The customer journey is a series of consumer journeys, from getting to know the product to decide to make a purchase.
There are six steps in the customer journey: introduction, seeking information, comparing, making purchases, using the product, and finally, giving a review. Come on, read a complete explanation of the customer journey stages in this iReap article.
1. Brand Awareness (Introduction)
The initial stage of the customer journey is building brand awareness. At this stage, customers get to know and interact with the brand, including your products and business services.
For example, target consumers find content posts on social media, ads from ads, or maybe banners on the street. Then, these consumers are interested in finding more information about your business.
2. Consideration (Seeking Information)
The information search stage encourages consumers who are already interested in the previous step to find as much information about your brand as possible.
They can do this information search by asking other people, searching the internet, or searching on social media.
Example: You want to lose weight to live a healthier life. Then when scrolling on social media, you see an advertisement about special diet catering.
Because you feel related to the ad, you also think that the product might solve the problem you are currently facing, namely being overweight. So, you start looking for as much information as possible about diet catering.
3. Comparing
After having a lot of information, consumers will immediately buy the product. Usually not. Prospective consumers will make a comparison first.
So, they will compare the effect they found with similar products. This process of comparing includes quality, price, service, variety of food, and so on.
Example: You compare healthy food catering A with healthy eating catering B based on several things, such as the variety and quality of food according to the price offered.
The results of this comparison will influence the consumer’s decision to buy which product.
4. Purchases
New consumers decide to purchase if they already know which product suits their needs.
In this stage, existing touchpoints, such as payment pages, physical store interactions, and ease of transactions, also influence consumer decisions to buy products according to their needs.
For example, consumers find that catering A and B have similar quality and price. But in the end, consumers buy at catering A because of the ease of transactions and the WhatsApp feature that allows them to do consultations.
5. Utilization (Use)
The utilization or use stage is where consumers start using the product. Based on the examples in the previous discussion, consumers have begun consuming catering A as a food menu that helps them lose weight.
6. Reviews (Customer Support)
The last and often overlooked stage by business owners is the review or customer support stage.
If you have previously established good relations with consumers, it will be easy to ask for reviews or reviews related to the consumer’s experience using the product.
How to ask for reviews when your relationship with consumers is not that close?
You can do it in many ways, for example, by creating surveys and sending them via email marketing, offering certain prizes for customers who do reviews or providing certain platforms/content for consumers to share experiences using products.
Product reviews are essential because you can reach more potential customers, get to know them, and try to buy your product. Because today’s consumers will read reviews before purchasing a product.
Recognizing the stages of the customer journey is very important because you can find out the process and factors influencing consumer decisions to buy or not buy your product.
Evaluation and analysis of customer behavior in shopping can also be the basis for creating content and marketing strategies. To do a good analysis, you must create a customer journey map. Let’s check here: What is a Customer Journey Map and How to Make it.
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