Tag: Customer Engagement

Illustration of a video producer desk with cameras and equipment for producing a video series

Using a Video Series to Boost Customer Engagement

Featuring a video series within a content marketing strategy is a proven tactic for increasing customer engagement. With the number of content pieces vying for customers’ attention, a video series can cut through the clutter and sustain awareness across multiple assets for weeks or months.

How?

A video series creates familiarity and reinforces consistent messaging over time. With the same on-screen talent, visual look and title, video series increase engagement and promote subsequent video viewings.

Top Benefits of a Video Series

Just as consumers will continue using certain brand-name products because of familiarity, customers will continue watching content in a video series that they know and enjoy. They grow to love the characters or storyline, or both, and begin to look forward to the next installment.

“I believe that you can’t develop a relationship with a movie,” says Matt Irving, Creative Director of Video Content for Questline Digital. “A movie is a one-time thing. With a TV series, you originally had to watch it when it was on and you came back every week to see the characters and story come to life. It’s much more of a relationship. It’s the same with a video series in a content strategy. Being able to come back and recognize something familiar is a huge motivator for customers.”

The creation of a series allows your utility to think about the bigger picture. Rarely are there topics that one video is going to cover in full. When your utility is thinking about a series it needs to understand the stages of the topic, including:

  • What topic needs to be addressed?
  • What story aligns with that topic?
  • How do you talk about the topic?
  • What audience will be interested in the topic?

After understanding these elements, you can start to break down the topic and figure out how to craft it into consumable episodes that give customers the information they need over the course of time.

Chart listing the benefits of using a video series

Improve customer engagement

Video series have the ability to form a relationship with viewers. It’s this relationship that has a positive impact on engagement and encourages repeat viewings.

“If you think you’re only going to see something once, you’re a lot less invested in it,” Irving says. “When you start to see it over and over again, it’s different. People like familiar things. They’ll click on them. If you enjoyed your experience before, you’re going to click on it to have another enjoyable experience.”

Make content more digestible

Video series enables your utility to consider, Are we covering all the things we need to talk about without cramming too much into any one video? With a series you can cover a topic in-depth across many videos, but each episode can be specific and easy to consume.

Reduce production headaches

A video series serves as a template, with an established a tone, format and graphic style. You can add subsequent videos to the series without having to reinvent the wheel every time.

“Series are advantageous in the way that we produce,” says Irving. “Instead of telling those stories in completely different ways that would involve several different shoots, we’re able to concentrate on executing one thing really well and thinking it through.”

There are parameters built into a video series that guide the production process. “This doesn’t mean you can’t adjust and change as you go,” Irving adds, “but it gives a much clearer picture of what you should be judging within the video itself.”

Financial advantages to video series

Turning on a camera at any time costs money. However, if you consider the cost of turning it on multiple times when shooting one-off videos compared to turning it on once and filming content for an entire series, the difference is significant. “You’re going to get a lot better cost per piece,” says Irving.

Build customer trust

Video series can build trust with viewers. When customers see a particular host multiple times who is giving them valuable information, they grow to know and trust that person.

When creating a video series, your utility must have a strategy in place, but not an agenda. This means that you need to strategize the topic so you are delivering valuable information to viewers, but not doing it in a way that “sells” to customers. People feel more comfortable and willing to accept new information when they know the reason behind it is genuine.

Simplify complex topics

Knowing that customers prefer visual elements and learning opportunities, using video series to simplify complex utility topics like beneficial electrification, demand response or time-of-use rate plans only makes sense. Rather than describing these processes in lengthy articles, share the information in a video series focused on understanding the basics or key details.

For example, Questline Digital created an animated video series for the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) that demonstrated the convenience of smart home technology to customers and educated them about the benefits of smart tech, electric vehicles and more.

This was a series of three videos, plus an infographic, that included a common narrator — Professor Energy — and used a similar animation style so viewers could easily connect the videos together. The series helped dispel misconceptions about smart tech and EVs and educated customers on the benefits and use-cases.

This series was successful for SECC, achieving thousands of views on their YouTube channel and nearly 42,000 views on their consumer website.

