digital journey stages

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Digital customer journeys: from awareness to advocacy.

13 min read Just understanding a customer’s needs and wants is no longer enough. You need to know not only what they think and feel about every online interaction with your product, but also what they might do in the future. This is where digital customer journey mapping comes into play.

Customers expect not only a high-quality digital experience ; they also expect to be treated as individuals. Their online experience must be personalized, relevant, and tailored to their wants, needs and interests. And where customers have high expectations , it follows that they have low tolerance for a below-par experience.

Now, more than ever, customers will abandon a purchase or a brand with a single click if they’re not happy, and move onto another brand that seamlessly delivers what they want. A recent study from the XM Institute asked large organizations to evaluate the quality of the experiences they deliver across different channels. Less than 30% rated any of their digital experiences as “good” or “very good”.

Modern customers are digital kangaroos, able to hop from brand to brand and product to product, on any device. Therefore, it’s essential to ensure that your brand’s path to purchase is as easy as possible, to stop them from hopping off to a competitor.

How do you do this? With digital customer journey mapping.

Free course: Customer journey management & improvement

What is a digital customer journey?

This is the path to purchase and retention – from first noticing the product to buying and using it. The journey combines all the touchpoints (i.e. points of interaction with your business) a customer has, and collects consumer data, transaction information, cross-device browsing history, and customer service interactions. There are five stages in the digital customer journey:

• Awareness: this is the point at which a customer notices your product . Awareness can come from a multitude of channels: social media and word of mouth from friends, influencers and brand advocates, search engine suggestions, adverts, marketing emails, blogs, SMS, apps, loyalty programs, and affiliate marketing.
• Consideration: A customer likes what they’ve seen, so they start to think about and research the product. They’ll visit your website, engage with a chatbot, sign up for free trials, demos, webinars, look at discounts, and check online reviews and testimonials.
• Purchase: To buy online, customers will create an account (or log into their existing one), fill their shopping cart, may be upsold or cross-sold, apply discounts, choose an electronic payment option, check out, and leave a review about the purchase.
• Experience: This is how well the order is fulfilled, and includes: shipping and delivery, tracking, online help center, support content (FAQs, instructions and assembly guides), chatbots and assisted chat, guarantees, follow-up emails and social media interactions.
• Loyalty: Loyalty programs , personalized rewards, newsletters, and social media interaction are all well and good. But creating an emotional connection with the customer, and ensuring they receive the value they expect from the brand is the new approach to loyalty: is the product good quality? Did the customer receive good support ?

What exactly is a digital customer journey map?

When you map out the digital journey graphically, including all the devices, and touchpoints your customer interacts with, you’ll understand how they make decisions, connect and interact with your brand. You can also identify and rectify any pain points that make the customer experience less than seamless.

What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

• You’ll walk in your customers’ (virtual) shoes : Employees sometimes find it difficult to empathize or understand the customer’s perspective. They may try to second guess what customers are feeling, rather than experiencing the journey themselves. By collecting feedback at touchpoints along the journey, the customer can express how they are feeling (frustrated? Happy? Disappointed? Cared for?) and employees can jump in to solve issues and make the customer experience smoother and more enjoyable.
• The whole company will work together: All too often, organizations work in silos: not only communication silos (when different teams don’t speak to each other) but also system and data silos that hold customer information that’s specific only to that part of the journey.  It’s the lack of a 360 view of the customer and seamless sharing of insight that creates this fragmented experience. With a customer journey map and centralized customer information, everyone, across all departments, knows where they fit in and what their role is in delivering a seamless experience.
•   You’ll inform your content marketing and content creation: Customers buy more if your content is relevant and targeted to them. Your customer journey map will help you build a full 360° picture of your customers: demographics , behavior , and psychographics , so you can target new and returning buyers.
• You’ll be able to predict customer behavior: Not only will journey mapping give you valuable insight into customers’ wants, needs, feelings, actions and aspirations, you’ll also be able to use the data to predict and influence how customers will behave.
• You’ll be able to identify gaps: when you map out each stage of the journey, and then map out your existing processes, you can not only uncover gaps, but also identify what your highest value journey touchpoints are. Without mapping, you could be focusing on optimizing touchpoints that are not really that influential, while missing a more important point.

Creating your digital customer journey map

The first thing to understand is that you have no control over a customer’s journey. A customer will go where they like, on whichever device or platform they choose, negotiating the touchpoints to achieve their goal of a satisfactory purchase. Your role is to build an omnichannel framework that anticipates where they are going to go and supports their goal.

• Base it on your sales funnel:  You will probably have the basis for your digital customer journey already – your online sales funnel (awareness, interest, decision, action). Use this as a guideline to define how many touchpoints your customers have, and how each interaction funnels into the next.
• Put your customer hat on: Walk through all the stages of your sales funnel as a customer would, noting the touchpoints. What social media would they interact with? Does your website have the right information? How easy is your booking process? How helpful are the after sales people? Is the loyalty scheme attractive? Would you be happy to recommend your own product ?
• Customize your touchpoints: You know which social media platform attracts most customers, how to respond to reviews so your business demonstrates it cares about customers, how your purchase process works, how good your aftersales team is, and how you reward loyal customers. These are the touchpoints that are specific to your company. When you bolt them onto your customer journey map and collect feedback about each of them, you’ll be able to see if they are performing as well as you think they are.
• Create personas: As companies scale, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of individual customers. This is where personas come in: these are fictitious customer types based on real customers, using demographic and psychographic profiles that include age, gender, socioeconomic background, lifestyle, interests, opinions, likes, dislikes, and attitudes. Each persona travels along their customer journey in a slightly different way, enabling a company to recognize the differences and cater to every type of customer.
• Use customer journey mapping software: Customer journey solutions are now so sophisticated that they can give real-time visualizations of your customers moving towards purchase and beyond, capturing their online interactions with your brand. AI-enabled software will flag any touchpoint where customers are struggling and highlight any places where they drop out. Not only can you jump in and fix the problems, you can also measure the impact that improving the customer experience at those points has on the company’s bottom line.

Data you can collect with digital customer journey mapping

These are just some of the types of data you can collect along your digital customer journey. When you feed all these into a single platform for analysis, you’ll be able to see how they relate to each other, and where they have knock-on effects.

• Web-browsing data: Every time someone clicks onto your website, you can track their activity on the site and see how they are interacting with your brand. You can also see what devices they are using to access your site.
• Mobile app data: If a customer is using your mobile app, they already have a degree of loyalty. Mobile apps yield more customer information from profiles, sign-ins, and location.
• Sales data: You can track a customer’s purchase history and shopping habits over time. Do they buy immediately, leave items in their shopping cart, or abandon their cart periodically? Don’t forget sales that didn’t happen – finding out why not is valuable for understanding what needs to improve.
• Advertising data: Who has clicked through to your site from an advertisement? This data will give you information about customers who are just starting out on their journey with you. You can marry advertising data with sales data to test the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
• Loyalty data: Your best customers are usually those in your loyalty program. By analyzing who they are and how they use your brand, you’ll be able to target people just like them.
• Survey data: Want to know what customers think of your brand? Ask them. Sending surveys at touchpoints along the customer journey can give you quality information about what’s working and what’s not.
• Social media listening: Increasingly, customers interact with brands through social media. Understanding the nature of this interaction can help develop your social, as well as general marketing strategies .
• Aftersales data: Information from your customer services department can reveal a wide range of issues: product quality, delivery reliability, areas that need product support. How customers are treated after they’ve made a purchase is pivotal to whether they become loyal, or not.

What about B2B digital customer journey mapping?

Whether you’re selling B2C or B2B, the main principles of journey mapping are the same. After all, although you are trading with companies, you are still selling to people within those companies – there are just more of them, and your feedback processes will need to be a little different.

When you map B2B journeys , you need to bear the following in mind:

• More types of people are involved in a B2B journey than a B2C one: Therefore, you’ll need to create more customer personas. For example, if you’re supplying an online finance platform, you will have to deal with the CIO, executives, managers, tech personnel and the call center assistants. All these people are your customers, segmented by persona.
• B2B customers are more valuable: Building business relationships can take years of investment, and if you lose a business customer, you might lose a lot of revenue as a result. You’ll need to prioritize and segment your customer personas by business value: the CIO has more purchasing power than a single call center assistant, for example.
• B2B customer feedback is different: Because much B2B is built on personal interaction and recommendation, business people often know each other. It’s more acceptable to pick up the phone and talk through a problem than send out a generic survey. Your feedback techniques will have to be much more personalized to each of your B2B customers, so that they feel heard, and still special.

An example of a customer journey map template

The brands that thrive in this new reality are those that understand what customers want in digital and take action to deliver the experiences they expect. Here’s a customer journey template for you to start mapping out your digital journey.

To learn more about customer journey management take a look at our free online course below:

Free course: Customer journey management & improvement

Related resources

Customer Journey

B2B Customer Journey 13 min read

Customer interactions 11 min read, consumer decision journey 14 min read, customer journey orchestration 12 min read, customer journey management 14 min read, customer journey stages 12 min read, buyer's journey 16 min read, request demo.

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Digital Customer Journey: Definition, Stages & Examples

Defining the digital customer journey (DCJ) our customers follow is critical to offering a good user experience. This process that finally leads to the purchase must be optimized if we want good results.

That is why more and more companies recommend products or services that might interest you. Even streaming services such as Hulu or Netflix suggest movies or series that you might like, personalizing user experience. The most exciting thing about this is that these strategies are not coincidental. There are many efforts behind it, such as building a great customer experience strategy through the use of tools like the customer journey .

LEARN ABOUT: Perfect Customer-First Strategy

One of the greatest challenges for companies is learning what their customers want. How do you live up to their expectations? What are the exact moments and places that most influence their buying decisions?

LEARN ABOUT: Time to Value

If you want to learn more about what is digital customer journey, its five stages and read some examples, this is the right article for you.

Content Index

• Digital Customer Journey Definition
• Optimizing your Digital Customer Journey

The five stages of the Digital Customer Journey

• Example of Digital Customer Journey

What is Digital Customer Journey?

The Digital Customer Journey (DCJ) is the process carried out by a user. It goes from the moment the user identifies they have a need, to the moment they acquire a product or service to satisfy or solve it.

This process or journey comprises five different phases: awareness, consideration, purchase, retention and customer advocacy . The user will decide on either buying or discarding your product/service, depending on how every interaction with your brand within those 5 phases makes them feel. And remember, the best way to attain a good visualization of user interactions, touchpoints and all stages is through a user journey map .

In each phase there are different touchpoints . This term refers to the contact points where the user and the company meet. The DCJ is built to identify these points of contact. Of course, this journey is not the same for all users. Depending on the type of consumer, their trip will be different; thus, their relationship with these customer points of contact will vary.

The DCJ is not only a descriptive tool of a process but also a practical one. It is the first step in an optimization process that leads to better sales opportunities and more satisfied customers.

Learn how to create your  customer journey canvas  and download our template.

Why optimizing your Digital Customer Journey is a good idea?

The focus on customer experience has surpassed the price and the product as a brand differentiator. The strategy’s success is based on the communication of different areas within an organization. But, mainly, on understanding the importance of their role in digital customer experience .

Today, the main trends that stand out in the management of relationships between companies and clients are: a more informed, hyper-connected, self-sufficient, demanding and much more emotional consumer. Similarly, the transformation of the opening of multiple channels and their correct integration to the contact, self-service and customer experience channels regarding a product or service.

Here lies the importance of the Digital Customer Journey. While the purpose of any marketing strategy is to execute a purchase, the process the customer goes through is now as relevant as the purchase itself. In other words, if the customer does not have a pleasant, frictionless experience during their purchase journey, they will most likely not reach their destination.

