The customer journey consists of five phases: awareness, consideration, purchase, usage, and loyalty. In each phase, a customer makes different considerations and has different expectations of your organisation. Understanding what happens in each phase allows you to steer more effectively toward a better customer experience and higher customer satisfaction. In this article, we answer the most frequently asked questions about the phases of the customer journey.
What steps does a customer go through in each phase?
In each phase of the customer journey, a customer follows a recognisable pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions. The five phases are: awareness, consideration, purchase, usage, and loyalty. Each phase requires a different approach on your part, because the customer has different questions and different experiences at every stage.
Here is what concretely happens in each phase:
- Awareness: The customer discovers that they have a need or problem. They encounter your brand for the first time, through a search query, word of mouth, or an advertisement.
- Consideration: The customer compares solutions and providers. They read reviews, visit your website, and seek advice from their network. Building trust is crucial in this phase.
- Purchase: The customer makes a decision and takes action. The experience surrounding the ordering process, the quote, or the first contact partly determines whether they start off satisfied.
- Usage: The customer experiences your product or service in practice. This is the phase in which the promise is either fulfilled or broken. The quality of delivery, communication, and service carries the most weight here.
- Loyalty: The customer decides whether to return, purchase more, and recommend you to others. A satisfied customer in this phase can grow into a superpromoter — someone who actively and enthusiastically recommends your organisation.
Discover what customers truly care about and give every team clear priorities to improve the customer experience in a targeted way.
How does the customer journey differ by business type or sector?
The five phases of the customer journey are universal, but the way they play out varies considerably by sector. The length of the journey, the most important touchpoints, and customer expectations all differ depending on the context in which you operate.
At a housing association, the customer journey can last years. A tenant moves through the usage phase on a daily basis, while the awareness and purchase phases may occur only once. The focus then lies on the quality of repairs, communication around maintenance, and the feeling of being heard.
In leisure and hospitality, such as at a theme park, the awareness and purchase phases take place online, but the actual experience is concentrated on the day of the visit itself. Speed, hospitality, and the atmosphere on site determine whether a guest returns.
In B2B services, multiple decision-makers are often involved in the consideration and purchase phases, and the usage phase is lengthy and intensive. Relationship management and proactive communication are decisive factors for loyalty in this context.
What is the difference between a customer journey and a touchpoint?
A customer journey is the complete trajectory a customer moves through, from the first moment of awareness all the way through to the loyalty phase. A touchpoint is a single point of contact within that journey, such as a phone call, an invoice, or a visit to a store. The customer journey is the whole; a touchpoint is a step within it.
The distinction matters because customers form their overall opinion based on the sum of touchpoints, but also on how well those touchpoints connect with one another. Excellent customer service does not automatically compensate for a poor onboarding experience. The customer experiences the journey as a whole, even if the individual moments are handled well.
Organisations that focus only on individual touchpoints miss the bigger picture. Those who map the customer journey as a whole can see where the real bottlenecks lie and which improvements have the greatest effect on the overall customer experience.
How do you map a customer journey?
You map a customer journey by visualising the steps a customer takes from the customer's own perspective, not from your internal processes. This starts with defining the phases, identifying the touchpoints within each phase, and collecting feedback at every relevant moment.
A practical approach in four steps:
- Define the phases: Determine which steps your customer goes through, from first contact to repeat purchase or recommendation.
- Map the touchpoints: Record every point of contact, both digital and physical. Think of your website, emails, phone calls, visits, and invoices.
- Collect customer feedback at each step: Ask customers how they experience each moment. Use targeted questions directly after a touchpoint for the most reliable insights.
- Analyse and prioritise: Determine which touchpoints have the greatest influence on satisfaction and loyalty. This tells you where improvement will deliver the most value.
A customer journey is never finished. Customer behaviour and expectations change, and a good map is updated regularly based on current feedback.
Which phase of the customer journey has the greatest impact on loyalty?
The usage phase generally has the greatest impact on customer loyalty. This is the phase in which the customer experiences your promise in practice. When that promise is fulfilled, trust grows. When it is broken, recovery is difficult — even if the rest of the customer journey went smoothly.
That said, the closing moments of an experience carry extra weight in the customer's memory. A pleasant conclusion to a project, a friendly final conversation, or a proactive check-in after delivery can positively influence the overall impression. This is also known as the "peak-end effect": people remember the peak and the end of an experience most vividly.
For organisations that want to drive loyalty, it pays to actively collect feedback specifically during the usage phase and at the end of the journey. This reveals not only what is going well, but also which moments prompt customers to return or recommend you to others.
How do you measure customer satisfaction per phase of the customer journey?
You measure customer satisfaction per phase of the customer journey by asking targeted questions at the right moments, directly tied to what the customer has just experienced. This is known as transactional customer research: collecting feedback immediately after a specific touchpoint, while the experience is still fresh.
Commonly used metrics per phase are:
- Awareness and consideration: Brand perception and expectation management are relevant here. How does the customer experience the first point of contact?
- Purchase: The Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it was to do business. A high level of effort in this phase is an early signal of drop-off.
- Usage: The CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) measures satisfaction with a specific interaction or delivery. This quickly reveals where service is falling short.
- Loyalty: The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures the extent to which customers recommend your organisation. A high NPS in this phase is an indicator of genuine loyalty.
