First of all, we must know what a customer journey is, it refers to the process that encompasses all the phases that people go through from the moment they feel they need a product or service until they purchase it.
This consumer journey can be very short or very long in time, depending on the complexity or ease of the purchase. For example, if it is the purchase of food for home consumption, the journey may be as short as deciding what to buy, going to the supermarket, and making the purchase. Perhaps the only decision to be made is the brand of some products.
The journey is longer if the object or service is of greater value or impact on the person, such as purchasing a home, hiring the services of a digital marketing consulting firm, or any other product or service of that type. Sit down and plan each step, as Sun Tzu, the most influential military strategist in history, did. His battle strategies are documented in his classic work The Art of War, a masterwork that applies not only to the military realm but to almost anything involving rivalry. Sun Tzu was virtually invincible, and his mastery of the psychological sphere enabled him to defeat armies that outnumbered and out-equipped him.
Marketing studies the customer journey to understand the impact of each stage on an individual’s decision and to guide consumers in their purchases, which is similar to Sun Tzu’s strategy of knowing who you are up against.
In this article, we will look at what the customer journey is and why it is important. In subsequent articles, we will delve deeper into this concept and its relationship with your business.
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What exactly is the customer journey?
In today’s digitized world, most consumers conduct internet research before purchasing the product or service they require. This leads us to realize something: our buyer persona will be exposed to a lot of information before making a purchase decision, so we must understand how they research, what information they require, and how we can meet that information requirement. Given the foregoing, the first thing we need to establish is who our Buyer Persona is.
Once we’ve identified our ideal customer, we can move on to the analysis of the customer journey, which is the series of actions that the consumer takes that leads him to interact with our company.
Let’s look at a Customer Journey example to better understand this concept.
Example of a Customer Journey:
Assume you are going to hire a digital marketing consulting firm; the following are the steps you will take:
- Research on the internet and see an ad on social media about a digital marketing consulting firm, but you decide to keep working on other things while you think about whether you really need that advice.
- After a few days, you receive an email newsletter with information about the services of a digital marketing consulting firm and you decide to do some research.
- You go to the digital marketing consulting firm’s website and verify that the services they offer match your needs.
- You see the prices and terms and decide to contact them for an interview.
- After a while, you receive an email confirming the interview.
- You receive another email a day before the interview reminding you of the date and time of the interview and asking if you agree or prefer to change something.
- On the day of the interview, you connect minutes before and wait for the other person to connect as well, after which you conduct the initial interview.
- You interact with the interviewer and decide whether you want a second interview to plan your company’s strategy.
- Following the second interview, you check in on the execution of the plan and the achievement of the established KPIs.
- You receive an email inviting you to participate in a customer satisfaction survey.
Take note that all steps are dependent on your interaction with the digital marketing consulting firm. All of these are referred to as touch points, and the sum of them is referred to as the customer journey.