If you like reading about what is the digital customer journey, you might find interesting learning about customer journey vs customer experience: the difference .

Let’s look at the different phases in the case of the online customer journey.

Awareness (pre-sale)

The customer awareness or discovery phase is where the user realizes they have a need. Keep in mind that “the need” is a broad concept in the customer journey.

A need may be, for example, that you want to try the new flavor of a brand of candies. You didn’t know that flavor existed, and suddenly, you discover it. Or, for example, you feel like getting a massage based on a post you saw on your Instagram feed.

Discovery can be offline, for example, in a conversation with friends, in a shop window, or in a TV commercial, before going online. In general, the entire customer journey can start offline and go digital.

LEARN ABOUT:  Customer Journey Mapping Tools

If you like reading about customer journey, you might find valuble to learn how to build your own Customer Journey Map .

In this case, where we’re talking about a 100% digital process, the most common way to get to the awareness phase is through advertising, whether on social networks, websites, or search engines or even through sponsored articles in the media.

It is also possible to discover it through recommendations on social networks, where influencer marketing strategies come into play.

Be that as it may, this first stage is passive for the user, requiring no effort from the user’s standpoint. They discover they have a need based on observing Ads or by listening to a friend talk about a specific brand, for instance. If they decide to investigate further, we move on to the next phase.

2. Consideration (pre-sale)

Digital consideration is the second phase of the digital customer journey. At this point, the user begins to think about what they have discovered and consider if and where to buy it.

Here it begins the search process. The brand can reach the user through SEO and SEM content strategy by sending out email campaigns, reviews on third-party websites or sponsored articles, etc…

Consideration is perhaps the stage where most companies invest more money since it is where everything is at stake. The business needs to attract the user with various digital marketing strategies in order to compete and win the first spot in the mind of the consumer. 

At this point is when the potential client has to understand what you offer that the competition does not give. And as we have already mentioned, it is not only an informative process but also an emotional one.

At the consideration stage, it is crucial to differentiate from the competition and offer the added value of your brand. It is not only about solving the need once but about truly understanding the user persona that is targeted so that later down the line, they become loyal customers. 

3. Purchase (post-sale)

Finally, it’s time to buy. We cannot express enough how the shopping experience in a digital customer journey is crucial. For instance, if the website usability is poor, you leave. In case there are too many steps or you can’t pay with your preferred payment method, you also leave.

Cart abandonment is a crucial problem in many e-commerce. Within the company’s digitization strategy, optimizing the sales process is essential to not lose all previous work.

Your potential client is lost because they instead go to an alternative where the process is more accessible. For this, it is necessary to make the purchase as easy and frictionless as possible for the customer. If they feel that it is becoming a hassle to purchase something at your online commerce, they turn around to your competition. 

You can make the purchase process easier by offering alternatives such as data autofill, having different transaction payment methods or providing competitive shipping options, for instance. These actions are essential, so the purchase is not lost at the last moment.

4. Retention (post-sale)

Once the purchase is over, we move on to retention. If your experience in customer service has been positive, it will be much easier to convince your customers to stay. 

How do you do that? It could be a telephone after-sales service, reaching out to the customer through a digital channel and touching base with them to offer extra support with their purchase. Responding promptly to the customer will aid to get a better impression of your business and, most importantly, increase the customer’s lifetime cycle rate. 

There are different strategies your marketing and customer success team can implement to build longstanding customer relationships. That could be sending out additional resources to add more value to the purchase, creating a customer online community, and keeping the CX experts following up with online surveys to learn more about their current experience with the brand, to name a few.

In the Retention phase, the key is to make the client feel that they’re important to the business. 

5. Advocacy (this is where every business wants customers on)

Lastly, we need these satisfied customers to recommend us to other potential customers. In this sense, the voice of the customer (VOC) must be listened to. As we explained in our article on what VOC means, this methodology puts the customer and their impressions at the center.

If you find it interesting reading about the voice of the customer, you might want to review these VOC survey questions and templates . 

We can know what our NPS is and what we need to change to achieve these recommendations through customer satisfaction surveys. Considering that retaining a customer is much more profitable than getting a new one, profitability will most likely skyrocket if our retained customers recommend us.

Example of Digital Customer Journey: Purchasing a guitar online

Now that every stage of the digital customer journey is explained let’s go over all of the phases in a simple example. 

Let’s say you want to purchase a guitar. In the awareness phase, you discover you’d like to learn to play a musical instrument. Maybe the mobile phone “heard you” speak with your friends about your interest to learn to play the guitar, and now your social media and every website you visit are bursting with Ads of companies wanting to sell you the “best guitar in the market.” The awareness or discovery stage doesn’t require any effort from the user other than reading the Ads that show up on your digital channels. 

The next stage, consideration , is when you start to notice you might ponder on the idea of the purchasing process of a guitar. Now the search process has begun, and you’re actively looking for the best guitar that fits you. In this stage, you could be doing things like watching YouTube reviews, reading a blog post about “the top 10 best guitar alternatives for beginners,” and even comparing prices from different e-commerces such as Amazon, Best Buy, or an official musical instruments online store. Once it’s decided where you want to purchase your product, you go to their website to order it. But then you get a couple of unpleasant surprises. The website user experience is terrible because the pages take a lot of time to load. Even when you manage to overcome such inconvenience with a lot of patience, the site marks an error whenever you’re trying to do the transaction with your card. Given your e-shopping experience got stuck, now you go to your second online shop website of preference. This time you can navigate through the website quite faster, and the payment transaction with your card gets through with ease. 

The second option you had to go for instead of the first one continues bringing in a great customer experience. What happens in the retention stage? Well, they said the approximate delivery date was going to be in a week, but you got your guitar within 3 days! Plus, it comes in a nice box with a personalized note from the business thanking you for the purchase and offering flexible return policies. Besides, you’ve also received downloadable resources and provided customer access to an online community portal where you can connect with other users and get support from the company’s Customer Success team. All of these actions may seem like a bonus, but they aim to make the client feel special, so the next time you need to purchase any other instrument or an extra set of new strings, you buy with them.     

Finally, if you’re happy with the guitar and the service they continually provide post-sale, you might start recommending them to other people, be it in person or by writing a review on their website.

This may take some time to get here, so the sum of what the business does in all the previous stages (especially retention) is critical.

 This is the part where you, as their customer, are so happy with the product and their service that you start genuinely advocating for them.

LEARN ABOUT: Consumer Decision Journey

In conclusion…

• The Digital Customer journey is the process carried out by a user when interacting with your brand to satisfy a need with your product or service. 
• There are 5 stages the user goes through Discovery, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy.
• Touchpoints are a critical part of a DCJ because they are your company’s points of customer contact, end to end.
• The success of your company relies on the optimization of your DCJ. Remember, the customer’s process is as relevant as the purchase itself.
• Great customer experiences can be obtained through the use of a powerful customer experience management platform.

If you’d like to boost customer loyalty at your company, QuestionPro CX can help you achieve it with our extensive toolbox set of features, including the creation and deployment of CX surveys, NPS flexible dashboards, sentiment analysis , customer churn prediction, closed-loop feedback system to address customer issues better, and more! 

Do you have a CX program and don’t know where to start or how to incorporate a CEM? Share what’s your current business challenge, and we will offer you different proposals tailored to your needs.

Try QuestionPro CX today if you want to boost customer loyalty by efficiently processing large amounts of data in real-time and turning them into fact-driven action support. 

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Digital Customer Journeys: The Ultimate Guide to Optimising Them Properly

Marie Jehanne

April 28, 2021 | 4 min read

Last Updated: Oct 3, 2023

Table of Contents

What is the digital customer journey?

The influence of digital on the customer journey, the different stages of the digital customer journey, why analyze your digital customer journey, how to optimize your digital customer journey, and finally, here are 4 examples of digital customer journeys.

Listen the article in audio format:

By multiplying the available points of contact between brands and customers, digital technology has considerably complicated the customer journey.

The recent pandemic has further reinforced this trend by converting “brick and mortar” buyers into e-buyers in the space of a few short weeks.

In this guide, you’ll discover why analyzing the digital customer journey is fundamental to business success, plus how to optimize it with illustrated examples of inspiring customer journeys.

Uncover trends for crucial digital KPIs

Access the 2024 Digital Experience Benchmarks Report and Interactive Explorer.

The digital customer journey is the path followed by an internet user – from the awareness stage right through to the purchase stage.

Essentially, it covers every single interaction that takes place online between the customer and the brand throughout the buying journey.

In some cases, the digital customer journey can extend beyond the act of purchase or subscription; to customer loyalty. For example, the brand may offer personalized post-sale offers or adapted content to improve the buyer’s knowledge and experience of their newly purchased product.

Initially, it was mostly the banking and insurance sectors that studied the customer journey in detail, due to the long and personal relationships they built with their customers over time.

But today, the digital customer journey is a hot topic amongst any brand that understands the breadth and importance of digital.

Over the last few years, the digital boom has impacted this journey by adding new stages – such as websites and blogs – alongside traditional physical stores, TV and radio advertisements, and catalogs. Closely followed by social media, voice assistants, chatbots, and even display advertising, the emergence of these new marketing channels has added layers of complexity to the digital customer journey.

And because no industry is the same, the customer journey often takes different forms. For example, within a hospital environment, we call it a “patient journey” instead. However, a patient’s journey – from making an appointment on the internet to consulting the results online – has very little in common with the journey of a customer looking to purchase a new kitchen.

You could argue (with some degree of truth) that the digital world has given us as many stages of the buyer’s journey as there are grains of sand on the beach. And to be honest, you wouldn’t be far off.

But, you’ll be glad to know there are three essential buying stages that cover every customer journey – no matter the industry. Let’s take a look…

1 – Awareness: the discovery phase

The discovery stage is when your customer realizes they don’t have something, and they need something. For example, this could be replacing a broken refrigerator or buying a second bike that’s more suitable for cycling to work.

And what does the user do? They turn to the internet to do some research. This means, as a brand, you need to make sure you’re answering their questions. You’re not selling to them just yet, but you’re answering their questions and they’re starting to think you know what you’re talking about. The content you’ll create for the awareness stage is tutorials, blog posts, and e-books.

2 – Consideration: the evaluation phase

Once the customer has consulted various sources to help answer their problem, they’ll start to think about which solution is best for them.

To do this, they’ll compare their options by reading buying guides, browsing customer reviews, and watching product videos to choose the best option for their budget. This means as a brand, you’ll need to make sure you have this content on hand to help your potential customers decide you’re their best option.

3 – Decision: the selection phase

The decision phase is the final step. Customers know exactly which product meets their needs and must now choose from the various options on offer. As a brand, it’s time to ensure you have the right content to demonstrate your comparative advantage over your competitors.

If you can, why not let the customer make up their own mind with a free test period? This could dramatically help to remove any final obstacles, so be generous if you can!

Digital customer journey mapping has several advantages, such as:

• Detecting the points of friction encountered by the customer which lead them to modify, postpone or cancel their project
• Better understanding customer needs and habits to offer them the most suitable content at the best time
• Giving you insights to adjust your marketing efforts towards the most profitable or high potential opportunities

Focus on an omnichannel approach

In today’s world, the customer journey needs to meet the demands of multiple channels.

To do this, we need to adopt an “omnichannel” approach which gives equal importance to all stages of the journey.

The objective? To build a “seamless” user experience; one that’s consistent across all channels – whether telephone, social media, or your website.

The time for compartmentalization is over.

Get everyone involved

Reshaping and optimizing your digital customer journey isn’t a small task. In fact, it can lead to huge changes within your business.