How to Use Video Series to Boost Engagement

Video content is extremely popular among consumers — and it’s everywhere. From their smartphones to computers to streaming TVs, people are inundated with videos of all types. A video series can help your content stand out through strategic planning, creation and delivery.

Quotation - A video series format where you see something again builds familiarity which naturally leads to enagement

Start strategizing with a conversation

When creating content for a video series your utility needs to think about how a conversation would go with a typical customer. What audience are you speaking with? What questions do they have?

“We’re filling in what we think the viewer is thinking and what their questions are,” says Irving. “It doesn’t start with, ‘Oh what if we made something about this?’ It starts with ‘What’s a way we can have a conversation about things that would interest consumers?’”

When it comes to residential versus business customers, the structure is the same. You might have different conversations with each audience, but it’s a conversation nonetheless. For example, for a residential video series, the driving force is typically not about saving money. Instead, the focus is on how it makes customers’ lives more comfortable and convenient. Business customers, on the other hand, want to know how much a new technology is going to cost if they invest in it, and the non-energy benefits they might see as a result.

“The overall strategy is the same,” says Irving. “The only difference is you’re having conversations with different people who have different priorities.”

Deliver content that matters

It’s important for video series to be created with the audience in mind. You can put different types of messages into the mix, but they all must add value to the viewer.

“Because we want to provide valuable information with some entertainment, we live by a code: Content should either be important, interesting or both,” Irving explains.

You can leverage this to draw customers deeper into the series — encouraging them to continue learning with each subsequent episode. “People aren’t waiting for an email to click on the next thing,” says Irving. “If you have their interest in a series, then you should let them be there as long as they want to be.”

However, you also want to give them the choice.

Video series should cover the topic in full, but in a way that allows customers to choose when they watch it and how many videos they watch at once, even skipping individual episodes they may not be interested in. “Allowing that allows you to have the closest thing to a conversation,” says Irving.

Repeat Viewings Build a Loyal Following

Using a video series in your utility’s content marketing strategy can boost customer engagement and satisfaction as viewers come to expect and look forward to new videos. It helps you educate customers about complex topics in smaller, digestible pieces. And it will help build a loyal following over time as customers recognize the series and return to learn more with each new episode.

Learn more about the video series available to energy utilities in Questline Digital’s Content Catalog.

Learn More
Illustration of marketers using video best practices in their content strategy

Video Best Practices for Your Energy Utility

Consumers prefer video content. In the age of social media and smartphones — even gas pumps are now equipped with streaming screens — video is the most effective way to get your message in front of customers.

Video makes your message both memorable and shareable, while being adaptable across all digital channels. By producing entertaining, informative video content, your utility can increase customer engagement, grow program participation and educate residential and business customers about important energy topics.

But video is also difficult to produce, and it can be expensive. The popularity of video content comes with high customer expectations: They will quickly tune out a poorly made or uninteresting video. To succeed, it’s critical for marketers to invest the time and resources needed to produce content that is appealing and effective.

If your energy utility wants to boost your customer engagement strategy with video content, follow these best practices to create enjoyable, entertaining videos that also educate and inform.

Chart listing the best practices for video content marketing

Top 10 Video Best Practices

  1. Maintain high-quality production values
  2. Entertain as you inform
  3. Keep the video short and on-point
  4. Consider a video series
  5. Create videos with your customers in mind
  6. Use storytelling to deliver the message
  7. Make sure your videos work without sound
  8. Pay attention to the first 3 seconds
  9. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA)
  10. Distribute videos across multiple channels

1. Maintain high-quality production values

Video production is more accessible than ever. Thanks to smartphones, most of us practically have an entire movie studio in our pockets. However, the DIY aesthetic is probably not consistent with your energy utility’s brand. You want your messages to be professional and authoritative, not like a homemade social reel.