Beyond the scores, it is at least as important to understand why a customer gives a particular score. A well-designed customer satisfaction survey combines a score with an open question and a driver analysis, so you can see not only that something is going wrong, but also what the cause is and which action will deliver the most improvement.
How CYS Group helps you measure the customer journey
CYS Group helps organisations not only map the customer journey, but also measure and improve it continuously. We do this with an approach that goes beyond simply collecting a score.
- Measuring per phase and per touchpoint: With our platform cx.management, you set up feedback at the moments that truly matter, from first contact to completion.
- From score to story: Our 3-question methodology and driver model reveal which factors shape the experience, without complex statistics.
- Direct follow-up: Through closed-loop case management, dissatisfied customers are quickly identified and followed up, so problems are resolved before they escalate.
- Prioritising what truly helps: The Priority Matrix shows which improvements have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Want to find out how to make the customer journey measurable in your organisation and translate it into concrete improvements? Get in touch and discover what CYS Group can do for you.
Make every experience count.
Frequently Asked Questions
Hoe lang duurt het gemiddeld om een klantreis volledig in kaart te brengen?
De doorlooptijd hangt sterk af van de complexiteit van je organisatie en het aantal touchpoints. Voor een eenvoudige B2C-klantreis kun je in een paar dagen een eerste versie opzetten; voor een complexe B2B-omgeving met meerdere beslissers en lange gebruiksfasen kan dit enkele weken in beslag nemen. Belangrijk is om te beginnen met een beperkte scope, bijvoorbeeld één klantsegment of één product, en van daaruit verder uit te bouwen. Een werkbare eerste versie is waardevoller dan een perfecte kaart die nooit af komt.
Wat zijn de meest voorkomende fouten bij het optimaliseren van de klantreis?
Een veelgemaakte fout is dat organisaties de klantreis vanuit hun eigen interne processen inrichten in plaats van vanuit het perspectief van de klant. Daarnaast richten veel bedrijven zich uitsluitend op de aankoopfase, terwijl juist de gebruiksfase en de overgang naar loyaliteit doorslaggevend zijn voor klantbehoud. Een andere valkuil is het meten zonder op te volgen: feedback ophalen zonder er concrete acties aan te koppelen ondermijnt het vertrouwen van klanten en levert geen verbeteringen op.
Hoe betrek je interne teams bij het verbeteren van de klantreis?
De klantreis raakt vrijwel alle afdelingen, van marketing en sales tot klantenservice en operations. Maak de klantreis visueel en deel die actief met alle betrokken teams, zodat iedereen ziet hoe hun werk bijdraagt aan de totale klantbeleving. Organiseer gezamenlijke sessies waarin je klantfeedback per fase bespreekt en prioriteiten stelt. Wanneer medewerkers direct zien welk effect hun handelen heeft op klanttevredenheid, groeit de intrinsieke motivatie om te verbeteren.
Kun je de klantreis ook gebruiken voor het verbeteren van de employee experience?
Absoluut. De klantreis en de employee journey zijn nauw met elkaar verbonden: medewerkers die goed ondersteund worden en begrijpen wat er van hen verwacht wordt, leveren aantoonbaar een betere klantbeleving. Door de klantreis naast de medewerkersreis te leggen, zie je snel op welke momenten interne processen of tools de dienstverlening belemmeren. Organisaties die beide journeys in samenhang bekijken, boeken sneller en duurzamere verbeteringen in klanttevredenheid.
Hoe vaak moet je de klantreis herzien of bijwerken?
Een klantreis is geen statisch document; klantgedrag, verwachtingen en externe omstandigheden veranderen voortdurend. Een praktische richtlijn is om de klantreis minimaal één keer per jaar grondig te evalueren en bij te werken op basis van actuele klantfeedback en marktinzichten. Daarnaast is het verstandig om de kaart direct te herzien bij grote veranderingen, zoals een nieuw product, een fusie of een aanpassing in je servicemodel. Continu meten via transactionele feedback helpt je om tussentijds snel knelpunten te signaleren zonder te wachten op een jaarlijkse evaluatie.
Wat is het verschil tussen een klantreis en een customer journey map?
De termen worden vaak door elkaar gebruikt, maar er is een nuanceverschil. De klantreis is het daadwerkelijke traject dat een klant doorloopt, met alle bijbehorende ervaringen, emoties en contactmomenten. Een customer journey map is de visuele weergave van die reis, een hulpmiddel om de klantreis inzichtelijk te maken voor teams en stakeholders. De kaart is dus een middel, geen doel op zich. Het gaat erom dat je de inzichten uit de kaart omzet in concrete verbeteracties die de werkelijke klantbeleving verbeteren.
Welke metric is het meest geschikt als ik maar op één KPI wil sturen voor de gehele klantreis?
Als je kiest voor één overkoepelende metric, is de Net Promoter Score (NPS) doorgaans de meest gebruikte keuze, omdat die een goede indicatie geeft van de totale klantbeleving én de bereidheid tot aanbeveling. Toch heeft één enkele metric altijd beperkingen: de NPS vertelt je wát de score is, maar niet waarom. Voor de meeste organisaties werkt een combinatie het beste, waarbij de NPS als strategische stuurindicator fungeert en aanvullende metrics zoals CSAT en CES inzicht geven op specifieke touchpoints in de reis.