That’s why involving all employees in the process is essential for maintaining consistency and output as you optimize your customer journey.

Feedback from each department is invaluable and will help contribute to the development of a “concrete” path based on reliable data.

Take a product tour

Get to grips with Contentsquare fundamentals with this 6 minute product tour.

Personalize the experience

In today’s heavily saturated market, personalization can help you make a difference and stand out amongst the crowd.

Nevertheless, personalizing your journey effectively requires excellent knowledge of your business goals and a clear understanding of your target personas. With these things covered, you’ll be able to determine the content to display on your site or application according to age, location, areas of interest, previous searches, or purchases…

Contentsquare’s customer journey analysis tools can help you do this.

We wouldn’t want to finish this article without sharing some examples of digital customer journeys that are as different as they are inspiring.

Example 1: Digital Experience

This customer journey shows clearly how a chocolate brand might create new followers; from discovering products by chance in the street to transforming the customer into a true ambassador.

Example 2: UXFirm

This second example from UXFirm has a different objective and emphasizes the experience of the customer at each stage – from awareness to purchase.

Example 3: wcig

The third example describes in detail each stage and obstacle faced by those with disabilities in a working environment. A very complicated (but enlightening) example of a customer journey!

Example 4: Zendesk

Finally, let’s conclude with an example of a digital customer journey by Zendesk that clearly shows the dynamics of customer acquisition, retention, and loss.

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Passionate about digital for several years, I am the Inbound Content Manager SEO at Contentsquare based in France. My goal? To teach you how to improve the digital CX of your website and activate the right acquisition levers to generate more traffic on your site and therefore…more sales!

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Jakub Spiryn

Digital customer journey stages exposed: From awareness to purchase and beyond

 key takeaways.

Understand the digital customer journey, its five phases and different examples 

Learn effective methods to optimize throughout the digital customer journey

Discover how digital experience intelligence tools work and take insights further

What is the digital customer journey?

The digital customer journey captures the five steps a consumer takes on their path to conversion, such as purchase. This includes all customer touchpoints where there is engagement–from interest in the product, to making contact with the brand and the further path down the journey to purchase.

It’s important to know that once the sale is made, the journey continues to the “end”—this is where customer loyalty strategies encourage customers to repeat buying from their company in the future and creating referrals to their business. 

All of these customer touchpoints are essential to a brand because most customers need to be exposed to and engage with a brand or product many times before they decide to click “buy.” These touchpoints can include both physical and digital marketing efforts—from physical and online ads, to reviews to word-of-mouth recommendations and more. 

It’s also critical to understand that within each user’s journey, there are multiple touchpoints, and they may go back and forth between them, zig-zagging towards a purchase. For instance,  87% start their research online , but they may visit a store to see the product, request product information from your website, and then compare the shop on their mobile device. 

The importance of digital customer journeys in today’s world

In the traditional world of marketing, organizations started off with a product, did some TV or radio ads, and then customers went to brick and mortar shops to choose among brands and buy a product.

Today’s digital customer experience is vastly different. There are many more touch points to connect with consumers. They are exposed to digital media channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) and an array of online platforms (websites, forums, blogs, etc.).

There are also many more ways to buy the product, including through a website, mobile app, in the physical store–or even a combination of these with the rise of click and collect. Now we’re even ordering with our voice via our voice-assisted devices.

The average household today has more than 22 connected devices . Our customer journey—from awareness to purchase—has become one of many pathways and multiple devices.

And each of these devices has multiple points of interaction. From calls and texts to messaging apps, social media, Spotify and browsing on Amazon, the average person spends 5 hours and 24 minutes on their phone each day . And at least 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase using their mobile device over the past 6 months.

Think about the last product you bought. How many times did you interact with the brand online as you did your research? How many times did you visit the brand’s website before you bought? Did you interact with their web chat or online help?

Clearly there are more online touchpoints and digital customer journey stages than ever before, and businesses need a way to follow, map and understand this customer journey from beginning to end.

The different stages of the digital customer journey

One of the biggest challenges for companies is understanding motivations and influences that drive a prospect to become a customer. That information is critical to improving the digital customer journey from awareness through advocacy. 

Each pathway to purchase will be different, but at some point they’ll go through these stages. 

Awareness : This is the discovery phase. A consumer determines that they have a need for a product and starts investigating solutions. This is when people turn to the web to do research, looking at a variety of content–from articles to blogs to other educational content. This is the time you want to be noticed.

Consideration : During this stage, a consumer will start comparing different solutions and evaluate the pros and cons. This phase may involve visiting your website, attending a webinar, requesting a free trial and other actions to move closer to a decision. Ideally, the consumer is looking at your product as a viable solution to their needs.

Decision/purchase: This stage is that pivotal moment when the potential buyer has decided that your product is the best choice and wants to buy it. They will create an account, start shopping and buy your product. During this all-important decision phase, the overall experience will influence future behavior–the speed of purchase, delivery and communication.

Retention/loyalty: Once the shopper has moved to buyer, this is the time to nurture them to be a loyal customer. Post-purchase, the product should work as expected or exceed expectations and include strong support as needed. It’s also the time to optimize opportunities for future purchases, leveraging digital analytics to personalize pages, offer rewards and other loyalty techniques.

Advocacy: This phase of the customer journey pushes your brand forward through the power of a happy customer. This customer has established an emotional connection with your company, will purchase in the future and recommends your product to others through word-of-mouth referrals, reviews, customer generated content and other endorsements.

To retain customers and turn them into advocates, you need to understand how they really experience your brand or product. Customer journey analytics can help you see where customers are struggling, dropping off and errors across your website or app so you can optimize the customer journey and keep customers happy and build loyalty. 

Examples of digital customer journeys

Every company has five stages to the digital customer journey, but the path to purchase and beyond will depend on the product and touchpoints in the process. Here are examples from different industries that illustrate the variety of strategies and approaches.

Retail and e-commerce digital customer journey examples

Online holiday gift purchase

Online cosmetics purchase

Food and beverage digital customer journey example

Online food order from a restaurant

Travel and hospitality digital customer journey example

Leisure traveller journey

Telecom digital customer journey example

Journey to choosing a new mobile phone

Health insurance digital customer journey

Banking and financial services

Internet banking customer journey

Why is it important to analyze and optimize the digital customer journey?

In today's digital age, businesses have to adapt to the changing customer behavior to remain competitive. As noted, customers have access to more information than ever before, which has made them more empowered and demanding. Therefore, businesses have to ensure that they are providing an exceptional customer experience at every touchpoint of the customer journey. This is where the analysis and optimization of the digital customer journey come in.

Importance of analyzing the digital customer journey

Analyzing the digital customer journey helps businesses understand how customers are interacting with their brand online. It provides insights into how customers are finding and engaging with their website, what content is resonating with them, and what pain points they're experiencing. This information helps businesses identify areas where they can improve the customer experience and increase conversions.

Optimizing the digital customer journey

Optimizing the digital customer journey involves making improvements to the touchpoints to provide a seamless and personalized customer experience. This includes optimizing the website's user experience, creating targeted content, and automating email communications. By doing this, businesses can reduce friction in the customer journey and increase the chances of conversion.

Benefits of analyzing and optimizing the digital customer journey

Analyzing and optimizing the digital customer journey provides several benefits to businesses, including:

Increased conversions: By reducing friction in the customer journey and providing a personalized experience, businesses can increase the chances of conversion.

Improved customer experience: By addressing pain points and providing relevant information, businesses can improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Better insights: By analyzing the customer journey, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can inform marketing and product development strategies.

Competitive advantage: By providing an exceptional customer experience, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and increase customer loyalty.

How to analyze and optimize the digital customer journey

Now that we have a better understanding of the digital customer journey, we can explore how to analyze and optimize it. In this section, we will outline several key steps businesses can take to improve their digital customer experience.

Step 1: Understand Your Customers

To optimize the digital customer journey, businesses need to have a deep understanding of their customers. A great way to get started is building out customer personas. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They help build an understanding of your customers' needs, preferences, and behaviors - what you need to craft content and messages that resonate with them. To create customer personas, you need to gather demographic data, psychographic data, and behavioral data.

Step 2: Map Out the Customer Journey

Once businesses have a better understanding of their customers, they can create a customer journey map to visualize the various stages of the digital customer journey. Be sure to read our complete guide to customer journey mapping where we discuss how to create an effective customer journey map and provide examples.

Step 3: Identify Pain Points and Opportunities

With a customer journey map in place, businesses can identify pain points and opportunities for improvement. Leveraging digital analytics tools to identify points of friction at important touchpoints in the digital journey is imperative when trying to identify opportunities for optimization. Further on we’ll discuss how you can leverage digital experience intelligence to surface actionable insights connected to real pain points, low customer satisfaction scores and revenue loss.

Step 4: Improve Website Usability

A crucial aspect of optimizing the digital customer journey is improving website usability. One of the biggest deal-breakers for a potential buyer is the purchase process. Cart abandonment is almost 70% across industries. How can you make it seamless and fast? Offer multiple ways of paying, like digital wallets, one-click purchases and guest check out for new customers. Clearly state shipping and other costs prior to purchase. Activate omnichannel purchasing methods through social shopping and headless check out.

Step 5: Personalize the Experience

Personalization is becoming increasingly important in the digital customer journey. Ninety percent of customers are more likely to buy from a business that personalizes the customer experience . This can include product recommendations based on past browsing behavior, personalized email campaigns, customized landing pages and other ways to show that you recognize them as an individual buyer and value their time.

Step 6: Use Omnichannel Marketing: Providing a consistent brand experience

Omnichannel marketing involves reaching customers through multiple channels, such as email, social media, and mobile apps. Continually assessing and optimizing your omnichannel strategy ensures you’re providing a consistent brand experience across the touchpoints your customers will pass through as they traverse the different stages of the digital journey.

Step 7: Measure and Optimize

Finally, businesses need to continually measure and optimize the digital customer journey to ensure it is working effectively. Having access to tools which enable businesses to easily access the most meaningful insights is essential in a digital era – where the best digital experiences create loyal customer bases.

Below we will discuss the tools you need to get ahead.

The tools you need to get ahead

Typical data analytics can offer useful quantitative data, but digital experience intelligence takes insights far beyond these capabilities for macro and micro conversion points that matter most.

With a comprehensive suite of sophisticated tools, you can optimize the parts of the customer digital journey that will provide the most value to your customers, and in turn, your bottom-line.

The benefits of leveraging digital experience intelligence tools to analyze and optimize key touchpoints in the digital customer journey

There are many benefits to using tools to help you cut ahead and optimize areas that’ll add the most value to your customers and bottom line. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Identifying opportunities to fuel experimentation programs

By replaying exactly what the customer sees, product, marketing and IT departments can test website changes, website content, campaigns and even microsites before they go live. This allows for better workflows and journey optimization.

Site usability monitoring & IT troubleshooting

With 40% of consumers abandoning a website if a page takes more than three seconds to load and 53% abandoning a mobile site if it takes more than three seconds to load, site usability must be fine-tuned. The digital consumer has little patience, so monitoring usability can significantly impact the business. Customer acquisition, conversion rates, retention and even SEO rankings can be improved by analysis of experience and performance data.

Reproduce and diagnose errors

If something goes wrong (even if it’s not visible to the customer), performance data and access to session replays can immediately pinpoint what to fix. This helps with rapid diagnosis and problem solving and eliminates the need to tediously and repeatedly reproduce the error.

