5 questions you need to ask to craft the perfect customer journey

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The term “the customer is everything” is something that all business owners, marketers and brands know all too well – and this is something that advertently makes the customer experience one of the most important aspects of your business.

According to technological research and consulting firm Gartner, customer experience is the “perceptions and feelings evoked by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a provider’s products and services”.

In short, it is the lead-up to the final conversion or before a sale is made, and it is also the post-purchase experience that determines whether your customer will return.

Establishing a solid understanding of what your customers go through is key in effectively addressing pitfalls, of course, but it is also crucial when planning ahead so that you would know when to elicit a response or action from a customer at a certain point in the journey.

Here at SalesWorks, we have supported various brands across Southeast Asia in their growth and helped them penetrate new markets – and having been in the industry for more than 20 years, we have gathered valuable insight on customer journeys that affect overall customer acquisition costs and results.

There is nothing we enjoy more than helping other businesses and marketers succeed and so, to help you perfect that customer journey, we’ll be sharing the top five questions to ask when shaping up your strategy:

1. What are the touchpoints?

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First things first, where are your customers coming from? Identifying touchpoints is a broader analysis compared to just looking at where you’re getting the most traffic and conversion. A customer touchpoint can be anything from social media to websites or even a physical flyer.

Having a good grasp and extensive knowledge of your exact touchpoints allows you to maximise spending on channels with volume. On top of that, listing out all your customer touchpoints allows you to mark new touchpoints outside of what’s true and tested.

2. What are your customer personas?

At different buying stages, people behave and move differently. Creating a customer persona guide helps you distinguish between someone who has been doing market research for a few months and is ready to make their purchase, and someone who has only recently begun thinking about solving his or her particular need or problem.

This contributes to what elements are in place at that point in the customer journey. For example, you will have two choices; one is an easy check-out process for those who know what they are looking for, and the other is a comparison tool that educates and reassures an initial customer on what product or service area best suits their needs. What will serve your potential customer or buyer best? Be sure to really consider this, especially if you have certain goals that you need to achieve.

Can your customers find what they are looking for?

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Now that you know where your customers are coming from and how they behave, can they get to what they are looking for easily?

This is where you can leverage data such as website analytics to assess how customers are browsing. One of the tell-tale signs that the layout isn’t quite cutting it for them is how often they end up resorting to the search bars when they can’t find something.

The same goes for physical stores – it’s important that you conduct regular check-ins with your in-store sales team and capture valuable insight. For instance, understanding how often a customer asks for help to locate particular products can inform you of decisions around better product placements.

What are your reviews looking like?

Do you regularly analyse customer reviews? This is valuable in not just managing your brand reputation, but getting in a sense overall of what that customer journey is like.

It is human nature to make a fuss about something when it is unsatisfactory – be it an experience, service or product – thus keeping a close eye on reviews can help you pick up on common (or otherwise missed) pain points and allows you to strategise ways to address or fix those gaps.

The most important question: what is your employees’ performance like?

Regardless of what product or service you are selling, at the end of the day, one key variable in the mix is your customers’ interaction with your employees.

Make sure to include your employees in the evaluation of the customer journey, listen to their feedback and consider the tools or training that they need to perform their jobs efficiently.

Charter your path to a successful customer journey with SalesWorks

Let the team at SalesWorks help you build a seamless customer journey that takes care of all the different variables, such as analysing your touchpoints, as well as training and measuring the performance of your client-facing teams.

Drop us a note here and we’ll discuss how we can help you and your business or campaign!