This is how you can determine and improve the Customer Journey in your webshop

1. Why should online shops keep an eye on the customer journey?
2. What does the ideal customer journey in the webshop look like?
3. What phases does the customer journey in the webshop consist of?
4. With what tools can the customer journey in e-commerce be checked and optimized?
5. Conclusion

Under the term "Customer Journey", one understands the entire experience that customers have with a company, brand, or product. The customer journey thus extends from the first point of contact between the customers and the brand to the evaluation after the final purchase. The customer journey therefore includes all points of contact and interactions, including advertising, website visits, and experiences with customer service, and so much more.

Therefore, it is essential for companies to adapt the customer journey in the webshop as well as possible to the needs of the customers. The basic prerequisite for this is having an excellent understanding of the target audience. Because the better you know your own target audience, understand how they behave and what is going on inside them, the better you can tailor the customer journey exactly to them. The result is a better experience for customers, which is manifested in better click-through rates, a higher conversion rate, and a higher customer lifetime value.

The overarching goal is therefore to be able to predict the emotions, needs and expectations of the customers at every stage of their interaction with a company in order to satisfy these needs and thereby build long-term customer loyalty.

Depending on the industry, the product or service offered, the ideal customer journey in the online shop will look different each time. After all, a mechanic who wants to buy spare parts from a wholesaler has completely different needs than a mid-twenties person who is looking for a new iPhone case. It is therefore all the more important for companies to regularly analyze both their target group and the customer journey of their customers in order to identify potential for improvement.

Why should online shops keep an eye on the customer journey?

Many shop operators know their product/service inside and out. Often, however, they are so deeply involved in the subject matter that a certain blindness can set in. Therefore, it is important to constantly zoom out into the bird's eye view and put yourself in the customers' shoes to ensure that the customer journey can still fulfill all needs. An ideal customer journey has three decisive advantages:

1. Increased Customer Satisfaction and Retention

With a customer journey tailored to the target group and optimized, it will ensure a pleasant customer experience with the brand. Customers can seamlessly pursue their purchases and experience as little friction as possible. This not only strengthens the bond between the customer base and the company, but also increases the likelihood that customers will recommend the brand to friends or family. It also increases the loyalty of customers when they have a consistently positive experience with a company, thus reducing migration risk.

2. Greater Efficiency

Investing resources in optimizing the customer journey can at the same time reduce the amount of time spent and costs in other areas of the business and lead to higher efficiency. An adapted customer journey, for example, can help customers with their size selection, reducing complaints and returns. Customer support can also be relieved if objections or questions are solved in the customer journey by, for example, FAQ.

3. Competitive Advantage

Finally, an ideal customer journey gives the company a significant competitive advantage and ensures that it stands out from other competitors. After all, the likelihood is much higher that customers will buy again from a company where they have already had a positive experience.

So any company aiming for long-term growth should have an eye on the customer journey to ensure that customers are tied to the brand in the long term.

What does the ideal customer journey in the webshop look like?

The ideal customer journey in an online shop varies depending on the product/service and target audience, but generally should generate as little friction as possible among customers.

Firstly, the online shop should be logically, clearly and user-friendly designed so that customers can immediately find their way around and get to their destination with a few clicks. A further orientation aid for customers is good search functions or filter options, which help the customers directly reach the desired pages in the shop. The speed of the online shop is also relevant. Long loading times should be avoided so as not to lose customers in the online shop due to annoying waiting times.

In addition, all questions which could arise about the product or service should be answered in detail during the course of the customer journey. For instance, when jewelry shop customer support discovers that customers often have uncertainties about their ring size, a size guide should be added to make the decision as easy as possible for customers. Therefore, customers should be able to find all the key information they need for their purchasing decision on the product page. The same applies to product images - care should be taken to show the product from all the important angles, as well as in function. The images should of course be of good quality and generally fit the brand's visual language.

In many online shops, the product page offers the greatest potential for optimization. The questions that concern customers are often not obvious for shop owners who are already so deep into the subject matter. Therefore, it pays to talk regularly to existing customers as well as people who have not yet become customers in order to get feedback. After all, the product page is a very decisive stop in the customer journey, as this is where an intentional purchase intention is set for the first time. The perceived value of the product must be higher than the price of the product or service on this page.

Once customers have now set a purchase intention, the next step is the check out. This process should be as easy as possible and clearly organized to avoid causing uncertainty about the purchase decisions of the customers at the last moment. So there should be no unnecessary steps or distractions built in anymore and the payment process should run securely, quickly and reliably.

Right after payment completion, customers should receive an order confirmation which includes an overview of the order and the delivery information. This is followed by another update on the shipping status of the order so that customers can track when they can expect delivery.

If customers have problems or questions during and after the purchase process, customer service should be quick and accessible. Many online shops have set up a contact form for this, but customer questions can also be answered quickly via live chat or a telephone hotline. The most important thing is that customer service responds quickly and there are no uncertainties due to long waiting times.

After a customer has received his/her product, it makes sense for companies to ask again about satisfaction and a review. Also, introducing other products that could match the previous purchase of customers, via an email for instance, is a good move. For more measures to improve the customer journey, you can find them in the article, So you can improve your Customer Experience, on OMR Reviews.

What phases does the customer journey in the webshop consist of?

The customer journey in an online shop typically consists of six different phases that customers go through. Starting with the discovery of the product or service to the review of the purchase.

1. Awareness Phase

In the first phase of the customer journey, customers come into contact with the product for the first time and become aware of the brand. The trigger for this can be pretty much anything: a social media post, a friend's recommendation, a poster in the city or a TV commercial.

2. Consideration Phase

In the next phase, the customer's research begins, so they start to gather information about the product or service to support their purchasing decision, by sharing experiences with friends or family, viewing reviews and comparing various offerings.

3. Purchase phase

Once customers have made their purchasing decision, the purchase phase begins. The desired product is bought and information about the delivery and delivery is then provided.

4. Post-Purchase Phase

In the fourth phase of the customer journey, customers have already received and tested their product or service. Consequently, they can share their experiences with a review of the product or by orally recommending or dissuading from the purchase to people in their environment based on their level of satisfaction with the purchase experience.

5. Loyalty Phase

In the loyalty phase, customers decide either to stay loyal to the company through a positive purchasing experience, or they decide to test an offer from a competitor at their next purchase if their experience with the company did not run smoothly.

6. Advocacy Phase

In the last phase of the customer journey there is the option that enthusiastic customers will become a kind of brand ambassador, as they are particularly satisfied with their purchasing experiences and the contact with the company. Consequently, they will recommend the company to their acquaintances or on social media.

6 Phases of the Customer Journey

With what tools can the customer journey in e-commerce be checked and optimized?

To check and optimize your customer journey as a shop operator, plenty of apps are available for support.

The user behavior in the online shop can be very well analyzed with Google Analytics. The tools Hotjar and seoClarity are super helpful to look at heat maps and to understand the customer journey and the scroll behavior of shop visitors better. There are scroll maps, click maps, move maps and session recordings where you can look over the shoulder of the shop visitors to follow almost the entire customer journey. There are other Web Analytics Softwares and Tools, on OMR Reviews.

Conclusion

The customer journey describes the entire experience that customers have with a company and includes all points of contact and interactions of customers from the first contact to aftercare. Companies must adapt their customer journey to the needs and desires of their target group in order to offer an optimal customer experience and build long-term customer loyalty. An ideal customer journey increases customer satisfaction and retention, leads to greater efficiency, and gives the company a competitive advantage.