The customer journey describes every step a customer takes from their first contact with a brand to long after the purchase. Traditionally, we distinguish seven phases: awareness, consideration, decision, purchase, use, loyalty, and advocacy. Each phase calls for a different approach, different touchpoints, and different measurement methods. In this article, we answer the most frequently asked questions about the customer journey so you can get started right away.<\/p>\n
Before the purchase, a customer goes through three phases: awareness, consideration, and decision. In the awareness phase, someone discovers they have a need or problem. In the consideration phase, they compare options. In the decision phase, they choose a provider and take the step toward purchase.<\/p>\n
Each phase has its own characteristics that determine how you as an organisation need to be present:<\/p>\n
It is precisely in the decision phase that the Customer Effort Score (CES) is a valuable metric. It measures how much effort a customer has to put in to reach their goal. The lower the effort, the greater the chance of conversion.<\/p>\n
After the purchase, a customer goes through four phases: use, evaluation, loyalty, and advocacy. These are the phases that are most decisive for customer retention and long-term growth. Yet they receive the least attention in many organisations.<\/p>\n
In the use phase<\/strong>, the customer gets their first real experience with your product or service. Onboarding, customer service, and product experience set the tone here. A disappointing first experience is difficult to recover from.<\/p>\n Next comes the evaluation phase<\/strong>: the customer compares their expectation with reality. This is the ideal moment for a transactional customer satisfaction survey, directly after a touchpoint or delivery.<\/p>\n In the loyalty phase<\/strong>, the customer has built trust. They buy again, consciously choose you over the competition, and are less sensitive to price. Loyalty is not the same as satisfaction: a satisfied customer may leave tomorrow, a loyal customer stays.<\/p>\n The final phase is advocacy<\/strong>. The customer actively recommends you to others. These are the superpromoters: customers who not only come back, but also bring in new customers. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures exactly this willingness to recommend.<\/p>\n Discover what customers truly care about and give every team clear priorities to improve the customer experience in a focused way.<\/p>\n Discover CX\/KTO \u2192<\/a>\n<\/div>\n A customer journey is the actual journey a customer makes, with all the steps, experiences, and emotions that come with it. A customer journey map is the visual representation of that journey, designed to share insights within a team and identify areas for improvement. The journey exists in reality; the map is a tool to understand that reality.<\/p>\n The difference is practically relevant. Many organisations create a journey map based on assumptions: what do we think the customer experiences? That produces nice posters, but rarely concrete improvements. A journey map only becomes valuable when it is fed with real customer feedback per phase.<\/p>\n A good journey map contains at minimum:<\/p>\n The map is therefore not a finished product, but a living document that you update based on what customers tell you.<\/p>\n You map emotions by asking customers directly after an experience how they felt, what went well, and what could be improved. You do this with short, targeted questionnaires at the right moment in the customer journey. Scores alone are not enough: you need the story behind the number to understand what a customer truly experienced.<\/p>\n A number tells you that something went wrong; an open explanation tells you what went wrong and why. That combination makes it possible to see, per phase, where positive and negative emotions arise.<\/p>\nHow does a customer journey differ from a customer journey map?<\/h2>\n
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How do you map customer emotions per phase?<\/h2>\n