Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping with Avaya

Whether they start their journey on social media, continue via email, and complete their transaction through a live chat or phone call, today’s customers want a connected and personalized experience. Disconnected touchpoints lead to frustration, lower conversion rates, and decreased customer loyalty.

This is where omnichannel customer journey mapping becomes essential. A customer journey map is a strategic visualization of customer interactions across touchpoints, helping businesses understand behaviors, identify pain points, and optimize engagement strategies.

With Avaya Infinity platform™, businesses can then facilitate end-to-end omnichannel buyer experiences based on journey mapping. This includes AI-driven automation, real-time analytics, and seamless communication that connects customer conversations across channels.

Defining Omnichannel Customer Journey Maps

A customer journey map example highlights how customers move between channels throughout their journey. Unlike traditional linear journeys, omnichannel journeys are dynamic, involving multiple devices and platforms, often in real time.

A well-defined customer journey map example should include:

• Stages of the journey – Key phases customers go through, from first brand engagement to purchase or service.
• Customer emotions and motivations – The thoughts, feelings, and needs driving customer behavior at each stage.
• Channels and touchpoints – The various platforms, interactions, and communication methods customers use to engage with your brand.
• Transitions between touchpoints – How customers move across different channels and interactions throughout their journey.
• Pain points and friction areas – Roadblocks that disrupt the seamless experience (e.g., long response times, lack of channel continuity, repeated customer information entry).
• Engagement triggers and actions – Define key events that trigger automated or agent-led interactions (e.g., cart abandonment prompts an automated email, or a chatbot escalates an inquiry to a live agent).
• Metrics and KPIs for success – Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) at each stage (e.g., conversion rates, customer satisfaction scores, average response time, Net Promoter Score).
• Feedback loops for continuous improvement – Capture real-time customer feedback across channels to refine and optimize the journey dynamically.

The Importance of Omnichannel Customer Journey Maps

Inconsistent experiences frustrate customers. If a customer starts a conversation on social media, continues via email, and then has to repeat their issue over the phone, they may abandon the journey entirely. Omnichannel customer journey mapping ensures every interaction is connected, contextual, and consistent—so customers never feel like they’re starting over.

Avaya Infinity supports this goal by turning fragmented interactions into an intelligent and seamless conversation. With AI-powered omnichannel orchestration, AXP unifies all customer touchpoints and ensures a frictionless experience at every step of the customer journey.

• Reduce customer frustration and abandonment by maintaining continuity across all channels, ensuring customers never have to repeat themselves.
• Improve operational efficiency by automating workflows, intelligently routing inquiries, and minimizing repetitive tasks for agents.
• Boost customer satisfaction and retention with hyper-personalized, real-time engagement, tailored to each customer’s history and needs.
• Gain a competitive edge by delivering smarter, faster, and more predictive customer interactions, powered by AI-driven insights and automation.

Creating an Omnichannel Customer Journey Map

An effective omnichannel customer journey map provides businesses with a clear, data-driven blueprint for delivering seamless and personalized experiences across multiple touchpoints. To ensure that every customer interaction—whether digital or human—is meaningful and connected, businesses should follow these four key steps:

1. Define Your Objectives

Before mapping the journey, it’s crucial to establish clear goals for what you want to achieve. Consider the following:

• Do you want to increase conversion rates? Optimize touchpoints that drive purchasing decisions.
• Is reducing churn your priority? Identify common pain points where customers drop off and enhance engagement.
• Are you focused on improving personalization? Leverage AI-powered insights to deliver relevant, tailored interactions in real-time.

2. Identify Your Buyer Personas

Every customer journey is unique—different customer segments have different needs, behaviors, and expectations. By defining detailed buyer personas, businesses can tailor engagement strategies accordingly.

Key considerations for defining personas:

• Demographics: Age, location, industry, or income level.
• Buying behavior: Research habits, preferred channels, and purchase motivations.
• Pain points: Common challenges or frustrations that impact their experience.
• Communication preferences: Do they prefer chat over phone calls? Email over SMS?

Avaya Infinity provides 360-degree visibility into customer personas and behaviors, allowing businesses to dynamically adjust engagement strategies in real time.

3. Map Out Customer Touchpoints

Unlike traditional linear interactions, omnichannel engagement enables customers to switch between channels effortlessly while maintaining context.

• Social media – Customers discover products and engage with brands via Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
• Email & SMS – Automated email sequences and personalized SMS notifications nurture leads and improve retention.
• Live chat & AI chatbots – AI chatbots handle FAQs and escalate to live agents when necessary, ensuring smooth interactions.
• Contact center & voice support – AI-enhanced voice agents provide contextual conversations that don’t require customers to repeat themselves.
• Self-service portals – Customers access FAQs, track orders, and resolve issues without agent intervention.

With Avaya Infinity, businesses can unify these touchpoints into a single AI-powered ecosystem—allowing customers to engage on their preferred channels while maintaining a connected, seamless journey.

4. Analyze & Optimize with AI-Driven Insights

Once the customer journey is mapped out, the next step is continuously refining and optimizing it using real-time data and AI-powered analytics.

• Identify friction points: Where do customers experience delays or frustrations? Use sentiment analysis and behavioral tracking to pinpoint drop-off areas.
• Improve channel transitions: Ensure customers can move between self-service, chat, and live support without repeating themselves.
• Personalize engagement in real time: Leverage AI to tailor messaging, suggest relevant products, or trigger automated workflows based on behavior.
• Automate routine interactions: Reduce agent workload by deploying AI-powered automation for FAQs, appointment scheduling, and proactive outreach.

Mapping the Omnichannel Buyer Journey with Aflac and Avaya

Aflac’s journey toward enhancing both customer and employee experiences serves as a powerful example of how omnichannel journey mapping and AI-powered orchestration can transform an organization. As an insurance provider that supports customers during highly stressful life events, Aflac recognized the need for seamless, empathetic, and intelligent engagement across multiple touchpoints.

By leveraging Avaya Infinity Aflac has been able to create a cohesive, AI-powered omnichannel ecosystem that ensures customers receive the right support at the right time—no matter how they choose to engage.

With AXP's AI-powered omnichannel orchestration, Aflac was able to:

• Unify all customer interactions into one seamless journey, reducing customer frustration.
• Enhance employee empowerment, giving agents the right tools to provide more empathetic, high-value service.
• Increase customer ease by 11 percentage points in two years, improving loyalty and retention.

Aflac’s success underscores a critical takeaway for all businesses: Customer journey mapping isn’t just about visualizing touchpoints—it’s about actively optimizing the journey with AI, automation, and real-time insights to create a truly connected experience.

Explore Aflac’s success story with Avaya, and see how Avaya Infinity can help your business unify omnichannel customer journeys today.