In 2022, marketing is everything, and the battle for customers in the catering market is getting tougher during the crisis. Yes, global giants have temporarily weakened their influence on the Russian market, nevertheless, this is a time of opportunity for domestic players who do not want to lose their customers and seek to attract new ones. The better you understand your audience, and know where it lives and what it wants, the more likely it is that the client will come to you.
In this article, Irina Arefieva, owner of the Wilby fast-food chain and franchise, talks about how to correctly build a customer journey map (CJM), strengthen marketing and increase traffic.
Why CJM is needed
A customer journey map is a method that shows how a consumer interacts with your product. Visually, it looks like a graphical map showing the guest’s contact points. CJM allows the company to control and improve its product, and services.
We actively use this tool for local marketing in every Wilby branch. Many of the points of contact identified through the CJM method become the main points of control for managers.
The goal of our managers is to know their location perfectly and understand the audience, as a result, to increase the revenue of the establishment. The tasks for managers include the study of the territory around the institution within a radius of 2 km. During the analysis of the audience and regular interaction with customers, we found out that depending on the location of the institution, the portrait of our guests also changes. Here we are talking not only about the city but also about districts/streets in one settlement. Somewhere the guests are mainly parents with children, somewhere schoolchildren and students. Different age and social groups of the audience see us differently, therefore they perceive the offers of advertising campaigns differently.
The first time we encountered CJM was when we were doing marketing analytics as part of a rebranding. Representatives of the marketing agency came to the cafe and closely watched our guests. So the primary portraits of the target audience were compiled and broken down by age and behavioral scenarios.
For example, teenagers from 13 to 17 years old are looking for a place to spend time with friends. They want to sit and chat with friends in their free time and in a pleasant place (not at home or on the street). For guests from 25 to 35 years old, it is important to satisfy the child’s request for a visit to a fast-food cafe or a tasty and quick meal, while not wasting time at the stove.
What stages did we go through on the way to our guest card
Brainstorming with the team
We tried to define the following:
- Why does a customer buy our product?
- How he does do it?
- What competitors does it compare us to?
- How exactly is the choice made?
All opinions are carefully documented, and key points are extracted from them. We process and supplement the collected data with information from social networks and reviews.
Main groups by type of consumption
It is important to evaluate the guest’s journey through the prism of different social groups, so we can see several scenarios for moving toward the product. Here, the main role is taken by the manager of a particular branch, he makes examples of the types of guests in his location. The marketing department then completes the information. What is it for? To offer each type of guest the product that he needs.
The way the guest
The most interesting! We, the Wilby team, literally walk the client’s path from entering the restaurant to the moment they receive the finished order. We fix all the moments: from the convenience of the door handle to the cleanliness of the carpet and the presence of drafts. Of course, in order to eliminate all such inconveniences in the future. At each step of the guest’s journey, the whole team answers the following questions:
- What is the guest thinking? What does he feel?
- What actions does it take?
- What are the points of contact with the company?
- What needs to be changed at this step?
- How will we make this change?
We are trying to trace the client’s chain of action from the intention to eat out to the question “where can I do this?” Further building the algorithm – “order delivery or go to a cafe?” We carefully analyze both of these options to make all stages as comfortable as possible for the guest.
Further, in the CJM method, there are much more terms. Scenarios for delivery, bookings, pre-orders, event attendance, and more will be reviewed and included. Now we are paying more attention to the offline format of Wilby’s work. Our team is divided into the roles of guests who come to a particular branch. Someone plays the role of an employee of the shopping center, someone is a schoolboy, and someone is a seller at a nearby store. All these people go about their business and one way or another they pass us by. Where do they intersect? What do they see? What will be noticed? We’ll find out where we can glimpse and be seen. For example, put your board, and pointer, and place a sign.
Identifying the most important points of contact
All blocks of our CJM can be conditionally divided into those where the guest does not yet interact with the service and product (makes a decision to visit the cafe, gets to the cafe), and there are those where the guest directly interacts with the product and service. These are the touch points or touch points. These are very important blocks of the guest’s map, it largely depends on them whether we can justify the trust of people and keep them.
When a person has already chosen our institution, the following particular questions arise: how clean is the staircase on which he climbs; is it convenient for parents with a stroller; Is the music too loud? what kind of smell, etc. All these details are points of contact, they greatly affect the impression of the institution. Taste is not the key element, the key element is emotion.
Hidden and visible processes
The result of the work of each branch depends on the processes performed in each block. Processes are divided into visible processes, the execution of which is noticed by the guest, as well as hidden ones, the implementation of which cannot be seen. The latter include organizational, logistics, production, and sanitary.
Finding additional points of difference from competitors
Guests come to us because we are different from others. Whether we know it or not, our products and establishments are different from the rest. We are constantly looking for points of differentiation that can emphasize the values of our company, its ideals, and its positioning.
Conclusions
Thanks to the CJM method, we understand our growth points. If a guest can get a negative experience, then you need to work it out. Everything matters! For example, the entrance group. Some annoying leaflets and announcements may hang there, there is a broom, somewhere there is a rag. All this must be removed! We look at our establishment through the eyes of a guest, thus getting closer to the audience and constantly improving. By introducing CJM into our work, we are moving towards a worthy result, and this is confirmed by our growing performance.