Companies Can Now Shape Customers’ Decision Journeys

For many years now, consumers have had a tremendous power in their hands when about to make a purchasing decision. They could search and compare prices, comment on their experience while interacting with a brand, state their complaints out loud, and narrow down their options to eventually find the product or service that best suited their needs at the time with the use of technology.

While they have been holding the upper hand for quite some time now, things are changing. The consumer decision journey puts enormous pressure on brands to deliver above and beyond each and every time. In the past few years, though, companies have been stepping up and heavily investing in new technologies to re-establish a connection with shoppers and have a loud say on their purchasing decisions.

According to McKinsey & Cofeaturedmpany, brands today have the power to actively shape their customers’ journeys. How is it possible? By understanding that journey to the bone. Top performing companies are found to have implemented highly effective processes that allow them to capture insights regarding their customers and feed them back into their marketing campaigns to boost performance. Automation also plays a crucial role as it gives the opportunity to deliver personalised, consistent, and wowing customer experiences as well as the ability to jump into a situation and resolve a problem before it escalates into a much bigger issue.

The whole point is to be able to deliver value. Achieve that, and you will have drastically reduced the evaluation stages while skyrocketed your brand loyalty. That will give certainly you a distinct advantage over your competitors.

How can your company deliver that value?

It’s a matter of four capabilities that are closely connected to one another:

  1. Automation of processes – This will improve your customer’s experiences and make their journey easier. Simplify the steps they need to take while visiting your website or using your services and let them know that you can solve their problem or cover their need the best way possible.
  2. Customisable Experiences – Use the collected information about a customer (from past interactions or external sources) and personalise their experience. What do they like? What problem/need they are asking you to solve/cover? Optimise your steps accordingly.
  3. The ability to know where they are in their journey and guide them towards the next set of interactions – For example, if you have an online retail store, you can inform your customers of their order’s status on the home page. Ask yourself what you can do to make them take another step and make their experience more enjoyable.
  4. Use gathered data to find out what other services you can provide– Usually open-ended testing will help you identify and introduce new features and/or services. This will extend your interaction with your clients to new valuable sources. Airlines, for example, develop apps that give travellers the ability to use a taxi service and have a car pick them up upon arrival.

Success or failure is totally dependent on how able you are to treat your customers’ journeys like products in the cycle and give the required attention to providing remarkable journeys.

 

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