Customer Journey Mapping - Essay Example

ID Detail Module Module Module Leaders Deadline Word Count Table of Contents Introduction 3 Findings 4 Analysis 6Conclusion 7 Bibliography 9 Introduction The purpose of this report is to assess and analyze a customer’s journey through the entire product buying experience which also includes his post buying experience. The analysis that any company performs in order to assess the journey of customers right from the start up until they start using the product is known as Customer Journey Mapping (CJM). Customer Journey Mapping is considered as a great big challenge for all those organizations that wants to make their company as customer oriented. The basic purpose of this entire process is to record the experience of the customers relevant to the organizations products and services and any sorts of improvement that the customer would like to see in the products and services. The various elements that are included in the journey of a customer involves awareness, finding answers of any possible queries that the customer might have, then comes the price and when a customer is satisfied with all of the above then he performs the purchase. Most of us would think that, that is when the process ends but there is more to it which is known as the post sales journey which includes the post-sales support, lodging of any complaint that the customer found in the product or service. The assessment of this complaint is the next step in the process upon which the organization then upgrades or amends its services based on the post sales review (Customer Journey Mapping, 2012). There are numerous benefits for the assessment of customer journey mapping however, the three main essential advantages include the fact that it gives an overview of the experience which was given to all the customers, it gives an idea about the basic needs and requirements that the organization requires and it also showcases the various aspects of importance and the aspects that should not be given importance (Customer Journey Mapping, 2012). For the purpose of this assignment, I will be studying two very popular e-commerce websites i.e., eBay and amazon and will assess the process of customer journeys for each of these organization and how this affects the ways in which the customer approaches the organization. Findings The first company that I would analyze is eBay. EBay has long been a very popular place for the buying and selling of goods and with over one million customers, it is a place which serves as the global market. People can get whatever they want at very cheap and affordable price. However, the goods that are sold on eBay are not owned by itself, rather they are owned by third party customers. The mission statement of eBay is to serves as an international market to anyone and everyone who are willing to buy and sell (Hsiao, 2015). The eBay’s website offers a number of options such as signing up or registering for an account and buying things from a number of deals that are very cheap as compared to what we get in the market. The website also has set up a help and contact option which offers help for a number of topics and also give assistance on phone. The first in the process is awareness and that is usually online, word of mouth or through advertisements. However, since eBay has been operating for quite a long time a number of people are aware about it. The next step is the discovery of the e-commerce business. For this, the customer can easily go to the website and access it and question the related people for any queries that they have, the price can be viewed with each product. People can also view the reviews given by other customers. For convenience, eBay also has a mobile site for smartphone users. These customers can then buy products and post reviews about them on the site (EBay, n.d.). EBay focuses on giving its customers a life like experience which resembles a lot to actual experience of going to the market and then buying products. EBay has also focused on engaging with its customers and then aiding them in the research and then recommending and learning about what the customers like and what they don’t. EBay does this by utilizing the web metric data that is also known as the customer journey data which informs EBay regarding what the people do and how they use eBay in day to day functions. There are certain challenges that eBay has to face on a daily basis and that is to manage the large influx of customers that it gets on its website. eBay analyzes what the customer wants based on running data analysis based on image, network and even sentiments (Saran, 2014). The second company that I chose is Amazon.com that is also one of the most popular E-business websites that is known by many. It is known for selling its products on standard rates and is also known for selling used products. Unlike eBay, Amazon.com is not completely reliable on third parties rather it also sell its own products and services (Noren, 2013). The most important aspect of Amazon.com’s customer journey experience is its website. The highly interactive website of Amazon.com is what makes it 4th in rank for customer experience in the list of retailers (eBay | Customer Experience Matters, 2015). Like eBay, Amazon’s website is also highly attractive and interactive. It shows the products with their price and the reviews given by other. The website also has a help option that assists the customers on the queries that they have (Amazon.com). Analysis An analysis of a business model shows that a business model is mainly focused on 4 basic things which consist of the product itself, the customer interface, the management of the infrastructure and the monetary aspects of the company. By looking and analyzing both of the companies under focus we can say that the both eBay and amazon have a great focus on the experience of the customers in relation to the product and service being offered (Osterwalder, Pigneur and Tucci, 2015). The company’s focus on delivering high quality products to its customers in a timely manner all over the world. Any sort of complaint can be lodged on the website itself and the company’s also offer online support to the customers who are in trouble. However, both the company’s do not offer any support in person or as it may be called, offline support. The products and services are not marketed offline in public places and people cannot meet the company’s representatives physically which might be called as a negative impact of both the company’s. Since eBay is an e-business organization, therefore it is utilizing data analysis in order to improve the journey its customers go through. The basic goal of eBay is to provide its customers with an experience that is very much similar to what they experience in a market i.e., the shopkeeper suggest things and the customers buys it and with the help of the analysis of the data, the customer can get an experience which is quite similar (Saran, 2014). On the other hand, if we look at Amazon they are also focusing on a customer oriented approach wherein the customers can get a personalized feeling when they shop at Amazon.com. When a customer’s visits the website of Amazon, it gets a list of products that is recommended which is all recorded ever since the first time that customer shopped at Amazon and also similar to eBay, Amazon also utilizes the data analysis in order to provide its customers with the ultimate shopping experience that resemble quite like the actual marketplace. In both cases, customer satisfaction is one of the key points that play a crucial role in the entire process. If either of the company’s fail to satisfy their customers then there is a good chance that these customers won’t come back to shop and hence both of these companies are looking into improving their customer’s shopping experience each time he or she visits the website. The company also does this by delivering its products on time, valuing the reviews of the customers and solving the queries and complaints as soon as possible so that the customer goes through a happy journey of shopping with them. These websites include the customers review sections where the customers can post and share about their experience after buying the products. Conclusion After performing a complete assessment of the two organizations, it can be concluded that both of these companies are doing great at giving their customers a great shopping experience and improving the ways in which the shopping experience can improve each time the customer comes back to shop. Both eBay and Amazon are using the online data analysis tools in order to improve the customer shopping experience both pre and post purchase and doing a great job at doing this at the same time managing the large influx of customers that it gets on the website each day. However, the companies can improve by getting personally getting reviews from the customers post shopping experience and getting an insight on how they can improve their services. Bibliography Amazon.com, (n.d.). Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more. [online] Available at: http://www.amazon.com/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Customerchampions.co.uk, (2012). Customer Journey Mapping (CJM). [online] Available at: http://www.customerchampions.co.uk/customer-journey-mapping-cjm/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Ebay, (n.d.). [online] Available at: http://www.ebay.com/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Experiencematters.wordpress.com, (2015). eBay | Customer Experience Matters. [online] Available at: https://experiencematters.wordpress.com/tag/ebay/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Hsiao, A. (2015). What is eBay?. [online] About.com Money. Available at: http://ebay.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/gs_whatisebay.htm [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Noren, E. (2013). Digital Business Models: Analysis of the Amazon Business Model. [online] Digitalbusinessmodelguru.com. Available at: http://www.digitalbusinessmodelguru.com/2013/07/analysis-of-amazon-business-model.html [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y. and Tucci, C. (2015). Clarifying Business Models: Origins, Present, and Future of the Concept. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 16(1). Saran, C. (2014). Case study: How big data powers the eBay customer journey. [online] ComputerWeekly. Available at: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240219736/Case-Study-How-big-data-powers-the-eBay-customer-journey [Accessed 29 Nov. 2015]. Read More