Improved customer experience

For the user experience designer, the purpose of journey mapping is to identify gaps and touchpoints in the customer experience that are disjointed or frustrating. These might be:

Difference in experience between devices, when a user moves from one device to another

Gaps and disconnects between content or site categories, where the user might get frustrated

Gaps between channels (for example, where the experience of going from social media to the website could be better)

According to a report from Forrester Research, “Understanding the specific devices, touchpoints and interactions is the only way to know if your digital investments will directly improve a customer experience.”

Most of all, a digital journey map puts the customer at the center of the organization’s thinking. It demonstrates how both mobile and web layouts impact customer behaviors.

What to look for in analytics tools for digital customer journey optimization: the functions you need to get ahead

There are certain features built into most digital analytics tools that will help you quickly understand key moments and impact in the customer journey. They include:

Augmented journey map: Get a visual, “big picture” view of where there are problems along the digital customer journey to identify and prioritize issues to fix.

Session replay: Find out the why of an issue on the path to purchase with capture and review of the entire interaction.

Struggle score: Analyze actions, behavioral patterns, and technical errors that help determine friction points in the customer journey causing problems for users.

Mobile crash analytics : One of the biggest causes of app abandonment is crashes. Find out how, where, and why that happened so you can fix the problem.

Now it’s time to understand where customers are struggling and why, as well as why digital marketing and sales funnel conversions are underperforming. The functions that can help you understand this that you should be looking for when considering tools for improving the digital customer experience are:

You can decide on your own criteria for any marketing funnel in digital marketing, ideally by selecting a specific customer journey map for marketing (or maybe you have a tool that supports free-text search). For example, you might want to create a funnel of the entire purchase experience for all the traffic coming from Facebook. Then you can narrow it down to all the sessions where visitors spent more than 20 seconds on the “Special Offers” page but didn’t click to buy. With this data segmented into a digital marketing and sales funnel, you can start to understand the content marketing customer journey: why people struggle, where and why they are abandoning a transaction, and why they’re not converting.

Customer journey filters

To optimize customer experience on a particular page, try filtering your session replays by:

Mobile device

Operating system

Geographic location

Mouse movements

Customer demographics

Customer segment

Customer struggles

Traffic sources

Amount of time spent on page

These variables, and more, can help you to fine tune and understand who is struggling most, across which devices and locations, what issues were encountered and how to fix them for better outcomes.

A click map shows you on average how many times a specific element was clicked, was changed (e.g. data populated in a field) and how much time was spent on it, within a given timeframe. Use analysis of this experience data to understand if the behavior of an individual customer or visitor is representative of the overall digital consumer behavior on a page or web element and if the issue you’re witnessing in a specific session is a wider problem experienced by many customers.

Abandonment rate indicator

More advanced customer mapping tools can give you an idea of where your customers are abandoning their journey to conversion and how often this occurs, allowing you to create a customer decision journey example. This helps you prioritize steps in the customer value journey to maximize your impact to revenue in the shortest amount of time.

Flexible data exporting

Everyone in the organization who is involved in customer journey strategy needs access to the data–IT, marketing, product, distribution and customer service. Choose a customer journey map solution that lets you export the raw customer journey data, real-time scenario-based data, or even batches of data so everyone has access to the digital truth.

Customer feedback through VoC

An integrated voice of customer tool connects what customers are saying with what they really experienced so you can analyze, prioritize and act on feedback quickly. But the issue is not all customers will leave feedback. In a customer experience capacity, this means you can switch gears and uncover VoC through user behavior and actions of the silent majority (voice of the silent). Leveraging this feedback and data allows teams to truly understand and optimize the customer journey.

Checkout our guide on customer journey maps and how to get started mapping them out .

Asim Zaheer

Chief Marketing Officer, Glassbox

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• What is a digital customer journey?

Last updated

22 May 2023

Reviewed by

Jean Kaluza

Learn the definition of the digital customer journey and why it’s crucial for your product in this comprehensive guide. 

The digital buyer or customer journey encompasses all of a customer’s interactions with your company, from discovery to purchase.

It consists of all the interactions across all online brand channels and touchpoints, including: 

The company's website

Mobile applications

Social media channels

SMS messaging

These interactions influence their purchasing experience. 

• Why analyze your digital customer journey?

Since a digital customer journey guides the customer to purchase, analyzing it will enable you to offer a seamless shopping experience. 

You should also analyze your digital customer journey to: 

Understand customer needs and expectations

Proactively detect friction points that are challenging a seamless customer experience

Gain insights into adjusting your marketing efforts for better results

• The different stages of the digital customer journey 

The stages of a buyer's journey vary by business and customer. However, when a customer embarks on purchasing a product or service, they go through these five distinct phases:

Awareness: The discovery phase

Here, customers are at the start of the buyer lifecycle. This is where customers discover their problems and seek solutions to these pain points. They have a goal in mind and need to find a solution. 

During this phase, customers become aware of your brand's existence and the products you sell. Brand awareness can span multiple channels, such as: 

Word of mouth

Social media

Brand advocates

Email marketing

Search engine suggestions

Affiliate marketing

As a business, good branding and a solid social media presence are essential to capture the audience's attention. 

With a digital customer journey, you have stronger control over your marketing campaigns than the traditional customer journey.

Consideration: The evaluation phase 

This is the stage where customers have done enough research and are now evaluating the different brands and their offers. The customer is aware of your brand and may start evaluating whether you can solve their problem. 

When a customer is dissatisfied with a brand’s offerings, they move on to one that delivers a seamless experience. 

During the evaluation phase, customers: 

Visit various company websites

Review platforms

Watch product videos to choose the best solution

Read in-depth case studies and reviews

Customers who are satisfied with your company will sign up for a free trial. A brand has a lot of control at this stage, so ensure that you demonstrate how you can solve their problem. 

Decision: The selection phase

This is the final stage of the digital customer journey. The customer selects a brand they want to proceed with and make their purchase. 

Some content to promote at this stage is free demos, consultations, and product promotions to demonstrate an advantage over your competitors.

Retention: Turning users into regulars

A common problem is ensuring stickiness to your product: Companies can achieve high logins and subscriptions but fail anyway. Preventing this requires learning what keeps their users from returning. 

Meta used “Facebook friends” to retain users, which was instrumental in achieving its lofty goals. The company learned that a new Facebook user with five friends was much more likely to log in regularly. 

Advocacy: The promoting phase

What could become the most vital stage to achieve is the advocacy phase. Here, a company can cultivate a more effortless marketing cycle. 

During the advocacy stage, users become champions of your product without prompt or incentive, referring their friends and peers. This obviously saves valuable marketing dollars, organically shuffling in primed users to your discovery phase. 

Amazon uses a version of the buyer’s phases known as The Product-Led Growth Flywheel , which it refers to as the virtuous cycle. 

The Flywheel encapsulates existing metrics and structures from marketing and product to achieve organic growth exponentially by cultivating champions that do your marketing work for you.

• What is a digital customer journey map?

A digital customer journey map visually depicts a customer's interaction with a brand. 

This visual representation gives a narrative of a customer's steps, from initial engagement with a brand to the last stage of purchasing a service or product. 

It comprises: 

Consumer data

Transaction information

Customer service interactions

Cross-device browsing history

A digital customer journey map provides insight into what motivates customers to purchase and their pain points when interacting with various touchpoints. 

• What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping involves developing a customer journey. The goal is to map out the customer's actions at each touchpoint. 

Customer journey mapping has endless benefits, including:

A deeper understanding of your customers

Customer journey mapping gives you a holistic view of all customers interacting with your brand. 

It allows you to understand their varying characteristics and purchasing behaviors. This enables a company to tailor its products. 

With customer personas , your brand can better address their needs and wants. 

Curating a unique customer experience

Journey mapping provides a perspective of the customer's experience, and you learn how to structure your processes to encourage more customer purchases. 

Since customer demands are growing, digital journeys are becoming vital in how companies engage with customers. It allows companies to improve their customers' interactions over digital channels. 

Growth of business revenue

Knowing your customers' pain points positions you to offer solutions to their problems, so you can boost sales and increase revenue in the long run. 

Improving touchpoints will boost the customer onboarding process, building new revenue. 

Reducing operational costs

When you know more about your customers, forming a strategy is clearer and cheaper. Understanding their demographics means you’re less likely to spend money everywhere. For example, knowing your customers aren’t on Facebook can save your ad campaign budget. 

Sometimes customers have basic questions that bots can handle. Leveraging live chatbots can reduce the cost of hiring real agents to interact with your customers.

With personalized market campaigns, the marketing team knows what to communicate and when. This allows the company to optimize the return on market investments. 

• Creating your digital customer journey map

Here is a brief guide to mapping your digital customer journey:

Step 1: Conduct customer research

You create a digital customer journey map using data from primary research . Collecting and analyzing target audience data is vital to making customer-centric decisions. 

To ensure you have reliable information, conduct focus groups , in-person interviews , and brainstorming workshops .

Step 2: Design a buyer persona

With the collected research data, create buyer personas. A buyer persona is a profile of your ideal customer where you consider their characteristics and behaviors, such as demographics. 

As you design a digital customer journey map, account for different customer needs and expectations for your personas. These personas allow you to understand your customers better, including their motivations, challenges, needs, and what they need you to solve.

Step 3: Leverage the power of personalization  

Option overload is an issue as brands compete for consumers' attention. 

Personalizing the customer experience allows you to stand out and tailor products to their needs. With personalization, you can display appropriate messages to target personas instead of wasting resources. 

Step 4: Define the stages of a digital customer journey

The next step is to determine the actions that will lead your customers to conclude a purchase. 

Consider the customer's perspective, thoughts, emotions, pain points, and goals for each stage. This will help you understand what each customer is struggling with and trying to accomplish. 

Step 5: Outline all your touchpoints with the target audience

Touchpoints are where prospective customers interact with your brand. 

They can include:

Social media profiles

YouTube videos

First, list all the touchpoints and evaluate how each fits your customer's journey. Remember that touchpoints differ from one buyer persona to another depending on their customer journey map. 

Outlining the touchpoints allows you to assess which is most crucial in their purchasing process. 

Next, optimize each touchpoint for customer onboarding and conversion. 

If you’re unsure, use web analytics to identify traffic sources. 

Step 6: Align your touchpoints to offer a seamless customer experience

Once you’ve defined the customer touchpoints and the main stages in a customer journey, put it all together. 

Create a well-organized digital customer journey map to guide buyers from start to end. 

Step 7: Update customer journey maps frequently

A customer journey map is an ongoing investment as changes often occur. 

Once you’ve mapped out a digital customer journey, identify gaps and ways to improve customer satisfaction . 

To achieve this, frequently collect customer feedback and use it as a foundation for improvements.

You can also experience the customer journey yourself: Walk through all the stages while noting any obstacles you encounter. 

Here are some questions to get you started as you review your customer journey:

Was the purchasing process easy?

How easy was it to get in touch with customer care?

Was the agent helpful?

Is the whole exercise time-consuming?

Is the information at the different stages relevant?

How should you deliver a seamless customer experience?

• Digital customer journey examples

Here are two examples of digital customer journeys:

Example one: Repairing a broken car

During the awareness stage, the car owner knows the car is unfit for driving, so they must fix it. 

They search for a mechanic and may look for customer testimonials from previous customers of nearby garages. 

During the consideration stage, the client has various solutions and seeks the best option to solve their issue. 

Next, the customer will compare garages offering specific repair services before identifying one with the best reviews or a successful track record. 

Once the customer settles on a garage that offers repair services, they will interact with the mechanic and begin repair negotiations. 

Example 2: Booking of an airplane ticket

In this example, the customer's journey begins when they realize they need to travel. 

At the awareness stage, the customer will conduct online research on airlines and routes to their destinations. They may come across the airline via social media channels, advertisements, or even referrals from friends. 

