Use Journey Maps to Improve Member Experiences

By Sarah Sain

Journey maps are a visual interpretation of the anticipated experience from a member’s perspective and motivations. According to Cathi Hight, consultant and founder of Hight Performance Group, they create a shared, organization-wide understanding of the journey and how to deliver positive outcomes.

While your member journeys are fictional representations, they are based on real data and put a “face” to the characteristics that a group has in common to help your association better understand who you’re serving.

Hight laid out the five steps that it takes to create member journeys for your association at the 2019 New Ideas Annual Conference. They are:

Step 1: Identify your audience segments with demographics, goals, biggest challenges, other factors to know, plus pain points (fears, frustrations, obstacles) and successful engagement (wants, needs).

Step 2: Create an internal customer experience team; go through the member profiles and start to create the journey maps.

Step 3: Develop draft journey maps.

Step 4: Validate journey maps through one-on-one interviews with current members, focus groups and social media to get feedback on their own paths and how they compare/contrast.

Step 5: Implement and review. Get internal team together to revisit, discuss feedback and tweak as needed.

Keep in mind: Members’ actions, circumstances and motivations can change their journeys over time – and that’s OK. By creating these pathways, your association is ready to serve members throughout their careers and life changes.

One comment

  1. I would love to see an example of a completed journey map. This sounds like a great way to enhance member engagement!

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