Customer Journey
Understand your customer’s journey
– and optimise it at every step.
Customer journeys and touchpoints – and not least their significance – have received increasing attention in recent years among companies that take customer centricity seriously. We fully understand why, as an understanding of the importance of the customer journey can usually be seen on both the top and bottom line.
Strong customer journeys typically lead to:
- Increased customer loyalty
- Increased upselling
- Improved customer retention
- More recommendations from your existing customers to potential new ones
However, the path to these positive outcomes is long and sometimes winding – and it all begins with solid groundwork. We start by defining the customer journey.
What is a customer journey?
The customer journey is a concept that describes your customers’ path through your company’s universe. It covers all the phases and situations in which a customer has direct or indirect contact with your company or your brand. This may include direct touchpoints such as visits to a physical store or website, interactions with customer service, or the use of your product. It can also include more indirect touchpoints such as advertising, reviews, or content on social media – and, of course, the use of your product itself.
All of these are part of the customer journey, and all contribute to the overall impression of your company. The customer journey always takes the customer’s experience as its point of departure, which is why it is essential to describe it from the customer’s perspective – becoming aware of the impact of each individual interaction as well as the total experience.
Once you have mapped the touchpoints of the customer journey, you then walk through it using different personas that reflect your selected customer types. A 75-year-old buying a gift for a grandchild will follow a markedly different path to purchase than the grandchild would.
Customer journeys can be complex, and the actual paths from consideration to purchase and subsequent use are often significantly different from what the company initially imagined.
Why is the customer journey so important?
There are many reasons why you should work seriously with mapping your customer journey. When you understand your customers’ journeys in their interaction with your company, you also gain a better understanding of the frustrations and friction that arise along the way. A clearly defined customer journey helps highlight so-called pain or friction points across your various touchpoints.
Perhaps your communication is unclear, your payment options are cumbersome, or your showroom layout is not optimal. These are the kinds of insights you gain when you take the journey from your customers’ point of view – and conduct a subsequent customer journey analysis.
Customer journeys are, in general, a cornerstone of achieving a deeper understanding of the customer relationship – from the customer’s perspective. Not all phases of the customer journey are equally important, but the overall understanding is indispensable.
We would be happy to help you achieve that understanding.
Where does the customer journey begin?
The customer journey begins the moment your customer becomes aware of a need. This is followed by the consideration phase, where the customer researches and compares products. The next phase occurs when the decision is made – and, naturally, when the purchase takes place. Finally, there is the loyalty phase, where the customer should ideally experience enough value from the purchase and use of the product, to remain a customer and recommend you to others.
The decision to expand the relationship by purchasing additional products, as well as the experience of interacting with customer service when an issue arises, are also important elements of the customer journey.
Broadly speaking, these are the phases of the customer journey. There are almost as many variations of phases and models as there are consultancies, but the essence of most of them is the same.
Types of touchpoints
As mentioned, there are many touchpoints throughout the purchase phase, and they appear at different stages of the funnel, the AIDA model, or whichever marketing framework you prefer. The terminology is less important in this context, so instead we distinguish between before, during, and after the purchase. We also divide touchpoints into those you control – and those that have a life of their own (external out of your control).
Below are some typical examples most people can relate to.
Before the purchase:
- From you: Advertising, branding, and social media presence
- External: Google searches, product reviews, forums, mentions, observing your product in use, influencers
During the purchase:
- From you: Website visits, your content universe, in-store visits, contact with sales and service, the transaction, delivery, invoicing
- External: Product reviews, comparisons and mentions, recommendations
After the purchase:
- From you: Onboarding, product usage, upselling of relevant products and services, feedback, customer service, complaint handling, product quality
- External: User communities, brand perception
What is a touchpoint analysis?
Naturally, not all touchpoints are equally important to your customers – and, by extension, to your bottom line. That is why it makes good sense to analyse touchpoints and their significance, so you can focus your efforts where they create the greatest impact and value. In other words, assess what impact the most to your customers.
Some insights can be observed through customer data and other available sources, while others need to be explored through classic qualitative interviews, observations, and the involvement of your customer-facing employees. We have decades of experience with precisely this type of work, and we would be happy to help you.
Ready to take a closer look at the customer journey?
With more than three decades of experience in customer centricity, we are ready to help you set the course for your customer journey.
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