What our experience with a customer can teach us all about the Customer Decision Journey (Part 1)

Last month, I was contacted by a small business owner who had seen us on social media. She wanted to have her website re-designed, currently it wasn’t functioning well or looking good at all. As usual, we were glad to help upgrade her website and with the aim of getting her more business.

The conversation began well, we did research on her business, her website, her competitors, then we found ways we could elevate her site so people could better access and buy her products.

Then the difficult part came, we got to the conversation regarding price, she asked what the price would be for the service, I told her and she immediately cut the conversation short.

What just happened? We wondered, did she know the amount of work we would have to do on the site? Did she know how much better the site would be for business after our work was done? It was a combination of an e-commerce site, and a blog, she also wanted part of the site to detail the products her company offered.

To lose a customer this far out into the process was not funny. As it was, we had done so much work and more importantly, we were very excited to provide a great solution for another client.

After the conversation, I spoke with the team regarding what had happened. I realized we just cut short a client’s customer decision journey, and we lost a client and a relationship while at it.

This led me to think about one of the most important parts of the customer’s experience, which is the Customer Decision Journey.

The Customer Decision Journey is a client’s decision making process from the point they find out about your product or service to the point where they make a decision to purchase, many customers fall off the path before they make a purchase, and that, in my opinion is the most painful loss, because they were already considering making the purchase before they abandoned the journey.

There are 4 points in the customer decision journey (note that these phases are not necessarily chronological, as customers can jump to any point as several factors influence their decision):

1. The Consider phase, which is where the customer considers the brand, and contemplates the products they offer. Here the customer considers brands she’s been previously exposed to, via ads, either on social media or on bill boards, store displays and what have you.

2. The Evaluation phase, here the number of brands the customer is considering increases or decreases, as she seeks more information from the internet, and from family and friends regarding the brands and products she is considering. In this stage, a business has the power to begin to shape the customer’s point of view through other sources of information, usually from third-parties as they recommend the product or service.

3. The Buy phase, here the customer has made a decision and proceeds to buy the product or service. Keep in mind that the buyer’s decision to purchase can be changed last minute due to factors like pricing, (like my example above of what happened to us), interactions with sales people, even things like a product’s packaging can affect whether a purchase is made. This is where customer experience strategies must be put in place.

4. The Enjoy, Advocate and Bond phase, here the customer (hopefully) enjoys the product, if she enjoys it so much, she begins to bond with the brand and even starts to tell people about it. As we know, more and more these days, customers still interact with brands long after they have purchased, most of the time online through processes like reviews. If a customer is not happy with the product, they may never buy it again and even tell their family, friends and colleagues about their bad experience. On the other hand, if they love the product, they will keep buying it and begin to tell people about how good it is.

The Customer Decision Journey is a great opportunity to capture and keep customers, but the process is so fragile that a wrong step could cause you to loose a customer and many others.

We have since learned from that situation. I personally called the client and discussed with her, and from that conversation, we have now created unique packages to better suit start-ups and smaller businesses, so they get the full benefits of working with a great design agency.

During each point of the customer’s journey, care must be taken to help guide them along, up to the point where they buy and even long after they buy.

In the 2nd part of this series, I will break down different things you can do to help your customers successfully complete the journey. Keep an eye out for the next post.

Thanks for reading, and please share your thoughts!