Today’s customers have endless opportunities at their fingertips when it comes to finding products and services that meet their needs. Not only is there lots of competition, but also there are so many streams of advertising and channels of social media, that the difference in a customer choosing one product over another may be as simple as seeing one ad on Facebook and not seeing another. Or seeing the ad on Instagram instead of on a website. These streams of advertising, customer exposure and market targeting are all components of the customer journey.
Understanding the journey
The customer journey is the path that your customer follows to get from the point where they are thinking about a product or service that they need, to then choosing and purchasing your product or service as the end result. This involves several stages, including everything from early company interaction, to purchasing the product, to customer service or complaints down the line.
Many current models depict the customer journey as an hourglass, whereby the purchase – at the narrowest part – is only a small component of what makes up a strong customer base, and therefore only a small component of what can help generate company revenue.
Understanding the customer journey is an incredibly important part of advertising and marketing, and represents a large opportunity for increasing revenue.
Generating revenue
The important part of this understanding comes from recognizing that how well a company can perform along a customer’s journey is more closely linked to economic incomes than performance at any single touchpoints alone. In other words, if your business is consistent across all segments of the customer experience, providing an overall superb business-to-customer interaction, this is more valuable to the customer, than say simply delivering an amazing product at the end but having less than amazing service along the way.
Moreover, delivering a flawless customer journey creates value for the customer in and of itself: the customer soon becomes happy to pay simply to have the hassle-free, enjoyable journey, as much as they are willing to pay for what they get at the end.
With this in mind, as a business, you can’t simply focus on whether your product or service is good enough: you have to focus on every aspect of getting your customer there, including marketing and advertising, customer service, troubleshooting and retention and expansion after the sale has been completed.
Don’t let yourself narrow in on the smallest part of the hourglass: the top and bottom are far bigger, and therefore need even more of your attention.
Understanding your customers and their journey is not easy. As you may have experienced, there are a lot of paths your potential customer can take that lead their journey away from you instead of toward you. Instead of watching this happen, contact the friendly team at Diffactory and learn how we can help you strategize a plan that will have potential customers on the journey to you, not to your competitor.
Visit our website and book in for an online consultation, or to connect with us in-office for a one-on-one session.