Once they list all the airline brands, the customer will consider the available flights and decide which best fits their needs. 

On the other side, airlines try to upsell additional services to appeal to customers. Therefore, customers may consider airlines that upsell services such as priority onboarding or upgraded seats. 

Depending on their spending limits or airlines with better offerings, customers will compare the flight options that best suit their budget. They abandon tickets outside their means. 

The decision stage ends when the customers purchase a ticket and receive an onboarding pass, travel information, and guides via email.

Who is involved in a digital customer journey?

A digital customer journey is a process a user (potential customer) goes through when interacting with a brand.

What are the four types of digital users?

The four types of digital users are explorers, socializers, achievers, and listeners. 

Which department is responsible for the customer journey? 

Sales and marketing departments play a vital role in optimizing a customer journey map. 

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Digital Journey Essentials: Building Blocks for a Seamless Experience

Key takeaways:

• A digital journey is the online part of the overall customer journey, encompassing all digital interactions from discovery to post-purchase communication.
• Understanding the digital journey is essential for online business success, helping to identify customer engagement patterns and potential turn-offs.
• Touchpoints in the digital customer journey include website visits, digital ads, social media engagement, and mobile app usage, each offering a chance to impact the customer experience positively.
• The digital customer journey consists of five stages: awareness, consideration, decision, loyalty, and advocacy, each requiring tailored interactions and content.
• Regularly updating the digital customer journey map is crucial as customer behaviors and technologies evolve, ensuring the map remains a strategic tool for improving online experiences .
• Online surveys are a practical tool for collecting customer feedback on digital experiences , aiding in the identification of improvement areas.

Imagine going on a trip with no map—confusing, right? That's how customers feel without a clear digital journey. Now, let's swap the compass for technology and explore what a digital journey is and why it's key for businesses and customers alike.

This article is for anyone looking to improve their online customer experience. If you're struggling to keep customers engaged or wondering why they leave your site, we're here to help. We'll explain a digital journey, show you how to map it out and demonstrate how it can benefit your business. By the end, you'll see that understanding this journey is like finding a secret shortcut to customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Let's get started on the path to a better online experience for everyone.

What is a digital journey?

A digital journey encompasses all customer interactions with a company online. It starts from the moment they first learn about a brand to every follow-up communication that occurs after a purchase. This journey is crucial because it reflects how customers engage with businesses through digital platforms like websites, social media, and apps.

Digital journey and customer journey

The digital journey is a subset of the broader customer journey. While the customer journey includes every online and offline interaction with a business, the digital journey focuses solely on digital interactions. For businesses operating online, the digital journey might be the most significant part of the customer's overall experience with the brand.

Understanding the digital journey is key to success online. It allows businesses to identify what attracts customers, what keeps them engaged, and what might turn them away. By analyzing the digital journey, companies can optimize their online presence, improve interactions, and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Components of a digital journey

A digital journey is a customer's path with a brand through various online interactions. It's a crucial aspect of modern business strategy, as it shapes the customer's view and experience with a company. This journey is made up of several key components that work together to create a cohesive and satisfying experience for the customer.

Key customer touchpoints

Touchpoints are the moments where customers come into contact with a brand online. These can include visiting a website, clicking on a digital ad, engaging with social media posts, or using a mobile app. Each touchpoint offers an opportunity for a business to make an impression. The goal is to ensure that every interaction is positive, useful, and reflects the brand's values.

For instance, when a customer visits a website, they should find it easy to navigate and find the information they need. If they engage with a company on social media, they should encounter helpful content and timely responses to their inquiries. By carefully managing these touchpoints, businesses can create a smooth digital journey that encourages customers to move forward to the next stages of their journey.

Stages of interaction

The digital journey can be broken down into five interaction stages, typically including awareness, consideration, decision, loyalty, and advocacy.

• The awareness stage is when potential customers first come across a brand or product. They might see an online ad or a social media post that sparks their interest.
• Consideration stage : At this stage, customers are looking more closely at what a company offers and how it stacks up against competitors. They're gathering information and evaluating their options.
• Decision stage : Here, the customer is ready to make a purchase. They've decided that a product or service meets their needs and are taking action to obtain it.
• Loyalty stage : After the purchase, the focus shifts to keeping the customer happy and engaged. This could mean follow-up emails, customer support, or incentives for future purchases.
• Advocacy stage : Loyal customers actively promote the brand, influencing new buyers through personal recommendations, reviews, and social sharing.

Each stage requires different types of interactions and content. For example, the awareness stage might involve educational blog posts or eye-catching ads, while the loyalty stage might include personalized offers or a rewards program.

By understanding and optimizing all the stages, you can guide your clients through the customer journey effectively. This not only helps in attracting new customers but also in retaining them, ultimately contributing to a company's success.

Digital customer journey map

Creating a digital journey map is an exercise in empathy, a way for businesses to step into their customers' shoes and understand their online experience from start to finish. It's a visual representation that outlines each step a customer takes as they interact with a company online. Mapping this journey can provide invaluable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and pain points.

Why map the digital journey?

Mapping the digital journey offers several benefits. It can highlight where customers are having a positive experience and where they're facing obstacles. This insight allows businesses to make data-driven decisions to enhance the customer experience, leading to increased satisfaction and retention . Satisfied customers are more likely to return and recommend the business to others, driving growth and profitability.

A well-mapped eccommerce customer journey can also streamline the visitor's path to purchase, making it easier for them to find information, select products, and complete transactions. This smooth process can boost conversion rates and reduce the likelihood of cart abandonment.

Digital customer journey mapping

To create a digital customer journey map, start by outlining the stages a customer goes through, from awareness to advocacy. Next, identify key digital touchpoints where customers interact with the brand, such as social media channels, email, or live chat. It's important to consider the customer's goals and challenges at each touchpoint and how you can address them.

• Define Objectives : Understand what you want to achieve with the map.
• Gather Data : Collect information on how customers interact with your digital channels.
• Identify Personas : Create customer profiles to represent different segments of your audience.
• Map Touchpoints : List out all the places customers can interact with your brand online.
• Analyze Interactions : Look at what happens at each touchpoint and how it affects the customer's journey.
• Highlight Moments of Truth : Identify key moments that can make or break the customer experience.

Understanding customer expectations

Customer experience at each stage is crucial for a successful digital journey. You can gauge it with customer feedback coming from direct communication or online surveys. By asking customers about their experiences, you can better understand what's working and what isn't.

For example, during the awareness stage, your buyer personas might expect educational content that answers their questions. In the decision stage, they want clear pricing and easy navigation to make a purchase. After buying, they may expect prompt customer service and support. In the loyalty stage, the expectation shifts towards personalized communication, rewards, or incentives that make them feel valued and encourage repeat purchase.

You can create a more effective digital journey by recognizing and meeting these expectations. It's not just about selling a product or service; it's about building a relationship with the customer that fosters trust and loyalty. A digital customer journey map is a living document that should be revisited and updated regularly as customer behaviors and preferences evolve and as new technologies emerge.

A digital customer journey map is not just a tool for visualization but a strategic asset that can guide you toward delivering a superior online customer experience. It enables you to pinpoint where you can improve and how you can delight your customers at every online interaction.

Improving your digital customer journeys

Enhancing the digital customer journey is a continuous process that involves understanding your buyer personas, online behaviors, preferences, and pain points. By implementing best practices, you can provide a more engaging and efficient customer experience that not only meets but anticipates needs.

Utilizing online surveys

One effective method for gaining insights into the digital customer experience is through online surveys. These can be strategically placed across multiple channels, such as emails, your main website, in-product prompts, and mobile apps. Surveys allow you to collect direct feedback from customers about their digital interactions with your brand. By asking the right questions, you can uncover areas for improvement and understand what aspects of the digital customer journey are working well.

It's important to keep surveys short, relevant, and to the point to encourage higher response rates . Additionally, timing is crucial; for example, post-interaction surveys can capture a customer's immediate thoughts and feelings about their experience.

Leveraging data and analytics

Data and analytics play a pivotal role in enhancing the digital journey. By analyzing customer behavior data, companies can identify patterns and trends that reveal what customers are looking for and how they navigate digital channels. This data can inform website design, content creation, and feature development decisions.

Metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates offer a window into the effectiveness of your digital touchpoints. Analyzing this data helps pinpoint where customers might be dropping off and why, enabling you to make targeted improvements.

Tools to shape digital journeys

A variety of tools can support the optimization of your digital customer journey.

Analytics platforms are a key tool, enabling you to track user behavior across your digital channels. These can provide a granular view of how customers interact with your brand online, from the first click to the final purchase, to identify gaps across the entire customer journey.

Other useful tools include survey software for collecting feedback directly from customers. These platforms often come with templates and analytics features that make it easy to gain actionable insights.

You can create a more effective digital journey by combining the power of online surveys, data analytics, and the right set of tools. The key is to remain customer-centric , using the insights gained to drive improvements that will lead to a more satisfying and loyal customer base.

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Navigating your customer's journey doesn't have to feel like a trek through uncharted territory. With the right tools and strategies, you're well on your way to establishing a solid digital presence. Now, let's bring it all home. Building a robust online presence hinges on understanding your audience and how they interact with your brand. That's where Survicate steps in as your trusty compass. With this intuitive survey software, you can gather valuable insights directly from your users, helping you to fine-tune your digital journey to their preferences.

Survicate offers a variety of features, such as customizable surveys, real-time feedback, and insightful analytics, which can empower you to make data-driven decisions that resonate with your audience. By engaging with your users and analyzing their feedback, you're not just building an online presence but nurturing a community that feels heard and valued.

Ready to take the guesswork out of your digital strategy? Embark on a smoother journey with Survicate's comprehensive toolkit. Sign up now for a free 10-day trial of all the Business Plan features , and start paving the way to a stronger, more connected online presence.

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Understanding your customer is the key to survival in online adventures where you wrestle with clicks and scrolls. Enter the superhero cape of digital customer journey mapping, which swoops in to decipher the cryptic language of online behavior.

Digital customer journey and digital customer journey mapping definitions

The digital customer journey is a customer's entire process while interacting with a business or brand online. It includes stages like awareness, consideration, purchase, post-purchase engagement, and advocacy, encompassing various digital touchpoints.

Digital customer journey mapping , on the other hand, is a strategic process of visually representing and analyzing the digital customer journey. It involves creating a detailed map that outlines each step a customer takes, the touchpoints they encounter, and the emotions they experience during their online interactions.

In essence, the digital customer journey is the overall customer experience online. In contrast, digital customer journey mapping is a tool or process used to analyze and visualize that experience to better understand, optimize, and enhance the customer journey.

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Significance of digital customer journey mapping

• Enhanced customer experience: Customer journey mapping allows businesses to understand and optimize every step of the customer journey, improving overall satisfaction.
• Improved retention and satisfaction: Identifying pain points and addressing customer needs result in increased loyalty and reduced churn rates.
• Business growth: With insights into opportunities for innovation, product development, and marketing strategies, customer journey mapping helps with sustained business growth.
• Cross-functional collaboration: A customer journey map encourages collaboration between departments, ensuring a cohesive and consistent customer experience across channels.
• Data-driven insights: It utilizes customer data to make informed decisions, tailor marketing efforts, and enhance personalized interactions.
• Adaptability to a dynamic digital landscape: You can stay agile by continuously updating maps to reflect changes in customer behavior and technology trends.
• Competitive advantage: Businesses that understand and respond to customer needs gain a competitive edge by offering superior digital experiences.

