The customer journey takes them all the way from being a stranger unaware of your business to being a loyal returning customer. This is a process you can review and adjust to improve and grow your business.
We believe there are 6 steps in a customer journey, these are:
Awareness The customer starts off with no idea you exist, they’re a stranger. First you need to gain awareness. This can be through social media, networking, advertising etc.
Interest They need to like your product or service and they need to relate to your messaging. You can tell somebody is interested in your brand when they start engaging with you. Liking, commenting and messaging you on social media and signing up to your mailing list are all signs that they are relating to your messaging and have an interest in your business.
Trust Most of the time a customer will need to see you show up time and time again relaying the same message, getting your unique selling point across, showing feedback and building their trust in you before they decide to purchase.
Purchase You have gone through the Know, Like, Trust stage and the customer is ready to buy, this process needs to be simple and clear, you don’t want them to give up here.
Experience This stage is everything that you have been working towards, this is your product or service that you are so passionate about, does it live up to the customers expectations, does it deliver what it is supposed to, do they get the end result they bought into?
Repeat or Advocacy This is where your business can grow if all the other steps were a success. Brand loyalty is built from a memorable and pleasant customer journey. Ask for reviews to help build the trust factor for new potential customers and gain more awareness by your happy customers shouting loud and proud about you!
Now we have mapped out the customer journey for you it is important to look at each stage and think about how you can make an impact, how can you get them to the next stage and most importantly is what you’re doing aligning with your brand.
You can also analyse each step to help you understand where you can improve. For example if you are great at getting your customers to know, like and trust you but you are seeing a large bottle neck at completing the purchase this indicates part of that step in the journey is putting your customers off. It could be too complicated to purchase or perhaps the price isn’t right for the customers you’re attracting (so is your price too low or too high or are you attracting the wrong type of customer?), ask yourself why, do some research and improve your customer journey to make more sales and grow your business.
Talk Soon, Faye (and Tasha)
If you want to learn more ways to show the essence behind your business, build a meaningful brand and attract more dream customers. Download our freebie '5 ways to attract your dream customer'.