Customer Journey Development: creating better customer experiences for improved sales and retention

Think of some of the purchases you have made lately. How often did the experience of dealing with the company live up to expectations? And how often do you actually decide against doing business with a company because of their processes or staff?

It’s clear that there are many points along the ‘customer journey’ where a sale can be lost forever. This is why our consultancy service puts every moment from the time someone hears about your company through to the purchase itself under the microscope.

Marketing is about more than getting people interested

Too many organisations make the mistake of spending huge amounts on making promises to customers, rather than on delivering on those promises. Investment is made in getting customers to hear about a company or product, with the cost of e-marketing, direct mail advertising, PR and so on adding up. Investment is also made in trying to turn customers into repeat purchasers.

There's often something missing: central to the challenge of turning potential customers into actual customers is the ‘customer journey’. How many potential customers do you lose because your processes aren’t right? How many website visitors come onto your site wanting to buy, but end up clicking off and looking elsewhere?

What if you were losing half your potential customers and you could persuade even half of those to buy? You would immediately see an increase in sales but add in the life time value of these customers and the potential for huge additional profit is clear.

Realising this potential is what our Customer Journey Development service is all about.

Mapping your present customer journey

The first thing we will do is take a look at what is currently happening, identifying all the places where people hear about your organisation or come into contact with you. This is now more complex than ever, often involving some kind of offline influence, like an advertisement or a recommendation, as well as the customer’s visits to your website or other sites where you feature, in addition of course to contact in person or by phone.

The objective is to identify the touch points, look at the level of consistency across them and assess the customer’s overall experience of your organisation. It is rare that we find one thing fundamentally wrong: often it is many little things that together create frustration until some customers give up and go elsewhere. It might be that there are just not enough reasons and encouragement to buy. Studies into many organisations have shown significant uplifts in sales just by addressing this last point.

Creating a new process for great conversion performance

With the journey mapping completed we will work with you to develop an improved process so that more customers buy, buy more and come back to buy again. All kinds of issues may need to be addressed, from the usability of a website to your employees’ attitude and customer service abilities.

The new process will of course depend on your unique circumstances, but some common features usually include:

• A proper greeting in a timely fashion, where and how they decide.
• A choice of options and the ability to make an informed choice.
• Lots of reassurance that this is right place and this is a great purchase.
• Evidence of value for money.
• A simple and efficient purchase process.

This service is designed to help you get more from your marketing budget and will complement any customer retention scheme. It will also make you better able to differentiate yourself from competitors: convert more enquiries into business and you might not need to get drawn into the spiral of price slashing that many companies find it hard to escape from.

Leading our Customer Journey consultancy programme is Caroline Robertson, an experienced marketer who specialises in developing the customer experience. Please contact us for more information or to arrange a call or visit from Caroline.