Build a measurable customer journey
Build a measurable customer journey
1. Set up customer surveys and interviews to gather information on how buyers found you and what influenced their choices.
Qualitative research always provides less data, but it’s much more insightful in nature. By asking the current buyers what their process was for both finding you and once they got to your site, you will get immediate insights into the why. Set up a post purchase survey so that new customers can tell you what was the driving factor in their decision.
2. Document the basic sales funnel through which a buyer moves on your site.
Start with the thank you page (last step) and map backward to the entry point. You don’t need to map everything. Look at the User Flow report in Google Analytics to find the most popular paths.
3. Identify points at which your customer interacts or comes into contact with your product or brand.
This can be before, during, or after buying a product from you. It’s important to note that not all customer interaction points are online. By conducting customer interviews, you get a fuller picture of the whole process. For example, you can ask your buyers about their experience with your product or how they learned about it.
4. Use qualitative and quantitative tools to determine the pain points or roadblocks in your customer's journey.
Quantitative tools like Google Analytics can shed light on the behaviors that users are exhibiting. Qualitative tools like HotJar can shed light on why users are exhibiting those behaviors. Micro-surveys work well here too.
5. Gather conversion data at each step along the funnel to identify pages that you need to optimize.
How many people are aware of my offer – saw the sales page? How many made it to the cart? How many bought? By answering these questions, we start to understand the conversion rates at every step and not just the total number of users to our site divided by the total number who bought.
6. Pinpoint where users are leaving your site. Make a plan to fix those areas.
The biggest drop-offs in your funnel are usually the areas that need the most attention. Within that, you can also start to segment visitors by traffic source and what their expectations are. For example, you shouldn’t be driving people to the sales page without first letting them know who you are and what your product is.
7. Test, optimize, and predict your customer journey from here on out.
Since your customers’ needs are constantly changing, your customer journey map should evolve to meet their expectations, too. Test, improve, and update your customer journey every 6 to 12 months.