Customer Journey: what is it for?

The Customer Journey is the customer's journey from the first contact with the company until he/she makes the purchase and uses the after-sales services.

 Index:

• What is customer journey?
• What is it for? 
• What information does it include? Processes and stages
• How to use it for CX?

What is customer journey?

Part of the word gives us a clue of what it is, Customer Journey is the "customer journey", it is the path that the customer goes through since he/she needs a product, interacts with the company and makes the purchase. In a few words, these are steps that help to make a decision when buying or acquiring a service or product. Knowing all this process allows the brand to understand the needs and interactions in each contact of the clientele with the company.

 
After clarifying the concept we can visualize it in an example as normal as buying a cell phone, it starts from the point when it recognizes that it needs a new one, investigates which is the best option, compares among several until it makes the purchase, even when they recommend the brand. This procedure applies in any situation where the person requires a service or product, therefore, making this process easier is ideal for both those who acquire it and the company.

What is it for?

Now that we know what it means, it is important to know what it is for a company. This tool allows us to analyze the process of a buyer persona (potential customer), how he/she will behave from the moment he/she becomes aware of his/her desires and needs until, as we mentioned before, he/she makes a purchase and even frequents the brand.

Being able to see each step helps us to discover weak points in our own business and strengthen them, we can also innovate from the needs that are discovered from the customer, both for a product and within the process itself.

Later we will talk a little about how it can serve the company, but to name a few, improve the customer experience and marketing, audience segmentation and as mentioned before, innovation, among others.

What information does it include? Processes and stages:

We already knew in the concept that customer journey are steps, procedures or a guide for the customer, which for the effect of our methodology we will call buyer persona.

1. Awareness/recognition: this is the point at which the buyer persona knows about the existence of a product or service through some type of media such as social networks, advertisement or recommendations from other people. Also, it is the point that he/she recognizes that he/she has a problem and needs the solution.
2. Consideration: at this stage the potential consumer investigates other options that can solve his problem, makes comparisons between them (prices, benefits), and gets informed to make a decision.
3. Decision: as the process says, this is when they decide to buy the service or product.
4. Purchase: the customer acquires what he/she was looking for in our company.
5. Recommendation: After the purchase, they have the experience with the product and it depends on it if they recommend it to others.

How to use it for CX? 

In the previous points we could see why it is important to use this tool in a company, as it helps us to understand more about the process through which our customers go through, previously, we made known some points such as innovation in the process, product and marketing. If we look at it from the CX point of view, it is the journey from the moment they realize they have a need until they make the purchase and even beyond, such as recommendations, loyalty with the company.

Some of the other objectives that we can benefit from using the customer journey in the customer experience  customer experience are:

• Understand the customer: knowing the process from the moment people have the desire, their concerns and how they behave at each stage of the experience, helps us to create strategies and tools that adapt to what we discover with the customer journey.
• Identify deficiencies in the process: if we study the "customer journey" well, we could discover problems that end up negatively impacting the experience. By knowing these problems we can correct them and improve the customer experience.
• Innovation: Related to the previous two points, by understanding the needs and the customer journey, brands can identify opportunities and provide options that do not currently exist in other businesses.
• Personalize: From the same needs we can personalize the process and make the customer feel more comfort and compliance.

In conclusion, the customer journey tool can guide us in many processes and obtain various benefits for the company, so we invite you to investigate and learn more about this method.

If you want to read more about it: <<Introduction to the Customer Journey>>