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There is no doubt that businesses need to understand their clientele to increase sales, engagement, and retention. However, it is not easy to build understanding with your customers. A customer journey is the route businesses take to convert. Understandably, this journey is not always obvious, as most business owners would attest.
Understanding the customer journey is key to the success of any business. So, what exactly is a customer journey? It is a series of interactions between a customer and a business, product, or brand as they gradually become aware of a pain point and make purchase decisions.
Here are five steps to define your customer journey and ensure your customers get products that satisfy their needs.
1. Understand What You Have to Offer and the Beneficiaries
Each of your team members should understand how to effectively communicate your product or service benefits to prospective customers. Of course, you can’t sell what you don’t know. Ask yourself, “Who needs this product most?’’ You may want to conduct online surveys to nail this down.
2. Create the Ideal Client
With the general idea of your target audience, you can create a few profiles and assign them a face and a name. Once you have a well-developed sense of who to include in your demographic segment, you can understand the variations in your customer journeys.
3. Identify Your Industry Specifics
While customers generally have similar stops along their journey, their specific needs should determine the value propositions and assets you create to market your products.
4. Optimize Your Value Propositions
Ensure your value propositions are consistent in each encounter with consumers. That’s because the customer journey, by its very nature, is personal. These propositions should be refined to be aspirational, communicative, and inclusive.
5. Build Assets for Every Touchpoint
You will have a very clear idea of what your ideal customers want once you’ve mapped out the customer journey. Customer touchpoints may include the following assets, depending on your industry:
Even though you may know the steps involved in defining customer journeys, implementing them for the first time is not a walk in the park. However, the customer journey process can be easier if you start from a reference; hence, this post contains two practical customer journey examples to help you define your own. Surely, they should inspire you.
1. Car Buyer Journey
This journey covers everything from the initial car research and engagement to experience (test drive), actual purchase, and customer advocacy. It helps businesses to gain insights into the methods that customers use to find out about the products on offer.
2. Health Insurance Customer Journey
Have you heard of the CX strategy? It is a scheme that forces even the largest banks in the world to have a keen focus on each customer. Yes, the banking sector is crowded with many companies competing for customers, but taking advantage of customer experience insights enables them to cope. Improving the CX strategy and focusing on customers keeps them (the customers) loyal.
The five stages of the customer journey are as follows:
Awareness: This is where the target market becomes aware of your product via social media, influences, web content, etc. Businesses should provide as much information as possible about their product. Remember to steer clear of hard sells, since information is all that customers want at this point.
Consideration: That’s when customers begin considering your product as a solution to their problem. They are comparing it to other products before they make purchase decisions. Be sure to give them a reason to stick around by positioning your product as a better alternative.
Purchase: Also known as the decision stage, this is the point where a customer decides to buy your product. You can share pricing details and other vital information at this stage, but keep in mind these are not loyal customers. They may just be buying your product to test and compare it with other brands.
Retention: The journey doesn’t end when the customer buys the product. It’s your responsibility to keep them coming back. The key to repeat business is to maintain a positive relationship with customers through strategies such as coupons and regular email updates.
Advocacy: Customers are so happy with your product at this stage that they are spreading the word out there. This goes way beyond retention because your customers are busy bringing in recruits. Incentives such as special deals, referral bonuses, and loyalty programs can come in handy at this stage.
At Strylite, we understand that all this information can be overwhelming. Besides, creating your first customer journey without the right resources be intimidating. That’s why we designed customer journey software that can help you map your customer journey like a pro. Creating a great customer experience takes some work, but our customer journey app makes it super easy for consumers to share their needs, experiences, and behavior. Featuring customizable templates and formatting options, this tool allows you to target specific personas, and boost customer engagement, as well as your company revenue. It is needless to mention Strylite’s customer journey dashboard, which is well laid out and easy to use. You don’t need prior training to use the tool.
Looking at your business from the customer’s perspective brings new ideas to the table, and customer journey analysis does exactly that. The process involves three stages, including accurate information gathering, customer persona development, and customer interaction analysis. How is this analysis beneficial? Well, among other benefits, it;
In a nutshell, understanding the customer journey is one of the most critical aspects of any business as far as customer loyalty and success are concerned. By mapping this journey and analyzing customer feedback, businesses can deliver satisfying experiences to drive sales and build brand loyalty.