Creating digital customer journey mapping

Digital customer journey mapping involves a strategic approach to understanding and improving the customer experience in the digital realm. The process includes several steps you should follow:

1. Define the scope: Clearly outline the scope of the customer journey mapping initiative. Specify the product or service, target audience, and the particular stages of the customer's interaction to be analyzed.

2. Identify customer touchpoints: Pinpoint the various touchpoints where customers interact with the brand digitally. This includes website visits, social media engagement, email communication, mobile app usage, and more.

3. Create customer personas: Develop detailed personas representing different segments of the target audience. Include demographics, preferences, behaviors, and pain points to humanize and understand the diverse needs of customers.

4. Map customer goals and objectives: Define the goals customers aim to achieve at each touchpoint. Whether it's making a purchase, seeking information, or resolving an issue, understanding these objectives is crucial for tailoring the journey map.

5. Understand pain points and friction: Identify obstacles and challenges customers may encounter during their journey. Recognizing pain points allows businesses to address issues, reduce friction, and enhance customer experience.

6. Evaluate cross-channel interactions: Analyze how customers transition between different digital channels. Understand the seamless flow of information and interactions across platforms, ensuring consistency and cohesiveness.

7. Gather data and insights: Utilize customer data, analytics, and feedback to inform the mapping process. Data-driven insights provide a factual basis for understanding customer behavior and preferences.

8. Collaborate across departments: Foster collaboration between marketing, sales, customer service, and IT departments. A cross-functional approach ensures a holistic view of the customer journey and facilitates the implementation of improvements.

9. Visualize the journey: Create a visual representation of the customer journey map. Use diagrams, charts, or other visualization tools to illustrate the various stages, touchpoints, and interactions.

10. Iterate and update: Recognize that the digital landscape is dynamic. Regularly review and update the customer journey map to reflect changes in customer behavior, technology, or business strategies.

By focusing on these fundamental aspects, you can lay the groundwork for a robust digital customer journey mapping strategy that enhances customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall success in the online world.

Customer journey map example

Creating a customer journey map involves several components that can be customized based on your specific business and industry. Here's a basic template to get you started. 

Feel free to adapt and expand upon it according to your needs:

Customer journey map template

1. Map title:

• For example, Digital Customer Journey Map for [Product/Service]

2. Customer persona:

• Create a persona representing your target customer. Include demographics, preferences, and behaviors.

3. Stages of the journey:

• List the key stages your customer goes through, such as Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Post-Purchase, and Advocacy.

4. Touchpoints:

• Identify and map out the specific touchpoints at each stage (Website Visit, Social Media Interaction, Email Communication, etc.).

5. Customer goals:

• Define your customer's goals at each journey stage (Obtain Information, Make a Purchase, Seek Support, etc.).

6. Pain points:

• Identify potential pain points or challenges the customer may encounter at each stage (Confusing Website Navigation, Slow Customer Support, etc.).

7. Emotional journey:

• Note the emotional highs and lows your customer may experience during the journey (Excitement at Discovery, Frustration with Checkout Process , etc.).

8. Channels and interactions:

• Specify the digital channels through which interactions occur (Website, Mobile App, Social Media, etc.) and describe the nature of these interactions.

9. Key metrics:

• Define metrics to measure success at each stage (Conversion Rate, Customer Satisfaction Score, etc.).

10. Opportunities for improvement:

• Identify areas where the customer journey can be enhanced or optimized. This could include improving website navigation, refining communication strategies, or streamlining the purchase process.

11. Feedback integration:

• Specify how customer feedback, obtained through surveys, reviews, or other channels, will be integrated into the journey map for continuous improvement.

12. Visual elements:

• Include visual elements such as charts, graphs, or icons to make the map visually engaging and easy to understand.

Remember, this is a basic template, and you can customize it further based on your business' unique characteristics and goals. Regularly update the map to reflect changes in customer behavior, technology trends, or business strategies.

Tools and technologies for creating a customer journey map

Here are the tools and software you need to create a customer journey map:

Visualization tools

• Journey mapping software

Dedicated journey mapping tools like Smaply, UXPressia, or Canvanizer provide interactive platforms for creating, visualizing, and sharing digital customer journey maps. These tools offer features such as drag-and-drop functionality, collaboration capabilities, and the ability to create dynamic, real-time maps.

• Diagramming software

General-purpose diagramming tools like Microsoft Visio, Lucidchart, or draw.io can be adapted for journey mapping, providing flexibility in design and customization. These tools suit businesses looking for versatile solutions to create detailed and customized customer journey maps.  

• Storyboarding tools

Storyboarding tools like Miro or Storyboard help visualize customer journeys in a sequential storyboard format, making it easier to illustrate the customer's experience step by step. This is particularly useful for storytelling and understanding the narrative flow of the customer journey.

CRM systems

Salesforce is a comprehensive CRM platform that allows businesses to manage customer interactions, track leads, and integrate customer data seamlessly. Integration with customer journey mapping enables a holistic view, combining sales and marketing data to enhance the overall understanding of the customer journey.

• HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a user-friendly solution that helps businesses organize and track customer interactions, making aligning marketing and sales efforts easier. Integrating HubSpot CRM with customer journey mapping provides a centralized hub for managing customer relationships and analyzing touchpoints.

Zoho CRM is a versatile platform offering automation, analytics, and customization features for managing customer relationships. Integration with customer journey mapping tools allows businesses to align sales processes with the digital customer journey for more effective customer engagement.

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Analytics and data integration.

• Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides in-depth insights into website and app user behavior, helping businesses understand how customers interact with digital touchpoints. Integration with customer journey mapping enables a data-driven approach, combining analytics data with mapped customer interactions for a comprehensive view.

Mixpanel is an analytics platform focusing on user engagement, providing detailed insights into user actions and behaviors. Integration with customer journey mapping enhances the understanding of user behavior across digital channels, facilitating targeted improvements in the customer journey.

• Data integration platforms (like Zapier)

Platforms like Zapier facilitate seamless integration between different software applications, allowing businesses to automate workflows and share data. Integrating data sources with customer journey mapping ensures that the maps stay updated in real time, reflecting the latest customer interactions and trends.

By leveraging these tools and technologies, you can create, manage, and derive actionable insights from digital customer journey maps, ultimately leading to improved customer experiences and business success.

Best practices for digital customer journey mapping

Regular updates.

• Scheduled reviews

Establish a regular review schedule for customer journey maps to ensure they stay aligned with evolving customer behaviors and business strategies. Regular updates help maintain the relevance and accuracy of the maps in the dynamic digital landscape.

• Real-time data integration

Implement mechanisms for real-time data integration, allowing maps to reflect the latest customer interactions and feedback. Real-time updates provide a more accurate representation of the customer journey and enable timely strategy adjustments.

Cross-functional collaboration

• Interdepartmental workshops

Conduct regular workshops involving marketing, sales, customer service , and IT teams to contribute collaboratively to the customer journey mapping process.

Cross-functional collaboration ensures diverse perspectives are considered, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the customer journey.

• Shared goals and metrics

Establish shared goals and KPIs across departments to align efforts toward a unified customer experience. Shared metrics foster a collaborative environment and encourage teams to work together towards common objectives .

Data analytics for improvement

• Utilizing predictive analytics

Leverage predictive analytics to anticipate customer behaviors and trends, allowing for proactive adjustments to the customer journey. Predictive analytics empowers companies to stay ahead of customer needs and preferences, enhancing the overall customer experience.

• Performance measurement

Implement KPIs to measure the success of the mapped customer journey and identify improvement areas. Data analytics provide actionable insights, enabling businesses to iterate on strategies and enhance the effectiveness of the customer journey.

Customer feedback integration

• Multichannel feedback collection

Collect customer feedback through various channels , including surveys, social media, and direct interactions, to better understand customer sentiments. Diverse feedback sources provide a comprehensive view, helping businesses identify improvement areas and validate the mapped customer journey.

• Feedback loop implementation

Establish a feedback loop where insights from customer feedback directly inform updates and adjustments to the customer journey map. Integrating customer feedback into the mapping process ensures the journey accurately reflects real customer experiences and expectations.

By incorporating these best practices, businesses can create compelling digital customer journey maps and foster a culture of continuous improvement, adaptability, and customer-centricity in their operations.

Customer journey map case studies

Let's look closer into two examples of successful digital customer journey implementation – Amazon and Airbnb.

Amazon's customer journey mapping has been a cornerstone of its success. From personalized recommendations to seamless one-click purchasing, Amazon uses data-driven journey maps to enhance the customer experience. 

Amazon leverages advanced analytics to understand user behavior, tailors recommendations based on past interactions, and ensures a consistent experience across its website, mobile app, and other digital touchpoints.

Airbnb focuses on creating a seamless digital journey for both hosts and guests. Their customer journey map incorporates user-friendly interfaces, transparent communication , and a robust review system. Airbnb uses customer feedback to continually refine its platform, implementing features like instant booking and personalized search results to cater to user preferences and enhance overall satisfaction.

Lessons learned from Amazon and Airbnb

1. User-centric design

Both Amazon and Airbnb prioritize user-centric design in their customer journey mapping. Understanding and catering to user preferences, pain points, and goals contribute to a positive overall experience.

2. Data-driven decision-making

Successful implementations rely heavily on data analytics. Both companies leverage data to anticipate user needs, personalize interactions, and optimize the customer journey for improved engagement.

3. Continuous iteration and adaptation

Amazon and Airbnb continually iterate on their customer journey maps. A commitment to regular updates and adaptations is crucial for maintaining relevance and effectiveness.

4. Customer feedback integration

Both Amazon and Airbnb actively integrate customer feedback into their journey-mapping processes. This iterative approach allows them to address issues promptly, validate assumptions, and stay aligned with evolving customer expectations.

5. Agile implementation strategies

The success of these case studies lies in the agility of their implementation strategies. Quickly adapting to emerging trends, technologies, and user behaviors is critical for sustained success in the digital space.

6. Embracing technology trends

Both companies embrace emerging technologies. Amazon's use of machine learning for recommendations and Airbnb's adoption of virtual reality for property previews showcase a commitment to staying at the forefront of technology trends.

You can draw inspiration from these examples to enhance your mapping strategies and drive success in the digital realm.

Creating your digital customer journey map

With journey mapping, you can create highly personalized, adaptive, and technologically immersive customer experiences across various digital touchpoints. And you should start as soon as possible. 

Early adopters of digital customer journey mapping will gain a head start in refining their customer experiences and the ability to seamlessly iterate and adapt.

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Map a Winning Digital Customer Journey in 8 Steps

The job of marketers has never been as complicated as it is today. That's because digital transformation has increased the touchpoints between brands and audiences to an edge where it's almost impossible to manage and optimize customer journeys the traditional way.

But we are masters of adaptation. So, we developed a new form of digital customer journey mapping to help us understand our audiences, thus analyzing and optimizing how we market our products and services to them. We came up with the concept of Digital Customer Journeys.

Accordingly, successful marketers are now compelled not only to know the eight digital journey stages but also how to optimize each one across different touchpoints and media channels. In this article, we will be covering everything about stages and optimization. In addition, we will provide you with a free template to help you create a digital customer journey map.

So, What Is DCJ, and How Significant Is It?

Digital customer journey (DCJ) is a framework developed to help digital marketers and brands understand how audiences go from not being interested at all to becoming long-term loyal customers of a brand. This, of course, is in the digital world as the name suggests.

Digital customer journeys refer to the patterns internet users follow to become customers of a digital brand. The journey covers all the touchpoints and possible interactions between the brand and its audience. And it doesn’t stop after a purchase is done! In fact, DCJ optimization aims straightforwardly to keep a customer loyal to a brand, even after they perform their initial purchase.

