It wasn’t too long ago that buying a product was as simple as walking into a shop, selecting a product, and paying for it. Now, the customer journey is so complex and connected to making a sale that companies are striving to understand every turn or pothole in the journey. It’s a similar process when striving to connect with stakeholders. To effectively reach them, you need to understand the ways they engage with your project, business, or product.

So, what is the customer journey, and where does it start and end?

The customer journey is true to its namesake. It’s the journey a customer takes while making a purchase or a decision. It begins before the customer or stakeholder has even interacted with your business, service or product. The starting point is when a person identifies the need to find a solution to a problem and follows a process like the below:

1. Awareness – the person becomes aware of the need to find a solution, make a purchase or access a service

2. Consideration – the person begins to think about the solution, product or service and researches options

3. Purchase – the person engages with your business and a transaction or interaction occurs

4. Retention – the stage where you consider how to continue engaging with the person to establish loyalty

5. Advocacy – the person becomes an advocate for your business, product or service and recommends you to others.

Customer journeys apply to more than just the sale of goods. In the context of a major project, the customer journey begins when the stakeholder first learns about the project and continues until the final engagement, presenting many opportunities to communicate with the stakeholder about the project. This can help build stronger stakeholder relationships by sharing useful and relevant information at key points throughout the project’s lifecycle. Understanding the customer journey also enables you to effectively identify and manage issues before they arise, and maximise opportunities and benefits.

Many marketers will recommend developing a customer journey map when considering a customer journey. This is a visual story that captures every stage of the full experience of the customer or stakeholder. Journey mapping can be an invaluable tool to identify how stakeholders engage with your business and any problem areas they can encounter.

In a corporate context, various levels of government often have projects that require community support and stakeholder endorsement to succeed. If the organisation’s engagement, marketing, and communication activities are not tailored to customer needs and intuitive to the customer journey, there's a risk of misfiring information and creating confusion. This could lead to stakeholders expressing frustration online or speaking negatively to others. This can be detrimental to projects and brands, especially in today's digital world, where negative feedback and reviews can be extremely damaging, sometimes irreversibly.

Understanding the customer journey is paramount to successful audience engagement and enhancing your brand position. It can also help you to understand stakeholders and the various points you can access and communicate with them. That makes this mapping exercise a valuable process for some of our clients. Thinking about your customers and stakeholders at every turn will help generate success.

For more information, ask our team by calling (08) 8981 6445.