What is a customer journey and why it’s important 🤔
I wanted to buy a tennis racket a couple days ago that would fit my playing style as an intermediate player. Usually shopping seems like an easy process, but when you think of it more in detail, buying the racket is not that easy after all! I had to choose what kind of racket I needed and which brand I really wanted. In addition, in order to make an informed decision I read reviews about the rackets representing those brands and made a decision on my final purchase. And that is just a tip of the iceberg….
There are also many subconscious buying decisions that go through the consumer’s mind, but we won’t go too much into that detail 🙃 As all of us go through this type of decision every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, I thought it would be great to capture the marketing concept of it in a blog post. So keep on reading….
Customer decision journey (CDJ)
The process that I underwent while buying the racket from trying to understand what kind of racket I want, picking a racket brand, reading online reviews about each brand to making a decision about the final purchase is called customer decision journey (CDJ). As one can see from the phrase, it is a journey that the customer experiences with the product they intend to buy, before taking the final decision to purchase, during and after the purchase of that product.
In the context of the market being flooded with so many products, it is not easy for consumers to make a simple purchase decision nowadays on what products to buy anymore. The chances of being lost among these many products that are claiming to be perfect solutions to customers’ problems are very high. Within these conditions, It is also difficult for the companies to sell their products to consumers with the purpose of creating a loyal base of consumers who will not abandon them and switch to alternatives.
In order to address this growing marketing challenge, it is important for marketers and brands to understand how consumers make their decisions:
- What kind of steps they take before making that purchase
- Where they seek information about the product — This is a crucial question both for the customers and marketers. Marketers without having a thorough understanding regarding where customers search information about their products, would not be able to offer relevant touchpoints to the customers that would lead them towards making an informed decision about their final purchase.
- Who they consult about the product: being it friends, neighbors, online communities, forums or colleagues
- How much are they willing to spend on that purchase
- What motivates them to switch from one brand to another
Companies are able to better influence consumer decisions if they have detailed answers to the aforementioned questions and easily available online resources that would help customers make informed purchase decisions. For example, hadn’t tennis racket brands offered online reviews about their tennis rackets, the chances of me choosing the racket I really wanted would have been really low!
Hubspot model
Recognizing this need, marketing researchers from Hubspot designed three stages as part of customer journey:
- Awareness stage — where customers try to understand their needs and what problem do they really want to address.
- Consideration stage — customers have already identified their need / problem, and now are considering their options. They are searching for information about the best possible solution to their problem.
- Decision stage — customers make a final decision about what they really want and purchase that product.
As you can see in this framework, customer journey looks pretty simple. Consumers identify what they need, they look for the products that meet their needs, and make a decision about the final purchase that would meet their expectations.
Models may look easy, however, the easy looking models are products of analysis on extremely complex human behavior. It is not a secret that we — human beings — have more questions than answers to our problems. Very often we can’t fully identify our problem. What is it that we are trying to solve? Awareness, consideration and decision stages outlined in this model provide an opportunity for marketers to help customers find answers to their questions and make an informed decision about their purchase. Understanding different stages customers go through before, during and after buying a product or a service is essential in order to ultimately increase the return on investment (ROI). Knowing what customers want, how they look for information, what kind of touchpoints they stop by before making the final purchase can help marketers design more personalized content addressing specific needs of the customers.
McKinsey model
According to Mckinsey’s marketing researchers, the customer decision-making journey is a circular process: from initial consideration, active evaluation, closure, when consumers buy brands, and postpurchase, when consumers experience them.
In contrast to other models, the Mckinsey framework suggests that the customer decision-making process is non-linear, where customers may experience many different touch points between each decision phase before making the final decision about the product they want.
The proponents of this model argue that marketers need to transition from one way of communication process with customers to a two-way communication process, in which the marketing process is customer-driven. In the context of customer journey, the customer driven marketing is when marketers engage with customers by understanding their context and their needs. For example, tennis racket marketers know that before buying a tennis racket I will need to look up reviews (Active evaluation phase) about different rackets. By understanding my need for authentic information regarding the product, marketers have ensured that while looking for the tennis racket, there are necessary online resources where I can find relevant information about the product. The online review pages where I read reviews before buying the racket are an example of touchpoints.
One of the coolest phases of the Mckinsey model is the postpurchase phase. As you can see from Table 2, the journey does not stop at the closure phase where the customer makes the final decision about the product. Marketers by being mindful of the postpurchase phase need to understand what is it that turns the customers into loyal customers. By closely monitoring the postpurchase phase, brands can ensure personalized content that would help customers stay loyal and will bring more referrals by actively spreading word of mouth about their positive experience with the brand.
For example, Growth Channel model is very similar to the Hubspot one with an extra postpurchase element, reminding us of the McKinsey model. As you can see from Table 3, Trigger, Awareness, and Consideration stages are pretty similar to what we have already discussed under the Hubspot model. Conversion stage is the phase when the customers have already made the decision about using our personalized growth marketing plan and are leaping into the stage of seeing the benefits of their decision. Delight and Advocate stages have similarities with the post purchase stage, where customers have already experienced the benefits of your product and are willing to share it with the world.
Now let’s wrap up the key takeaways for your own marketing planning:
- Don’t assume that you know everything about consumers’ decision-making process. Ask questions, research, conduct online surveys. Before jumping into generic and possibly false conclusions, get to know who your customers are.
- Knowing is not enough. It is also important to empathise with the customers and feel into what they are going through before making the final purchase. What are their concerns? Why are they uncertain before buying a product?
- Prepare a customer journey map for your customers. Whichever model you apply, make it easy for your prospects and customers to interact with your brand.
- Be authentic. Finding out about your customers’ decision journey is not just about increasing return on investment (ROI). It is also about building a meaningful relationship.
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What experience have you had with customer journey mapping? Which model are you using? Were you able to see the impact of it on your ROI? Tell us in the comments below 👇
