What is customer journey and how to approach it?
At the end of the day, everything you do should be aimed towards helping your customers to solve their problems and help with their goals using your products and services. Who are your customers and how do they think while making a decision?
What does the customer journey buzzword even mean?
Customer journey — sometimes also referred to as buyer’s journey — is a process that customers go through from being acquainted with your product to actually buying it.
The traditional approach defines 3 main stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
During the awareness stage, the customers define their problems and reveal the opportunities they would like to make use of. By doing a small research, they try their best to understand the problem they’re facing and pinpoint them. Important questions that need to be answered:
- How do buyers describe their goals and challenges?
- Do the customers have some misconceptions about the solution of their challenges or reaching their goals?
During the consideration stage, the buyers already have a clear definition of their problem and they start to consider all the possible ways and methods in order to solve the challenges and reach their goals. Questions you should consider at this stage are:
- What sorts of solutions are customers considering?
- What kind of information are customers obtaining about the categories?
- What advantages and disadvantages of the specific categories are grabbing the customers’ attention?
At the final, decision stage, the customers are choosing the final method or approach they want to use in order to satisfy their needs. Questions that need to be answered are as follows:
- What are the customer’s ranking factors of the available offers?
- Do the customers have any expectations before deciding to buy?
- What concerns do your customers have about your offers?
Nowadays, there’s a bunch of new, modern approaches which divide the customer journey into several different stages. It’s up to you which one you chose.
5 questions you need to answer in order to understand customer journey
Every customer oriented company should consider these 5 questions and answer them accordingly:
1. Who is your customer?
Right from the beginning, it is crucial to be aware of the fact that every customer is different and thus has different needs. Before you start to consider the way he thinks and the journey he takes, you should identify who he is and understand his individual needs and requirements.
2. What is the goal of your customer?
Customers hardly ever approach the company with having a clear idea about what they want and need. In most cases, there’s more to it — clients often need to improve processes within the firm, but they don’t really know how nor when.
3. What did the customer do before the interaction with the company?
It is always important to understand what did the customer do and think before he has interacted with your company.
4. What will the customer do after interacting with the company?
When considering interactions of the customer with your company, it is rarely the case of this being his last step in the journey. That’s why you should consider his further actions. What will he do and how can you help him in the best possible way?
5. What will make your customer happy?
Do not just focus on the basic needs of your customer. Think bigger. What can you offer him in order to satisfy his real goal and simultaneously bring him the best possible customer experience?