Follow these video best practices to ensure your production values reflect that professionalism:

  • Subjects should be well-lit and properly exposed, including key lighting from the front and backlighting. Overhead office lights are typically not sufficient.
  • Capture video in horizontal, widescreen mode. Vertical videos look fine on social media but don’t translate well to other platforms.
  • Use a tripod and avoid unnecessary camera movement like zooms and pans. Shaky, unstable camera work is a surefire way to make your video look amateurish.
  • Hire professional talent to appear on-screen and record voiceovers. Actors who are comfortable, confident and clear on camera make your videos more enjoyable to watch and add authority to your message.
  • Use high-quality graphics and legible type to explain or label items in your video. Utilize bright, contrasting colors so that graphics are clear for smartphone viewers and the vision impaired.
  • Spoken audio and voiceovers should be loud and clear. Professionally recorded music can add interest, especially for an introduction, but make sure it’s not distracting.

2. Entertain as you inform

How do you make a video engaging? By incorporating entertainment.

Video content is an extremely effective way to educate customers about energy topics. Moving images and graphics can make complicated concepts easy to understand. But your videos won’t hold viewers’ attention if they come across as dry, boring or too technical.

To make a positive impression and truly build customer engagement, video content needs to be entertaining as well as informative.

Follow these video best practices to ensure that your message is entertaining:

  • The tone should be upbeat and energetic. For example, approach energy efficiency as a positive change, not as something customers are doing wrong and need to fix.
  • Keep it simple. Most residential customers are not energy experts, and they don’t need to be. Ask someone from outside your utility to review scripts to make sure they’re understandable and don’t overuse industry jargon.
  • Use animation and on-screen graphics to bring topics to life. Don’t explain something if you can show it instead; using animation to show inside equipment is even better.
  • Content for a business audience can be more advanced, but it should still be enjoyable to watch. Save the technical specs for an infographic or detailed article.

Check out this animated video about renewable energy. A typically complex topic is simplified through metaphors, graphics and fun characters.

3. Keep the video short and on-point

It probably goes without saying that today’s consumers don’t have a lot of free time on their hands. Video content is popular not just because it’s easy to consume — it’s also a fast way for customers to get lots of information while they’re on the go. Make sure your videos don’t bore customers or tempt them to reach for the “skip” button.

Keep your content brief by following these video best practices:

  • Videos should be as short as possible while still being informative and entertaining. You don’t want the video to feel rushed, but it should be concise. In other words, stick to the point and eliminate the fluff.
  • With few exceptions, website videos should be no longer than 90 seconds to 2 minutes. If you can’t fit your topic into that time, consider narrowing the focus or splitting it into a multiple-video series. 
  • Social media videos should be 30 to 60 seconds in length, with graphics optimized to display on smartphone screens.

4. Consider a video series to promote ongoing engagement

From movie trilogies to streaming TV series, viewers can’t resist watching the new adventures of characters they already know and love. Presenting video content as part of an ongoing series is an effective way for energy utilities to increase customer engagement. Customers who are familiar with a series are much more likely to watch the latest videos — and learn about new energy topics.

Follow these tips to build long-term engagement with your video series:

  • A video series creates familiarity and reinforces consistent messaging by returning to the same style and format over time.
  • Using the same on-screen talent and series title helps customers connect the overall theme (e.g., energy efficiency) to specific topics (LED lightbulbs and smart thermostats).
  • Questline Digital performance metrics show that content presented in a series increases subsequent viewings, with up to 42% of customers watching multiple videos in a series.

Check out this example from National Grid. The utility worked with Questline Digital to create six testimonial videos that promote results from their EV Make Ready Program, as well as an animated video explaining how the program works. Rather than one, extremely long video, they built a series that more effectively engages customers with digestible, more specific episodes.

Thumbnail images of series for video content best practices

5. Create videos with your customers in mind

When planning topics for your next video, focus on how you can provide value to customers. What interests do customers have? What questions do they ask? Use this information to develop a content strategy that gives customers what they need and provides information that will help them in their daily lives.

  • Do your customers want to learn something new? An educational, animated explainer video can help simplify complex topics.
  • Do your customers need proof points that a program or product is worthwhile? Showcase real-life success stories and commentary from customers with case studies and testimonial videos.
  • Do your customers need help navigating a new service or understanding a program? Give them a step-by-step overview with a tutorial video.

6. Use storytelling to deliver the message

Storytelling helps create an authentic voice that resonates with customers. Focus on narrative-based content that viewers can relate to. Tell a story about a brand, company or service and guide viewers to through their pain points, develop an emotional spark, and then see a satisfying solution to the problem.

