What is the customer journey?
The customer journey is the process of nurturing customers to keep their business. This process begins the moment your buyer goes from being a prospect to committing their cash or time. Nurturing customers to keep their value is important for any business. Not only is it cheaper to sell to existing customers than new ones, but returning customers are also more likely to spend more.
However, it makes sense to focus on optimising the buyer journey first, then turn to the customer journey once you have a decent bank of customers to nurture. The value of improving your customer journey can be measured with a solid set of KPIs.
Regular purchases, high value purchases and referrals can all be tracked to specific campaigns, while NPS can be measured through surveys.
How is it different from the buyer journey?
We all know that it costs up to five times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one. We also know that despite our best nurture efforts, customers do say goodbye.
Unlike the buyer journey, the primary purpose of the customer journey is not to educate the buyer, but to focus on strengthening their brand loyalty. It’s important because customers have more choice than ever, and can afford to shop around.
Unlike the buyer journey, the primary purpose of the customer journey is not to educate the buyer, but to focus on strengthening their brand loyalty. It’s important because customers have more choice than ever, and can afford to shop around.
How to implement the customer journey
You’ll want to map it out using the same format as for the buyer journey – by reviewing all the different touchpoints and considering:
- When are we required to get in touch with our customers, and how often does this need to happen? (For example, you may have a monthly billing system or annual planned preventive maintenance schedules.)
- What is the experience we want to convey at all these touchpoints?
- What value can we add at each stage? (For example, by informing customers about an upcoming change in regulation that you can help them prepare for.)
- How can you use content to make them laugh, learn and buy again?
- How can you leverage their business to further incentivise them to buy again, be a referral, or a brand ambassador? Can you invite them to beta launches of a new product, attend workshops, get first dibs on a product drop or take advantage of exclusive offers?
How do I measure the success of my customer journey efforts?
A key metric to measure success is Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV. This calculation aims to understand how much income a client or customer will bring to the business during the period that they do business with each other. Traditionally, businesses have relied on historical data to work out their calculation. The most basic is Average Purchase Value:
Average purchase value x average number of purchases = customer value
The figure can help business owners understand the viability of their customers, as well as learning what customers like (and dislike) about their products and services.
The key thing to bear in mind when considering CLV is:
- There are more than one CLV formulas – enabling you to measure other useful metrics such as frequency rate and average customer lifespan, as well as value;
- Predictive analytics are a useful enhancement to historical data, as they allow you to forecast customer behaviour and identify what buying patterns might be in the future.
In short, it is useful to set baseline CLV calculations prior to beginning your customer journey improvement initiatives.