However, a new term has joined the glossary recently due to the peak in the number of online media platforms: omnichannel digital customer journey. The term simply refers to the fact that the eight digital customer journey stages may differ in their core depending on the channels where each step may take place.

For instance, an internet user may know about your brand on Google, get engaged with your YouTube videos, and purchase your Instagram or Facebook store! This is an example of an omnichannel digital customer journey; a journey across different channels that results in a customer vs brand relationship.

The Difference Between Digital Customer Journey and Buyer Journey

Digital customer journeys and buyer journeys differ roughly in one thing: where the journeys end. A buyer’s journey ends once they perform a purchase online. While a customer’s journey has only started there! That’s because DCJ aims to make customers come back again and again and purchase more items from a brand. And it also tries to attract feedback and reviews to make other people aware of the offered service or product.

In other words, one aims to make a one-time sale with possibly a one-time buyer. While the other aims to establish a long-term relationship entitled with loyalty and rewarded with continuous sales.

The 8 Digital Customer Journey Stages

There are as many digital customer journeys in the world as there are audiences and marketing campaigns. Each online sale results from a different journey! I.e, customers become aware of a specific media channel, convert their perception of the brand to another, and then end their journey in an unprecedented manner.

Still, all of these different journeys and patterns can be studied and optimized in roughly the same way. At the end of the day, it’s humans and the internet! Everything about them can be mapped, studied, and thus predicted.

So, with no further suspensions, the eight stages of digital customer journey mapping are:

•  Engagement
•  Subscribing
•  Converting

1 - Awareness

The question we aim to answer in this stage of the mapping process is: How can we make our potential customers know we exist?

In this phase, we set out all the practices we’ll rely on to reach out to an audience and make them aware our brand exists. In other words, we are talking about digital marketing ! How are we going to market our brand, products, and services online? Are we going to rely on paid advertising such as Adwords and Facebook Ads, or we’d rather play the long run and focus on SEO and generating inbound leads ?

You may have come across a video by Gary Vaynerchuk or read his famous book “Crush It”. If so, we bet you heard him say you should be present across all media channels and with tons of content and advertisement every single day. This is a great and effective way to massively grow and increase online brand awareness. But, it’s tough for new brands with limited budgets and small to average teams!

So, we recommend you don’t half-do everything, but rather full-do one or two things max. Choose one marketing technique, then design a clear strategy for your team. Then execute it.

2 - Engagement

Engagement is the second stage in the digital customer journey. Here, the question we aim to answer is: How can we transform awareness into engagement?

Awareness is temporary if it’s not combined with engagement. Think of awareness as the moment you look left and right before crossing the street. At that particular moment, you are aware of the traffic light’s color, whether a car is coming or not, and whether you should cross the street or wait. But you’d barely remember doing that after 10 or 15 seconds!

The same thing with awareness in marketing. People can simply take a glance at your ad, skip it, and never remember your brand again. Your efforts are now buried in oblivion! So, avoiding that requires engaging the audience, making it stare, look at, and check your piece of advertisement out.

To do so, you should create visually appealing designs , engaging articles, dynamic videos, incorporate effective chatbots… etc. Your piece of advertisement should be catchy to get the target audience’s attention. But once it does and prospects click, they should find themselves in an interactive and engaging website with advanced digital customer experience properties. This guarantees you will move seamlessly to the next stage!

3 - Subscribing

So you reached out to the potential audience and got many of them engaged with your brand. Now, it’s time we turn them into subscribers. The question we will be answering now is: How can we turn engaged visitors into subscribers so we can follow up?

At this point, we are trying to collect information about potential customers. The info can be exchanged for an eBook, webinar, demo, quote, call from the sales team… etc. In other words, you offer them a valuable and free tool/information that would make their lives easier, and to which they would be sharing their contact information in return.

4 - Converting

So, now that we have the leads’ info, we need to get them to take a micro-action! The relationship here converts and shifts from ‘I know about your brand’ to ‘I want to do business with your brand’. Accordingly, the question is: How do we get people to commit to our brand?

We usually commit to something either with our money or our time. So, we need to make the leads either spend time with us, in a demo session for instance, or buy our products.

To break it down, think of when someone books an appointment for a call with the sales team and attends the call. This means he or she now is a converted lead who is engaged with your brand and is ready to give time up for your brand. And the same goes for all the other forms of deployed magnets that target people’s time mainly.

However, if your business model needs people to pay you money directly, it’s a different story! Let’s say you are a marketing agency or a SaaS company, you can offer a guidebook or so for a small amount of money; $5 for instance. It’s not significant materially speaking, but it helps define the type of relationship you and your audience are building. 

Both of these methods are of extreme value, and you’re about to find out why in stage number five!

5 - Exciting

This probably is the most important stage of all! It’s when we know if we’ve succeeded in all the former steps, and whether the next ones will be as great or not!

The former stage witnessed a transaction in the relationship you built with your customers! You managed to turn them from visitors or prospects to customers or leads. But if they are not happy and excited about what they have in hand, all your efforts will be of no worth.

If the purchased guidebook was boring and added no value, the people will never invest a dime in your brand again. And if you showed up to a meeting with a prospect with an unprofessional look, only spoke about yourself the whole time, and overall you left a bad impression… There would be no second meeting with that client and there would be no business at all!

In both cases, the people are not excited about joining you in the next stages of the journey!

What you want to do is to pay extreme attention and devote a lot of time testing and developing the product you offer or preparing for that meeting with a prospect. If you leave a good impression combined with bewilderment and understanding at the same time, people will certainly agree to another meeting. And they would pay more money for your brand. And certainly, they now are far more likely to join you in the next stages!

Remember, this is the most important phase of all!

6 - Ascending

The ascending phase is where the sale occurs. Only now, we start closing our customers to buy high tickets.

Notice how far the journey was before we finally reached high ticket closing! Most inexperienced marketers try to close their audience on a high-priced sale in the very first stage (i.e awareness). As a result, they end up leaving a negative impression on the audience, and wasting a lot of money and effort on ineffective marketing strategies. What’s even worse is that some marketers would try to solve this problem by improving their ad copy or the target audience, while the problem lies in their whole approach to marketing!

In other words, don’t focus on closing the actual sale in the moment of awareness, nor any of the first five stages! You will just scare the potential leads away. Prospects are not willing to give you their money if they do not know who you are nor understand why they should in the first place. Digital customer journeys that do not perceive awareness, excitement, and ascending as separate stages, will just waste a lot of your time and money.

7 - Advocate

Unlike digital buyer journeys, digital customer journeys don’t end with a sale. In other words, the fun has just started for you!

Your customers are now happy with their journeys and couldn’t be more satisfied with the service or product at hand. It’s now when they begin to leave comments, product or service reviews… etc.

People now are simply saying good things about your brand even without you reaching out and asking for it. Simply because the digital journey and the customer experience you granted them were top-notch.

You can even contact them or have one of your team reach out to them and ask to interview them to create a happy customer story. You can leverage that story and increase awareness and engagement because people tend to buy things they see others are happy with!

In other words, your former customers are now raving fans that advocate your brand!

8 - Promoter

DCJ's are like an empty loop. They only end to begin again!

The promoter is simply an advocate who is now spreading the news about your brand. In other words, your happy customers will start talking about you; thus increasing awareness of your brand. More educated prospects will simply reach out to you. And your only job now is to engage them, and walk them through the whole process again! 

Why Should You Analyze and Optimize Your DCJ

So, now you’d be able to map and outline your DCJ. So, is that enough? Obviously not! You should constantly analyze and improve it in order to increase sales and improve the quality of the leads your marketing endeavors generate.

So, digital customer journey analytics simply refers to the collection, aggregation, classification, and analysis of customers’ data (i.e sales frequency, percentage of leads leaving in each stage… etc.). The goal of these analyses is simply to optimize the DCJ and increase your ROI.

When doing so, focus on optimizing the phases where the highest rate of leads is lost. For instance, if it’s the ‘Exciting phase’, we recommend you work closely with your team to create a product that will certainly appeal to the people more. You can also survey the lost leads and ask for their ticketings or feedback on why they’re no longer interested in doing business with you.

Map & Optimize Your DCJ With Vardot’s Template

Vardot built a template to help you map and optimize your digital customer journey. The template will enable you to outline and keep track of the performance of each phase during the whole marketing campaign. So, you can start by filling in what you will do in each box in the first column. For instance: how will you create awareness in the awareness box, what product will you be selling to create excitement in the exciting one... etc.

Then you can assess the performance of each phase during a campaign and save data in the second vertical column in front of each phase. Finally, you’d brainstorm ideas about how you can improve each phase’s performance, then take notes in the third empty vertical column. Once the campaign ends, repeat the process, and keep improving! Grab our DCJ Template  now! 

In a Nutshell

You should create a seamless and smooth digital customer journey and constantly improve it. This is done by continuously testing new strategies and techniques, but within the proven eight stages map. With this article and our template, we believe you will be now capable of creating a great journey! But, don’t optimize the journey without improving the experience.

In this regard, we recommend you read: Digital Customer Experience in 2022

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Navigating the Digital Customer Journey for Enhanced Engagement

September 3, 2023 - 10 min read

In today's digital age, understanding the customer journey is crucial for businesses looking to enhance customer engagement. The digital customer journey refers to the process a customer goes through when interacting with a company's digital channels, such as websites, social media, and mobile apps. By comprehending this journey and strategically guiding customers along each stage, businesses can optimize engagement and create meaningful interactions.

Understanding the Digital Customer Journey

Defining the digital customer journey is the first step towards successful navigation. It encompasses the various touchpoints or interactions a customer has with a brand across different channels. From the initial awareness to making a purchase, the digital customer journey provides a framework for businesses to map out and optimize their customer experience.

The Importance of the Digital Customer Journey

Understanding the importance of the digital customer journey is essential for businesses seeking to optimize their engagement strategies. By grasping the customer journey, companies can tailor their marketing efforts and communication channels to effectively reach and engage their target audience.

• Identify pain points and opportunities for improvement: By analyzing customer interactions and feedback at each stage, organizations can make informed decisions to enhance their products, services, and overall customer experience. This continuous improvement process is crucial for staying competitive in today's digital landscape.
• Achieve increased customer loyalty and satisfaction: When businesses understand their customers' needs and preferences, they can deliver personalized experiences that resonate with their target audience. This, in turn, builds trust and fosters long-term relationships with customers.

Steps in the Digital Customer Journey

Now that we have defined the three stages of the digital customer journey, let's delve deeper into each one:

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is the starting point of the digital customer journey. Customers at this stage may have a problem they want to solve or simply become aware of new possibilities. It is crucial for businesses to create a strong online presence, leveraging various marketing tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and social media advertising.

• SEO techniques help to ensure that your website ranks high in search engine results. By optimizing your website with relevant keywords and creating quality content, you can increase visibility and attract potential customers.
• Content marketing allows for the creation of informative blog posts, videos, or infographics to educate the target audience and establish the organization as industry experts.
• Social media advertising reaches a wider audience and captures the attention of potential of potential customers.  These ads can be tailored to specific demographics, interests, or behaviors and be running on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Consideration Stage

Once customers are aware of a brand, they enter the consideration stage, where they evaluate different options. During this stage, businesses should focus on building trust and showcasing the unique value they offer.

• Provide detailed product information: Confirm that your website includes comprehensive descriptions, specifications, and images of products or services. This allows customers to make informed decisions and understand how the offerings align with their needs.
• Offer customer testimonials and case studies: By sharing success stories and positive feedback from satisfied customers, you can instill confidence in potential buyers. Testimonials can be displayed on the website, social media platforms, or even in email marketing campaigns to reinforce the value proposition.
• Tailor recommendations based on customer preferences and behavior: Enhance engagement and influence the customer decision-making process. This can be achieved through personalized email campaigns, product recommendations based on browsing history, or targeted advertisements that align with the client's interests.

