There’s no denying to the fact that business process workflow automation has become a strategic requirement for enterprises of today in their ultimate digital transformation endeavor, regardless of their size or industry they operate in. However, contrary to general perception, business process workflow automation is not just the process of automating your otherwise manually-performed operations. This is a strategic endeavor that requires a 360-degree digital overhaul of your enterprise and therefore, has an impact on not only your processes but also your stakeholders.

It is important to understand that the key to successful business process and workflow automation is the inclusion of all of your stakeholders – including your clients, strategic partners, vendors, suppliers, and most importantly – your customers!

The core premise of automation revolves around improving efficiency by simplifying processes. Many organizations, in their business process automation and DT initiatives, only focus on digitizing processes at their end only, paying little to no attention to how it can be leveraged to optimize a customer’s journey and provide them a seamless and hassle-free experience. This is a major pitfall and one of the reasons why so many enterprises end up reaping no profitable outcomes out of their automation and transformation endeavors.

While implementing a business process workflow automation initiative, make sure that the innovation team focuses on mapping out customers’ journey, including all of its bottlenecks and pain points, to make sure that the newly developed and deployed automation process removes redundancies, improves operational efficiency and provides your users with an unparalleled experience throughout.

Remember, more than the quality of your products and your service efficiency, it’s the experience you offer to your customers that makes or breaks the deal. The more efficient, smooth and seamless your customers’ experience, the more they will keep on coming back to you.

Now that you understand the role customer journey mapping can play for you, let’s jump to the basics:

Process Mapping vs. Customers Journey Mapping

Process mapping, customer journey mapping, and customer experience mapping are often used interchangeably for their close relationship. However, despite being interlinked, they are not entirely the same.

Process Mapping

Process Mapping is the technique of using flowcharts to illustrate the flow of a process, proceeding from the most macro perspective to the level of detail required to identify opportunities for improvement. Process mapping focuses on the work rather than on job titles or hierarchy.

In simple words, a process map is a comprehensive and intricately detailed blueprint of various tasks constituting a process and is solely designed to focus on work, process flow, and the output.

Customer Journey Mapping

As per standard definition, a customer journey map is a very simple idea: a diagram that illustrates the steps your customer goes through in engaging with your company, whether it be a product, an online experience, retail experience, or a service, or any combination.

Simply put, a customer journey includes all the touchpoints of a process map where your customer interacts with your process map. The level of interaction, the ease of accessibility, functionality, and usability of the process will altogether form the customer experience. And as we mentioned before, customer experience is what drives their purchase decision.

Why Customers Experience Mapping is the way to go

• Opens opportunity for innovation

In your strategic endeavors in pursuit of business process automation and digital transformation, customer journey mapping will open new whole new arenas for automation, innovation, and optimization. It allows you to understand your processes and operations from the customers’ perspective, thereby making it convenient for you to identify new opportunities and ideas to streamline the journey and optimize their experience.

 • Opens communication between service providers and customers

When you take customers onboard as a stakeholder, it helps foster communications leading to better understanding and sharing of opinions. This direct and real-time communication provides you with insights into your customers’ expectations, using which you can leverage automation and DT technology to your ultimate advantage.

• Opens new business opportunities

Mapping customer journey allows you to grasp the intricacies of your process map, from the end user's perspective and analyze how different touchpoints can be optimized for maximum usability and efficiency. This thorough knowledge of your processes also drives innovative design thinking, opening up new business opportunities and allowing you to stay a step ahead of your competition.

• Allows for optimizing and improving the experience as continuum and consecutiveness dictates

Mapping customer journey and experience in tandem with your enterprise’s processes and workflow automation initiatives makes it convenient for you to experiment, innovate and improve your processes in the continuum, thereby achieving increased efficiency, scalability, and profitability.

At Infowise, we are serving as a strategic technology partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavors with our code-free, cost-effective software package. Our flagship product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 20 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation.