One of the areas often overlooked, especially by digital marketing agencies, is the customer journey (or experience in other words). It is one thing to implement a solid paid advertising campaign with high-performing landing pages, but this in itself isn’t enough anymore. A poor customer experience can’t improve sales. But imagine if you could achieve both lead generation and more sales all at once, making the bottom line far more appealing? According to Forrester about 70% of brands are falling short of, or barely meeting, customer expectations.

An End-to-end Customer Journey

End-to-end means just that – from the first customer touch point to even off-boarding, the process should be 1) seamless 2) consistent and 3) personable.

It starts with your foundation level marketing, but the best method to understand how you can not only improve, but delight your customers is by firstly mapping out every singular current touch point within your business.

Are these 3 factors recognisable to you at every touch point? If not, that’s where improvement can be achieved. The icing on the cake here is to identify how you can do it better than your competitors and make it a truly unique brand experience that will also create customer advocates. This is the absolute key to success.

How many touch points are in the customer journey?

It really depends on the business with some having a fairly short customer journey, like a transactional eCommerce store, to one that is ongoing like a Financial Advisor. A basic outline of different touch-points broken down may look like the below for a service-based business:

1. First brand visit – website, social media, advertising

2. Engagement with brand – Signing up to an email list or liking a social media page

3. Direct contact with brand – phone call or email sent to business/and then meeting with business

4. One-off purchase/or ongoing

And when we get down into the details of each of these touch points, there is also an entire customer journey that can be mapped out across each. There are so many layers to consider. The main area that is often overlooked by SMBs though, is that which addresses ongoing services or repeat purchases. This group has so much value and shouldn’t be overlooked. Create a brand experience that is so enjoyable that your customers would be crazy to leave.

How to Delight Customers

Don’t just extend, stretch as far as your business can. Creating a competitive edge within the customer journey will make a dramatic impact on revenue. Some examples, of how to delight customers may be:

eCommerce store:

• Offer first-time website visitors a % discount

• Offer repeat loyal purchases a % discount on their next order, free shipping or a surprise gift within the order itself

• Suggest new products that may suit their needs or interests based on a previous purchase

Service-based businesses:

• Responsive customer service-make sure you over-deliver

• Education and information (if relevant) – free webinars/seminars/EDMs/product updates

• Complimentary one-off solutions or exclusive special offers

• Personalised (but automated) anniversary/birthday emails/SMS

Delighting customers is key to a successful business. By understanding the customer journey and all of the touch points within it, you can create a memorable brand experience that will keep your customers coming back for more. And remember, you’re never done improving – always strive to be better than the competition by delivering an exceptional customer experience. Now, what are you waiting for-start putting these tips into action!