When it comes to storytelling, there are a few main points to consider before video development begins.

  • Plot: What story do you want to tell? What is the overarching arc of the story? Does it include enough drama to hold attention?
  • People: Who are the characters in the story and how do they relate to viewers?
  • Place: What is the main location of the story and how does that connect back to customers?
  • Audience: What customers are you targeting with this video — residential or business, specific industries, residential customers with specific interests?
  • Purpose: What point are you trying to make in the story and what do you want viewers to do after?

7. Make sure your videos work without sound

If you plan on sharing your videos on social media platforms, it’s important to ensure your videos convey your message while muted. We all know how embarrassing it can be to have the sound from a video clip on your phone interrupt those around you. That’s why most users opt to default to mute when auto-playing content.

If your video isn’t understandable without sound, you’ll miss out on a large portion of potential viewers. Follow these video best practices:

  • Always add closed-captioning text files. Captioning ensures that your video is accessible to those with hearing impairments as well as mobile viewers who mute their phones.
  • Don’t rely on music. Music is a fantastic feature to add to your marketing videos. However, if the meaning of your clip revolves around the music, those watching on mute won’t understand the message.

8. Pay attention to the first three seconds

You have only three seconds to hook and interest your viewer. If that doesn’t happen, they’ll scroll past or click “skip,” meaning the rest of your video went to waste.

  • Add a strong visual or “opening shot” at the very beginning of your video to immediately capture attention and stop scrolling.
  • Don’t make your logo the first shot or video thumbnail image — this doesn’t tell viewers what the video is about or grab their interest.
  • Include a clear headline on your video thumbnail explaining what value your video is going to provide.
  • Use people and animals to your advantage to trigger an emotional response. Nothing captures people’s attention more than seeing other people or animals on the screen.

Check out this video made by Questline Digital that includes a title image that lets you know exactly what the clip is about.

9. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA)

As mentioned above, defining the purpose of your video is vital — what do you want customers to do after they watch? Is it to sign up for a service, purchase a new smart technology device or send in a rebate request? Whatever it is, make sure you include a clear call-to-action.

Use your CTAs to:

  • Drive visits to specific landing pages
  • Send customers to their My Account preference center
  • Encourage downloads of your utility’s app
  • Ask viewers to share their input

Also, make sure it’s easy for customers to take action; for example, a single click should take them to the correct landing page or a simple signup form.

10. Distribute videos across multiple channels

“Build it and they will come” doesn’t work for most things, including videos. Content cannot simply be created and left alone. To increase views and engagement with your videos, they need to be shared widely across all channels and platforms.

The obvious channels to add videos include:

  • Your utility’s website
  • YouTube or Vimeo pages
  • Social media platforms

Some not-so-obvious channels to leverage video content include:

  • Your utility marketing emails
  • As QR codes on printed materials
  • Within customers’ My Account centers
  • On your utility marketplace site

Wherever your utility shares video content, remember the original purpose: What is your utility trying to accomplish with each video? Who is your utility trying to reach?

Use Video Best Practices to Boost Views and Engagement

Videos are an effective way to engage with your customers in a format that they prefer. Make sure your video content is high-quality, entertaining, informative and concise. Your energy utility will see overall increased engagement and satisfaction, and your customers will be coming back for more.

Learn how Questline Digital’s content strategy and video production services will put these best practices to work for your energy utility.

Learn More
Geometric patterns

Questline Is Now Questline Digital

New name highlights the agency’s growth and its advanced communications and CX solutions

Logo for Questline Digital

Questline, an established energy marketing partner, today becomes Questline Digital. The new name reflects the company’s rapid growth and expanded services to address communication gaps across the customer engagement environment for energy utilities.

With a proven history of producing multimedia content and managing complex email and mobile communications programs, Questline Digital also applies advanced strategies for its utility clients, leveraging data and technology to optimize customer communications.

“Changing our name to Questline Digital better tells the story of how we’ve evolved in recent years to provide our clients with the solutions they need most,” said Dave Reim, President of Questline. “We have invested in digital solutions to better serve our utility clients in their mission to improve customer satisfaction and we’ve expanded our team to include customer experience and marketing experts from outside the energy industry. Alongside our creative agency’s deep history with utilities, this means we can offer our utility clients unparalleled proficiencies in technology and engagement strategies.”

