here?
When does the persona choose you as their electrician and why? What are the touchpoints here?
When does the persona reach back out for future electrical service needs? What are the touchpoints here?
3. Identify the actions your personas take at each touchpoint.
Now that you’ve identified each touchpoint, determine which actions the persona takes at those touchpoints.
Imagine that during the research phase, your persona visits your website and the websites of other local electricians, and reads Google Reviews for your service and your competitors’ services. The touchpoints are your website and Google Reviews and the actions they take include visiting, reading, and educating themselves at each touchpoint.
To help you understand which of your touchpoints are most relevant to personas, you might reference data in a tool like Google Analytics which provides insight into data points such as organic traffic and clicks on your site. Additionally, if you use a home services marketing tool like Scorpion, you’ll have access to a variety of useful information about your customer personas and what types of content and marketing materials they interact with.
4. Analyze the actions your personas take at each touchpoint.
Next, analyze the actions that your personas take at each of those touchpoints throughout the buyer’s journey. What do they mean and what are they telling you?
For instance, using the same example above, if your personas are comparing your electrical business to your competitors in the area during the research phase, make sure your website includes information about your competitive advantage — why should they choose you over another electrician down the road? You should also have a healthy list of customer reviews on Google. (After every service, ask your delighted customer if they would mind leaving you a quick review on Google to help you establish this type of feedback for prospective customers to read.)
This analysis process should help you identify any gaps or opportunity areas — in other words, where your customers aren’t getting the information or support they need to become paying loyal customers.
6. Take action.
Now that you’ve mapped the customer journey and you’ve identified your strongest and opportunity areas, you can take action. Use your customer journey map as a guide to determine how you can create a smoother customer experience that provides your customers with the value they want from your service and marketing content throughout the entire buyer’s journey.
Customer Journey Template
To better understand how to create a customer journey map for your electrical business, refer to one of the many free templates online. Here are two customer journey map examples that can serve as a visual guide as you work through the above steps.
Example of a Customer Journey Map for Electricians
One type of template you may use aligns your touchpoints and actions, along with relevant customer thoughts, with each step of the buyer’s journey.
Another type of customer journey map template you may use comes in a table format and asks about your customer’s emotions, actions, and touchpoints, as well as what your business should change and how you’ll make those changes, at each of the five stages of the buyer’s journey.
Create a Customer Journey Map for Your Electrical Business
Customer journey maps for electricians can help improve the buyer’s journey. They make for a more personalized and enjoyable experience that makes your customers want to become loyal brand advocates of your electrical business — as a result, you’ll be able to increase revenue.
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