How Much Data Is Too Much?

Experience Action. Let's stop just talking about customer experience, employee experience and the experience of leaders. Let's turn ideas into action. Your host, Jeannie Walters, is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker and founder of Experience Investigators, a strategic consulting firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences. Ready, set, action.

It's the Experience Action podcast. I'm Jeannie Walters and, as always, you CX leaders and change agents have brought the question. This week, we're so excited to have a question from a member of CXI Flight School™. Now, Eric is one of the members of the program that we have around a group curriculum and group coaching for CX leaders like you. If you're curious, check it out at cxiflightschool. com. Now let's get to Eric's question.

Hi, Jeannie, this is Eric, a fan from Flight School. I know we touched on this in one of our last sessions, but I really want an entire episode devoted to this question. It is top of mind. So, yeah, I work for a fairly large tech company in the US and we have immense amounts of data around our customers, operational data, and my question is of all of the data we have on when a customer, for example, abandons a purchase, how much of this data should I incorporate in my customer journey map? Does it make the map more powerful with more data? Should I stay conceptual? Yeah, let's talk about customer journey mapping in this session if you have time.

What a great question. Now, customer journey mapping is one of those things that we love hearing about because it's an accessible tool. It's something tangible that people can really get their arms around wherever you are on your customer experience journey within your organization. But this question really strikes at the heart of some of the challenges that happen for customer journey mapping. So, for example, when we have data lakes, when we have so much data that we know that we cannot parse through and find all the insights we want, that can feel overwhelming and somewhat paralyzing. Many organizations are swimming in operational data, everything from website abandonment rates to customer interactions through various touchpoints, both online and offline. So the question is how much of this data should be incorporated into our customer journey map. Is there such a thing as too much data, or does more data always equal a more powerful map? And I would love to say that there's one answer here, but I think this is nuanced. This comes back to what are you trying to do with your customer journey map? What is your goal? What have you been tasked to do for your organization? Now, we love to think about journey maps in these big ways, where we're going to figure out the broad journey for everybody and we're going to identify what's happening today, but we need a goal for that. Without a goal, this becomes a research project. This becomes something that is just an exercise in looking at what's happening instead of really taking action. And if you have listened to this podcast and if you've participated in different workshops with me, you know I want you to have a bias towards action. So let's dive in a little bit to when to use data in your customer journey maps and when to maybe think about it differently or, as Eric points out, stay conceptual. And first, let's just acknowledge that having a wealth of operational data, customer feedback data, behavioral analytics, all of those things at your disposal, that is an asset. So let's not discount that. That's actually a great thing, and if that's your challenge that you have too much data consider yourself lucky. It means you have the potential to understand customer behaviors, preferences and pain points in a nuanced and detailed way. However, the art of customer journey mapping is not just about the volume of data you incorporate, but how you use that data to tell a story and drive action.

When it comes to integrating operational data specifically into your journey maps. Here are a few key points to consider. Number one relevance is key. We wanna start by really looking at the phases or stages of our customer journey. Now, depending on the scope and goal of your map, this could be a few or this could be many, but for each phase, ask yourself which pieces of operational data offer genuine insights into the customer's experience. For example, data on when customers abandon your site could be incredibly relevant if you notice it happens frequently at a specific stage in the journey. This insight can highlight a pain or point out some friction that needs addressing. And that's ultimately what we're trying to do is improve the journey, remove points of friction, make sure that we are removing the obstacles so that customers can move from one phase of the journey to the next. So ask yourself what is relevant here? What sort of relevant data will help me make better decisions within these phases?

Number two balance data with empathy. Now, this is an interesting one because, as we start to expand what data means, as we use artificial intelligence and machine learning and sentiment analysis in new and bigger ways, these two things can be tied together in ways that we haven't seen possible in the past. But while operational data really tells us the what and the when. We need to constantly come back to the why. How do we understand the why behind customer behaviors? Qualitative feedback from surveys, interviews, and different ways that we collect that, that can play a critical role here. We also wanna combine the quantitative and the qualitative to really get that complete and empathetic view of the customer journey. Empathy is what leads to looking at root cause analysis, figuring out how did we get here? Why are they feeling this way? Why are customers reporting feeling so frustrated with this interaction? We need to look at both the operational what and when and the why of the empathy and really emotions that the customer is experiencing. Number three we wanna avoid data overload. This is probably what I see the most when I'm working with different clients on customer journey mapping.

It is tempting to include every data point available, and when you have every data point available, that can seem pretty compelling because we're curious by nature. I'm just curious. When we think back to things like survey design. Have you ever found yourself adding way too many questions to a survey because you're just curious? You just wanna know what is your favorite color, customer? Even though it's not really relevant to what you're doing. When we do that, we get so many data points that maybe we don't really use to lead to insights. So, while it's tempting to include every data point, while it's tempting to ask every question, we really want to make sure that the journey map is not overwhelming and not actionable. Remember, we have a bias towards action here. I like to say journey mapping is a verb, not a noun. It's about the actions you take. It is not an art project. So, keeping that in mind, focus on data that directly impacts the customer's experience and your decision-making process.

The goal is to highlight opportunities for improvement and innovation, not to document every interaction in exhaustive detail. We also want to number four iterate and evolve. Your customer journey map is not a static document. This is a tool. It's a living tool that you can use to really iterate the process with and on behalf of your customers. So, as you gather more data and insights, revisit and update your map. If you see a specific data point that gives you pause or makes you question something, bump that up against your journey map and ask should we dig in here more? Should we try something? Should we do some root cause analysis? Then you can really build off of that as you evolve your journey map. This iterative process allows you to refine your understanding of the customer journey and ultimately serve your customers in the best possible way.

Now, number five is a little bit of a cheat because you've heard me say this a few times already. We want to drive action. That is why we use journey maps. That is why we focus on customer feedback. That is why we do what we do as customer experience professionals. So, ultimately, the power of your journey map is really about the ability to drive action and change within your organization to incorporate data that aligns with your business objectives and customer experience goals. We want to use the insights gleaned from the map to prioritize improvements, innovate solutions and measure the impact of change over time. So, ultimately, more data can absolutely make your customer journey map more powerful, but only if it's the right data. Focus on relevance, balance that qualitative and quantitative, avoid overload, and use your map to drive insights that drive action. That action should be about the continuous improvement and customer-centric innovation on behalf of your customers that lead to better business results for your organization. There is no perfect goal and no perfect map here, but the more that you can get clear on what success would look like for you. By finding out the right information, the more powerful your customer journey map will be.

Eric, thank you so much for such a thoughtful question, and if you are interested in learning more about what we do, please check out experienceinvestigators. com. And check out cxiflightschool. com, where we offer group coaching sessions, specific curriculum for leaders like you who might not have a full team, full resources, but want to dedicate yourself to discovering the best tools available and then delivering on those business outcomes through great customer experience strategy. I'm Jeannie Walters. I cannot wait to hear your next question. Thank you so much for being here with me and thank you for helping me live our mission to create fewer ruined days for customers. I know that the work you do every day really delivers on that, so thank you for that. We will talk next week. To learn more about our strategic approach to experience, check out free resources at experienceinvestigators. com, where you can sign up for our newsletter, our year of CX program and more, and please follow me, Jeannie Walters, on LinkedIn.