The explosion in digital technology in the last decade had upended the way utilities communicate with customers at every touchpoint. Customers expect to receive relevant, personalized communications in their channel of choice, whether that means receiving power outage alerts on social media or paying their monthly bills via text message.

“Moving customer experience initiatives from concept to fulfillment requires technical expertise, data insights and the ability to quickly adapt to evolving customer expectations,” explains Reim. “Questline Digital is helping our energy utility clients connect those dots.”

About Questline Digital

Questline Digital is a marketing and technology agency that builds engaging experiences throughout the utility customer journey, boosting program participation and overall satisfaction.

As a full-service partner, Questline Digital’s team of strategists, energy experts and developers work with clients to build cohesive digital experiences that educate, engage and inspire action among diverse customer segments. Mixing multimedia content, integrated technology and data-driven communication strategies, Questline Digital solves industry challenges and drives measurable results for energy providers across the U.S.

Learn More
Illustration of utility customer segmentation

Best Practices: Customer Segmentation for Energy Utilities

Relevant communication isn’t just a preference for consumers — it’s an expectation. Your customers want to see messages that speak to their needs and interests, and they don’t want to be bothered with messages that don’t.

For energy utilities, relevant communications are best achieved by employing customer segmentation. This tactic remains the best way to cut through digital clutter and deliver content that matters to each customer.

What is Utility Customer Segmentation?

At its core, segmentation is a marketing strategy used to identify and connect with target customers. It is a way to organize your customers into approachable groups, or segments, and deliver relevant messages based on the interests or needs shared by members of each segment.

Customer segmentation is not to be confused with personalization. Whereas segmentation sends different messages to specified groups, personalization sends a unique message to each individual customer.

Example of criteria used to create customer segments for energy utilities

A segment can be defined as a group of customers that share identifiable characteristics that are unique from other customers. Such characteristics include:

  • Demographics: This includes characteristics such as age or income. Demographic data may be obtained from energy utility customer records or third-party databases.
  • Geography: Service territory, zip code or neighborhood. This is vital for outage and low-income communications.
  • Psychographics: What do your customers care about and what are they motivated by? When building preference centers or surveying interests, you can identify who is most likely to engage with specific topics. Some interests you might target include EV ownership, environmental concern or early adoption of new technologies.
  • Behaviors: Actions taken or not taken by customers. This includes program participation, purchases (electric vehicles, appliances), high energy use and content engagement or reading behavior.
  • Industry: Hospitals, schools, manufacturers, retailers and data centers all use energy differently. The programs, services and content promoted to business customers should shift based on their specific industry needs.

The Benefits of Customer Segmentation

According to Hubspot, the benefits of customer segmentation can be substantial — marketers who use segmented campaigns can see as much as a 760% increase in revenue.

Specific benefits of customer segmentation for energy utilities include:

  • Boost in engagement and performance: By targeting groups of customers rather than your entire list, products and services immediately become more relevant. This in turn increases customer engagement with your utility’s content and promotions. People are more likely to engage with communications that meet their needs and ignore those that don’t.
  • Better understanding of your customers: By evaluating customer behavior and pursuing segmentation, your utility will gain an understanding of what topics your customers care about. With this knowledge, you can better build future promotions to speak directly to their needs.
  • Increased loyalty: When customers feel understood and uniquely communicated with, they are more likely to be loyal to your utility and recommend its services or promotions to others.

Tips for Creating Utility Customer Segments

“You can’t create one ad or commercial that appeals to everybody, because different groups of buyers have different needs,” explains Robert Bly in his classic marketing book, The Copywriter’s Handbook. “Tailor both the content and the presentation of your information to the group of customers you’re selling to.”

Not sure where to start? Follow some of the utility customer segmentation tips below:

  • Start early. Customer onboarding is an ideal time to begin segmentation. Put your early customer touchpoints to work and gather data that can be used for future grouping. What actions do customers take, and not take, in your welcome emails? Use this information to build segments such as:
    • Mobile-friendly or tech-savvy: those who sign up for mobile alerts and payments
    • Hard to reach: those who take no action or make no indication of preferences
    • Digitally engaged: those who sign up for eNewsletters
  • Start small. You can ease into segmentation by looking at one journey or one demographic group. For example, you may want to promote mobile payments to customers younger than 40, instead of getting bogged down creating mobile payment promotions for all customers. Start with the “low hanging fruit” to make a big impact right away. Then expand.
  • Use internal and external data. While it’s important to use your own data — like what content customers click on, previous program participation or self-identified preferences — your utility doesn’t need to solely rely on this type of information.You can expand your segments with third-party data, such as credit information or vehicle ownership.
  • Segment only when relevant. Some messages don’t need to be segmented; your utility may be better served by sending the communication to the entire customer list. Or for that matter, two or three segments are often just as effective as six or eight segments. Don’t segment for segmentation’s sake.

Utility Customer Segmentation Examples

Example of customer interested used to create segmentation strategy for energy utility

The following examples of utility customer segmentation show how messaging strategies can address specific audiences to increase engagement and conversions:

  • Marketplace promotions: Specific products can be promoted to segments based on content engagement. If a customer reads your newsletter article about smart thermostats, send them an offer to buy the latest model on your marketplace. If a customer watches your videos about electric vehicles, add them to a segment that might be interested in EV smart chargers.
  • Small vs. large business: Residential and business customers have obvious differences. But so do large and small business owners. Communicate relevant messages according to employee count or facility size to increase engagement.
  • Homeowners vs. renters: Energy efficiency messaging and other program promotions can be targeted based on a customer’s ability to undertake home improvements. Renters may be interested in LED lightbulbs and smart power strips, but they probably aren’t going to buy a new furnace or upgrade their insulation; save those messages for homeowners.
  • Environmental vs. money-saving motivations: People with varying concerns respond to efficiency messages differently, even when the end result (reduced energy use) is the same. One segment of customers might be interested in paperless billing and appliance recycling because they want to save money, another segment might be more interested in reducing their carbon footprint.
  • Income-based messaging: Low-income program messages can be targeted to households that meet eligibility requirements or triggered by behavioral factors such as high bills or late payments.

Reach the Right Customers with Utility Customer Segmentation

Utility customer segmentation has the means to improve customer engagement, increase satisfaction, drive program results and boost conversions all by delivering relevant information to target audiences. The benefits of customer segmentation are clear.

Luckily, segmentation doesn’t have to be hard. By identifying customer needs, interests and motivations, your energy utility can send targeted communications that resonate with particular audiences.

Improve engagement and satisfaction with a utility customer segmentation strategy from Questline Digital.

Learn More
Illustration of software for energy utility customer journey mapping

Best Customer Journey Mapping Software

Studies show that 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. But you can’t improve your utility’s customer experience if you don’t understand it from your customers’ perspective. That’s where customer journey mapping comes in.

Journey mapping is critical for understanding and solving customer pain points. This becomes even more important as customer experiences shift with changing technologies and preferences. Customer journey mapping lays the groundwork for greater engagement and sets your utility up for success and long-term customer satisfaction.

To better uncover and solve customer pain points, your energy utility can benefit from using the right customer journey mapping software. Consider the following tips and tools to assess and improve the customer experience at your energy utility.

What is Customer Journey Mapping?

Customer journey maps are visual workflows that outline the step-by-step experience a customer has with your brand, service or product. The workflow typically includes steps from both the customer’s and company’s point of view, but focuses on the cumulative experiences across multiple touchpoints and channels over time.

Customer journey map examples provide clearly defined start and stop points for the experience you want to highlight, inclusive of customers’ actions, emotions and behaviors.

Companies that do not incorporate experience mapping risk facing an array of negative consequences. According to McKinsey, failing to appreciate customer journey mapping can include consequences like:

  • Customer defection
  • Dramatically higher call volumes
  • Lost sales
  • Lower employee morale

In contrast, there are many benefits to customer journey mapping, including:

  • Strategize and plan for utility resources
  • Identify and solve for customer pain points
  • Improve overall customer satisfaction
  • Enhance sales and retention
  • Reduce end-to-end service cost
  • Identify operational inefficiencies within the utility
  • Strengthen employee satisfaction

Delivering an exceptional customer journey experience makes it more likely that customers repeat a purchase, spend more, make a recommendation to their friends and stay updated with your utility.

