How customers make decisions
Understanding how customers compare products or make decisions helps you work with their behaviour instead of against it.
Customers make decisions for a mix of rational and emotional reasons.
- Sensory appeal – for example lighting, music and smells.
- Memory and emotions – offering rewards to loyal customers can help them build pleasant memories and positive associations with your brand.
- Needs and wants – basic products may target people’s needs, and premium products may attract people who want a certain brand or lifestyle.
Customer journey mapping
Understanding the journey your customers take to buy your product or service will help you create appropriate marketing content for them.
A customer journey involves the below steps. These steps can look very different depending on your brand, your product, and the market you’re selling in.
When drafting a customer journey, think about:
- what triggers a customer to start researching in the first place
- how you can follow up a sale to encourage loyalty.
Consider getting professional advice or training to fully understand customer journeys for your business.
The steps of a customer journey
- Step1
Researching
When customers are exploring options make sure they know about you and your offers.
- Step2
Shortlisting
Customers find information to help them narrow down possible options.
- Step3
Choosing
Customers pick one shortlisted option and decide where to buy it.
- Step4
Buying
Customers buy your product or service, make sure they can do this smoothly.
Using a customer relationship management (CRM) system
A CRM system collects and manages your customer data in one place, making it easier to understand how your customers behave.
Improving customer journeys
Studying the journey your customers take could show you how to improve their experience.
What you learn could help you:
- create a better product or service
- support customer with better information
- reach people with more effective promotion.
Use customer personas to improve your customer journeys. Pick a customer persona and identify the steps in their customer journey.
Each customer goes through these steps:
- Trigger – what happens before customers get to your shop front.
- Researching – customers shop around and look at different options, so you need to keep up their interest for your product or service.
- Shortlisting – convince your potential customers to consider your product or service.
- Choosing – customers focus on what matters most to them about the product or service.
- Buying – make it easy for customers to start and complete their purchase.
- Follow-up – think about keeping in touch with your customers after their purchase.
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