It’s not a path rather a maze! Customer journey starting from research to final purchase decision is not always frictionless. On their way, they bounce away due to poor navigation, response time delays from CSRs. Or perhaps due to unrealistic delivery charges over a product that they were willing to buy. An e-commerce seller needs to keep a track of each consumer path, and find out if it was filled with hurdles. While some issues pertaining to customer journey can be addressed in real-time, there are some that need long-term planning and a proactive approach.
Why map customer journey?
For starters customer journey mapping prepares retailers who aim to smoothen the path for an incoming customer. Furthermore, they would study the customer psychology to anticipate their shopping behavior and expectations. It’s an interesting exercise that begins by developing personas from the different types of customers interacting with the brand. For example, you can build a persona by identifying a group who actively search for coupons to make purchase decision. Some questions about the following Would enable you to build a persona:
Demographic
Psychographics
Actionable insights
The idea of building a persona is to internalize the prospects and reach out to them as real humans. Customers usually expect a personalized answer for their query.
Over 40 percent of consumers say it would be helpful if a physical store knew about their own online research conducted, prior to them purchasing (in-store)
Of course, the first stage of the consumer journey comprises of research. Today’s customer relies on numerous channels to find the relevant product. What comes after exploration?
Customer decision making
When customers reach a decision for purchase, it is never a linear path in e-commerce industry. Many times, they go back and forth between the actual trigger and finalization. Sometimes they are unclear about credit card charging procedure or perhaps faced shopping cart glitches. They may not necessarily use online platforms to interact with your brand but an ecommerce seller can map their journey by determining the following:
What’s the frequency of visits to my website?
What are the product pages this buyer is interested in?
Has the customer subscribed to the newsletter?
What was the pathway along different product pages?
Experience on e-commerce
A customer can possibly engage with your company, or visits a product page or goes through an online experience. However, in the online world, it could also be a combination of experience and engagement. The more touchpoint you have, the more complicated will be the maze but it will definitely maximize your brand reach. As an ecommerce seller, you have to work on 5 prime aspects once you have mapped the customer journey.
In the process, the highest value customer journeys’ are noted, their shopping pattern and behavior is studied. This enables ecommerce sellers to create valuable experiences for similar customers.
Let’s delve into some tips from the pros in ecommerce