Chart showing the impact customer journey mapping has on customer satisfaction

“Almost 90% of those using customer journey mapping said their program is delivering a positive impact, the most common one being an increase in customer satisfaction,” according to Mike Weir, Chief Revenue Office at G2. “Lower churn, fewer customer complaints, and higher NPS [net promoter scores] were also among the top impacts.”

How Do You Create a Customer Journey Map?

Follow these steps when preparing to develop a journey map:

  • Identify the experiences you want to analyze
  • Identify the users in the experience
  • Cluster your users into distinct groups
  • Interview users from your groups to get direct input
  • Map out the steps, including actions, mediums, emotions and behaviors

It helps to start with your goals and ask yourself, “Whose journey am I mapping?” From there, you can create a customer persona and capture the highlights of the journey in easy-to-understand stages. Remember, you want to make the customer journey map actionable.

Customer Journey Mapping Software and Tools

There are so many utility customer journey mapping tools available that it can be overwhelming to choose which one to use. We’ve compiled a list of some of the top platforms to make it easy for you to decide.

“When choosing a software, it depends on how robust you want the journey map to be, and then how visually appealing you want it,” says Zach Hardison, Questline Digital’s Vice President of Solutions Innovation. “Make sure the software meets your needs and accomplishes your journey mapping goals. And don’t overcomplicate it — sometimes simple is better if creates an easy-to-understand and actionable process. Every customer experience is different — choose a software that fits with the experience that you’re mapping out.”

When choosing customer journey map software, consider:

  • Easy design functionality
  • Quick and simple editing
  • Sharing capabilities
  • Real-time collaboration
  • Integration with data

Five Tools to Create Your Customer Journey Map

1. Mural: A whiteboard tool with pre-built templates, capabilities for real-time collaboration and easy-to-use models for common cases and proven methods.

  • Price: Various subscriber options ranging from free to $18 per user per month depending on your needs.
Customer journey map example from Mural software

2. LucidChart: Simple cut-and-paste capabilities that allow teams to clarify complicated processes. This software is used by many Fortune 100 companies, including HP and NBC.

  • Price: Plans ranging from free to $13.50 per user per month.
Customer journey map example from Lucid Chart software

3. Microsoft Visio: Another simplified shapes tool, this flowchart and diagramming software provides premade templates, starter diagrams and stencils. It also allows for real-time collaboration and features integration with Microsoft for easy sharing.

  • Price: Free trial version, with paid options ranging from $5 to $15 per user per month.
Customer journey map example from Microsoft Visio software

4. InDesign: Adobe is well known for its robust suite of design tools. There is a learning curve if you’ve never used Adobe products before, but the capabilities allow you to create beautiful designs.

  • Price: $34 per user per month, or $80 per month for all of Adobe Creative Cloud apps.
Customer journey map example from Adobe InDesign software

5. SuiteCX: A good mix of features and design elements for those who are seeking robust capabilities without a steep learning curve. It also provides a built-in journey mapping analytics platform to track your progress.

  • Price: Based on company size, ranging from $2,000 per month to $20,000 annually.
Customer journey map example from SuiteCX software

Integrate Customer Journey Mapping into Your Strategy

Customer journey mapping is a process that gives your utility the opportunity to create better, more seamless customer experiences that boost engagement and satisfaction. Take advantage of our insights into customer journey map software to build the foundation for a successful journey mapping process.

Remember: No process is perfect. It’s important to keep this in mind and take a step back before jumping into journey mapping. Your goal is to create the best experience you can, considering that as technology and customer preferences shift, the processes will continuously evolve.

As Annette Franz, CEO of CX Journey said, “Journey mapping is a creative process that allows you to understand — and then redesign — the customer experience. The output is not just a ‘pretty picture;’ once the map is developed, it is meant to be a catalyst for change.”

Learn how Questline Digital can help your utility kick off a customer journey mapping strategy to build engagement and customer satisfaction.

Learn More