Customer journey management software
Quick Definition: Journey management software includes the tools and technology pieces used to map the customer journey, so a company knows what messages to deliver and when for the most effective interactions.
Key Takeaways:
- Journey management software helps map the customer journey in real time and automate customer experiences.
- Different types of software have different tools and capabilities, but the core functionality is the same across the board.
- Larger journey management software companies also have journey orchestration tools, which allow brands to design different customer journey paths.
The following information was provided during an interview with Chaewon Hwang, product marketing manager for Adobe Campaign.
What is customer journey management software?
The term “customer journey” refers to the entire process of a customer interacting with the brand, from the moment they start researching the company to the point when they stop engaging.
Customers go through various stages in the overall journey, from awareness to conversion to repeat purchasing, and interact with the company through different touchpoints.
Customer journey software helps marketers map this journey and enables them to optimize marketing campaigns, so they engage or convert customers at the right time along the journey.
How does journey management software impact the customer journey?
Once a company understands how its customers interact with their brand throughout the entire relationship, it can deliver relevant, personalized messages that help move the customer closer to conversion or to each next step of the customer journey. Journey management software helps companies collect customer data, create and deliver personalized experiences, and gather analytics. All the information goes into one place, which helps overcome issues with siloed data. And customer journey management software allows companies to use automated journey logic to quickly and efficiently move customers through the conversion funnel by automatically sending out specific messages based on actions the customers take.
What different customer journey management software options exist?
If a company is looking to purchase journey management software, they have plenty of options. They can choose to go with software from a cross-channel marketing platform company or from a smaller, more specialized provider.
Each type of journey management software has similar core functionality — they all help companies track how the customers are moving through their sales and marketing funnel. The differentiator is what type of other add-on services these companies have. Adobe, for instance, has journey orchestration tools, which allow companies to design different journeys based on how they define milestones in their funnel. And those eventually connect to the marketing channels that they can activate.
Some smaller journey management software companies offer orchestration capabilities along with management capabilities, and some don’t. Many stop at the orchestration phase, but offer connectivity to third-party data for adding more information to customer profiles and further defining audience segments. These can then also push out marketing campaigns.
What challenges do companies face with journey management software?
One mistake companies sometimes make in the journey management process is having different teams using different systems and not communicating. This prevents companies from being able to gather all of their customer profile data in one place, which makes it difficult to map the customer journey accurately. Without an accurate journey map, it’s difficult to provide the right information to help the customer take the next step. Companies can avoid this problem by using customizable software with add-ons that allow each team to share data with the others.
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