Discover the Customer Journey

Being aware of what users want is not a state-of-the-art technique for any marketer. However, there seems to be an upward trend in thinking not only about what the customer wants, but also about what they feel during the consumption of a product or service. Within this strategy, the Customer Journey it is an essential tool.

The Customer Journey, or user journey, is defined as the consequent emotional path of the consumption process of a product or service from the first contact with it until its conversion and subsequent evaluation.

It is important to bear in mind that this first contact is directly related to the recognition of the need by the user, which is what activates the final conversion process (purchase, subscription or visit to the website).

Step 1: meet our customers

Knowing our clients must be a maximum potential. Knowing what their consumption habits and interests are prior to developing any strategy not only helps us save time, but also money. Therefore, the first indisputable step before developing our Customer Journey is to analyze the satisfaction of your customers and the behavior of users in general. This is directly related to improving the user experience.

In relation to this analysis, different roadmaps must be established depending on the market segment on which we need information. If we want to know what the satisfaction of a customer who has already established a contact with us has been, we must select in which part of the conversion funnel they are: in the need recognition phase, in the information acquisition phase general about the product and the existing brands, in the retention, purchase or evaluation of the latter. In this way, we will know what to ask through the different analysis techniques established based on surveys, focus groups or in-depth interviews. This first study will be more aimed at monitoring communicative effectiveness in terms of user satisfaction.

But, if, on the contrary, we want to expand our target and explore the tastes and interests of a potential target audience, then we should direct this study to those people who could be interested in our services taking into account their experience with other similar products or what missing in those previous experiences.

Step 2: Customer Behavior

Once we know what our customers are interested in and what channels they use, we must define the phases of our customer’s behavior. This phase is related to the previously mentioned conversion funnel. According to the famous theoretician Phillip Kolter, the entire purchase process is established based on 5 key phases, or what is the same, through the already famous conversion funnel.

Knowing if the future user is in the phase of contemplation or recognition of the need, looking for information, evaluating alternatives, if they have already bought or if they are evaluating the purchase, is essential. Without this prior information, it would be meaningless to know what phases our and our users will go through.

Step 3: Know the goals of the clients

Behind every purchase decision lies a personal goal. A purchase is the materialization of the satisfaction of a need but also, on many occasions, of a desire. Both needs and wants should be viewed as objectives. Giving the client the opportunity to meet these objectives in the best possible way should be our differentiating value proposition. This is a key technique to improve the user experience.

Step 4 – Define user touchpoints

The contact points within a Customer Journey can be defined as the connection of the user with the actions that will allow him to advance throughout his journey, that is, his way to the conversion and final evaluation of the process. Establishing what those actions will be and taking into account the emotion that they will produce in the clients is essential. A trip should be planned where the balance of emotions always tends to be more positive than negative, thus avoiding the risk of losing the user.

In the entire Customer Journey there are two critical points of contact that put the final conversion at risk. First of all, the log in or registration process should be considered. This step always represents an annoying action for the user. Not only is the purchase process radically interrupted, but also a series of personal data is requested, the facilitation of which is not liked by the majority of the population. Secondly, the moment of payment is, without a doubt, the most complicated moment in this process. There is even a moment of final reconsideration in which many “near-conversions” tend to be lost.

Taking these two factors into account, it is easy to recognize the need for our registration and purchase process to guarantee maximum viability and accessibility. We should always disturb the user as little as possible, this is something that Google takes very seriously, as it demonstrates with its Core Web Vitals initiative.

As for the balance of emotions, these two critical moments should be surrounded by satisfactory actions that encourage the customer to continue to be proactive in terms of the purchase.

Step 5: Keep in mind the time frames

The fact that time is a very precious commodity does not go unnoticed in the 24/7 connected society in which we live. Efficient management of it must be an issue to take into account in our Customer Journey. To establish an adequate, coherent and viable timeline, you must base your decisions on the results offered in the first step: data analysis.

Step 6: Visualize the Customer Journey

The design and layout of the Customer Journey can be quite confusing if it is not planned well beforehand. Visualizing the final result is a very useful practice to avoid unexpected problems. Think that the result of the Customer journey must be visual, attractive and even, if possible, interactive. You must demonstrate to your clients that the purchase process that you will offer to their potential clients will be satisfactory. To do this, displaying a concise but complex map is an infallible technique.

Something that should be strictly prohibited when designing a Customer Journey is not taking into account the different platforms that the user has to go through. Currently, most communication strategies are based on transmedia experiences, in which the user goes from one platform to another performing different actions.

Considering each action in a unitary way for each platform is a mandatory practice to understand the emotional phases that our client will experience. As an example, you have to know if your strategy on Tik Tok should be launched before that of the rest of the networks or not. To do this, you will have to take into account the entire narrative of the action, as well as other factors related to the consumption habits that users make of the networks.

There are a number of elements that our user journey map should always contain. Among these elements, there is an indicator of the time that we estimate that the client will take to get from the first touchpoint to the last. In addition, it is essential that we include the platforms that will make up the aforementioned trajectory. However, there are other extra elements, which although they are never too much, their implementation tends to be optional.

The Customer Journey is a fundamental tool to find the strengths and weaknesses in the journey that our consumer makes when coming into contact with our product or service. If you want more information, do not hesitate to contact us. Write us!