The Crooked Path From Pain To Purchase: The Customer Journey

Janet Dulsky
Apr 23, 2015
3 min read

When you think about your customer’s purchase behavior, what do you think about? You probably think, maybe even obsessively (who are we kidding?), about the moment when they place their order, pull out their credit card, or say “yes.” But, how did they get to that moment? We don’t often think about what led up to that golden purchasing moment. And, we certainly don’t think about the purchasing process as a journey on which our customer embarks. But, we should…because that’s exactly what it is. My Journey To Buy A New Dresser Consider my journey to purchase a new dresser for my bedroom. My husband and I recently purchased a new mattress (ours was 10+ years old and sleep had become elusive on it) and got a deal – mattress plus bed frame. Fast forward a week and the new mattress and bed frame is in place. Suddenly, our old, hand-me down dresser was looking even more shabby than normal next to the new bed. My answer to the problem? We needed a new dresser. And, so my journey began.

Step 1: I searched for dressers online to see what was out there. Step 2: I asked my friends and family where they got their bedroom furniture. Step 3: I visited retail stores recommended by friends and family. At one store, I found something I liked. Step 4: Back online, I searched for that particular dresser to see if the store’s sale price was a good one.

Step 5: Satisfied that the store’s price was good, I dragged my husband in to see the dresser…the last step in the journey, or so I thought. He wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was, so we returned empty-handed on the pretense that we needed more time to think and search. Step 6: Finally, with the sale’s deadline fast approaching, we returned to the store to take another look at the dresser and we bought it. Few Journeys Go From Start To Finish Without A Detour Rarely, particularly with larger purchases, is the customer journey a straight path from identification of the need to purchase. Particularly in today’s world, with its over abundance of information readily available to everyone. A customer may start their journey, get sidetracked, double back, veer off on another path, and/or take a break somewhere in the middle. It’s critically important to understand the journey your customer takes as they move through the sales funnel. Visualizing that journey, as a map, game board or a comic strip, helps you figure out what content to create to help your customer move through their journey more easily and happily. Interesting Resources To Help You Map Your Customer’s Journey

Kerry Bodine gives a great video overview of what a customer journey map is and how it can be incredibly valuable for the whole organization, not just the marketing department
10 Critical Components of a Great Customer Journey Map by Jim Tincher offers a great list for creating your customer journey map. His #1, Represent Your Customer’s Perspective is the most critical. As I’ve said before, it’s not about you, it’s about your customer and their experience, their pain points, their discoveries, their emotions (good and bad).
Another, 10 Steps To Customer Journey Mapping by Arne Van Oosterom, had a fair bit overlap with Jim Tincher’s list. However, I really like Arne’s #10 step, Improve And Innovate. This is where you and your colleagues can uncover new ways of helping your customer – through awesome content that makes the journey easier and product/service changes that makes the experience with your brand even better than before!
I like Paul Boag’s perspective of customer journey as a story (because I love stories!) in this Smashing Magazine blog. I think he’s right on when he says, “Most of all, a customer journey map puts the user front and center in the organization’s thinking.”
The Rail Europe customer journey map from The Anatomy of an Experience Map by Chris Risdon is a good example of what a map actually looks like. I particularly like how they have separated out what the customer is Doing, Thinking and Feeling, all of which are critical for fully understanding your customer’s journey.