Decision Stage

In the decision stage, customers are ready to make a purchase or take a desired action. It is essential for businesses to create a seamless and frictionless experience to facilitate this process.

• Simplify the checkout process: Make sure that the website's checkout flow is intuitive, with minimal steps and clear instructions. Offering guest checkout options and saving customer information for future purchases can also streamline the process and reduce friction.
• Provide multiple payment options: Customers have different preferences when it comes to payment methods, so offering a variety of options such as credit cards, PayPal, or mobile payment solutions can cater to diverse needs and increase the likelihood of conversion.
• Offer excellent customer support: Provide multiple channels for customers to reach out, such as live chat, email, or phone support. Prompt and helpful responses to inquiries or concerns can instill confidence in customers and address any potential barriers to making a purchase.

Enhancing Customer Engagement in the Digital Space

While understanding the customer journey is important, enhancing customer engagement on digital platforms is equally crucial. Let's explore some strategies to achieve this:

Personalization 

Personalization is a powerful tool that can significantly enhance customer engagement. By leveraging customer data and utilizing technology, businesses can personalize content and offers based on individual preferences, interests, and behaviors. This level of customization creates a sense of exclusivity and relevance, ultimately leading to stronger customer relationships and increased engagement.

Imagine a scenario where a customer visits an online retail store and is greeted with personalized product recommendations based on their previous purchases and browsing history. This tailored approach not only saves the customer time but also makes them feel valued and understood. As a result, they likely to engage with the website, explore additional products, and make a purchase.

What's more, personalization can extend beyond product recommendations. Businesses can even personalize marketing emails, website content, and social media interactions. By delivering targeted messages that resonate with individual customers, you can foster a deeper connection and encourage ongoing engagement.

Utilizing Data

Effective use of data is instrumental in optimizing engagement in the digital space. By gathering and analyzing customer data, companies can gain valuable insights into customer behavior patterns, preferences, and needs. This data-driven approach allows businesses to deliver targeted and relevant content, ensuring a more personalized and engaging customer experience.

For instance, by analyzing website analytics, organizations can identify the most popular pages and features on their website. Armed with this information, they can optimize those areas to further enhance customer engagement. Additionally, data can be used to identify trends and patterns in customer behavior, enabling businesses to anticipate customer needs and proactively address them.

Moreover, data can be leveraged to segment customers into different groups based on their demographics, preferences, or purchase history. This segmentation allows businesses to tailor their marketing efforts and communication strategies to specific customer segments, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

The Role of Technology in the Digital Customer Journey

Technology plays a pivotal role in the digital customer journey, enabling businesses to deliver personalized experiences and streamline processes. Let's explore two key technological advancements:

Impact of Artificial Intelligence

AI has transformed the way businesses interact with their customers. With AI-powered chatbots, companies can now provide 24/7 customer support, ensuring that customers' queries are addressed promptly and efficiently. These chatbots are equipped with natural language processing capabilities, allowing them to understand and respond to customer inquiries in a human-like manner.

Moreover, AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of customer data, enabling organizations to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. By understanding their customers better, companies can tailor their offerings to meet individual needs, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The Power of Predictive Analytics

With predictive analytics, companies can analyze past customer behavior to identify patterns and trends. By understanding these patterns, businesses can anticipate customer needs and proactively offer relevant products or services. For example, an online retailer can use predictive analytics to recommend products based on a customer's browsing and purchase history, increasing the likelihood of a successful sale.

What's more, predictive analytics can help businesses optimize their marketing strategies. By analyzing customer data, companies can identify the most effective channels and messages to reach their target audience. This allows for more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns, resulting in higher conversion rates and improved customer satisfaction.

Overcoming Challenges in the Digital Customer Journey

Navigating the digital customer journey is not without its challenges. Let's explore two common hurdles businesses may face:

• Dealing with Data Privacy Concerns: Businesses should ensure that they are transparent about data collection and storage practices and comply with relevant regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). By prioritizing data privacy and establishing trust, businesses can alleviate customer concerns and enhance engagement.
• Ensuring Seamless Omni-Channel Experience: Customers expect consistency and continuity regardless of the channel they choose to engage with. Integrating different channels, such as social media, websites, and physical stores, and providing a unified experience can significantly improve engagement and customer satisfaction.

Navigate the Digital Customer Journey with Wrike

Navigating the digital customer journey is key to enhancing customer engagement. With Wrike, you can effectively manage and navigate your digital customer journey. Wrike allows you to create individual folders for each customer journey initiative, serving as a central hub for all relevant information and updates. Beyond just navigating the digital customer journey, Wrike offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to foster collaboration, and drive productivity. From real-time communication to intuitive task management features, Wrike provides everything you need to navigate the digital customer journey for enhanced engagement. Ready to navigate the digital customer journey and enhance engagement? There's no better time to start than now. Get started with Wrike for free today.

Note: This article was created with the assistance of an AI engine. It has been reviewed and revised by our team of experts to ensure accuracy and quality.

Occasionally we write blog posts where multiple people contribute. Since our idea of having a gladiator arena where contributors would fight to the death to win total authorship wasn’t approved by HR, this was the compromise.

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Performance vs Brand Marketing: A Comprehensive Comparison

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Customer Journey Maps: How to Create Really Good Ones [Examples + Template]

Updated: April 17, 2024

Published: May 04, 2023

Did you know 70% of online shoppers abandoned their carts in 2022? Why would someone spend time adding products to their cart just to fall off the customer journey map at the last second?

The thing is — understanding your customer base can be very challenging. Even when you think you’ve got a good read on them, the journey from awareness to purchase for each customer will always be unpredictable, at least to some level.

While it isn’t possible to predict every experience with 100% accuracy, customer journey mapping is a convenient tool for keeping track of critical milestones that every customer hits. In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know about customer journey mapping — what it is, how to create one, and best practices.

Table of Contents

What is the customer journey?

What is a customer journey map, benefits of customer journey mapping, customer journey stages.

• What’s included in a customer journey map?

The Customer Journey Mapping Process

Steps for creating a customer journey map.

• Types of Customer Journey Maps

Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices

• Customer Journey Design
• Customer Journey Map Examples

Free Customer Journey Map Templates

Free Customer Journey Template

Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free templates.

• Buyer's Journey Template
• Future State Template
• Day-in-the-Life Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

The customer journey is the series of interactions a customer has with a brand, product, or business as they become aware of a pain point and make a purchase decision. While the buyer’s journey refers to the general process of arriving at a purchase, the customer journey refers to a buyer's purchasing experience with a specific company or service.

Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey

Many businesses that I’ve worked with were confused about the differences between the customer’s journey and the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is the entire buying experience from pre-purchase to post-purchase. It covers the path from customer awareness to becoming a product or service user.

In other words, buyers don’t wake up and decide to buy on a whim. They go through a process of considering, evaluating, and purchasing a new product or service.

The customer journey refers to your brand’s place within the buyer’s journey. These are the customer touchpoints where you will meet your customers as they go through the stages of the buyer’s journey. When you create a customer journey map, you’re taking control of every touchpoint at every stage of the journey instead of leaving it up to chance.

For example, at HubSpot, our customer’s journey is divided into three stages — pre-purchase/sales, onboarding/migration, and normal use/renewal.

1. Use customer journey map templates.

Why make a customer journey map from scratch when you can use a template? Save yourself some time by downloading HubSpot’s free customer journey map templates .

This has templates that map out a buyer’s journey, a day in your customer’s life, lead nurturing, and more.

These templates can help sales, marketing, and customer support teams learn more about your company’s buyer persona. This will improve your product and customer experience.

2. Set clear objectives for the map.

Before you dive into your customer journey map, you need to ask yourself why you’re creating one in the first place.

What goals are you directing this map towards? Who is it for? What experience is it based upon?

If you don’t have one, I recommend creating a buyer persona . This persona is a fictitious customer with all the demographics and psychographics of your average customer. This persona reminds you to direct every aspect of your customer journey map toward the right audience.

3. Profile your personas and define their goals.

Next, you should conduct research. This is where it helps to have customer journey analytics ready.

Don’t have them? No worries. You can check out HubSpot’s Customer Journey Analytics tool to get started.

Questionnaires and user testing are great ways to obtain valuable customer feedback. The important thing is to only contact actual customers or prospects.

You want feedback from people interested in purchasing your products and services who have either interacted with your company or plan to do so.

Some examples of good questions to ask are:

• How did you hear about our company?
• What first attracted you to our website?
• What are the goals you want to achieve with our company? In other words, what problems are you trying to solve?
• How long have you/do you typically spend on our website?
• Have you ever made a purchase with us? If so, what was your deciding factor?
• Have you ever interacted with our website to make a purchase but decided not to? If so, what led you to this decision?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easily can you navigate our website?
• Did you ever require customer support? If so, how helpful was it, on a scale of 1 to 10?
• Can we further support you to make your process easier?

You can use this buyer persona tool to fill in the details you procure from customer feedback.

4. Highlight your target customer personas.

Once you’ve learned about the customer personas that interact with your business, I recommend narrowing your focus to one or two.

Remember, a customer journey map tracks the experience of a customer taking a particular path with your company. If you group too many personas into one journey, your map won’t accurately reflect that experience.

When creating your first map, it’s best to pick your most common customer persona and consider the route they would typically take when engaging with your business for the first time.

You can use a marketing dashboard to compare each and determine the best fit for your journey map. Don’t worry about the ones you leave out, as you can always go back and create a new map specific to those customer types.

5. List out all touchpoints.

Begin by listing the touchpoints on your website.

What is a touchpoint in a customer journey map?

A touchpoint in a customer journey map is an instance where your customer can form an opinion of your business. You can find touchpoints in places where your business comes in direct contact with a potential or existing customer.

For example, if I were to view a display ad, interact with an employee, reach a 404 error, or leave a Google review, all of those interactions would be considered a customer touchpoint.

Your brand exists beyond your website and marketing materials, so you must consider the different types of touchpoints in your customer journey map. These touchpoints can help uncover opportunities for improvement in the buying journey.

Based on your research, you should have a list of all the touchpoints your customers are currently using and the ones you believe they should be using if there’s no overlap.

This is essential in creating a customer journey map because it provides insight into your customers’ actions.

For instance, if they use fewer touchpoints than expected, does this mean they’re quickly getting turned away and leaving your site early? If they are using more than expected, does this mean your website is complicated and requires several steps to reach an end goal?

Whatever the case, understanding touchpoints help you understand the ease or difficulties of the customer journey.

Aside from your website, you must also look at how your customers might find you online. These channels might include:

• Social channels.
• Email marketing.
• Third-party review sites or mentions.

Run a quick Google search of your brand to see all the pages that mention you. Verify these by checking your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from. Whittle your list down to those touchpoints that are the most common and will be most likely to see an action associated with it.

At HubSpot, we hosted workshops where employees from all over the company highlighted instances where our product, service, or brand impacted a customer. Those moments were recorded and logged as touchpoints. This showed us multiple areas of our customer journey where our communication was inconsistent.

The proof is in the pudding — you can see us literally mapping these touch points out with sticky notes in the image below.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free customer journey map templates.

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What is a digital journey

Digital customer service..

What is digital journey?

A customer journey is the aggregate of experiences that a customer has when interacting with your organization. Rather than looking at each touchpoint separately -- like their experience in your store, their experience on your website, or their experiencing chatting with a customer support agent -- a customer journey  details the end-to-end experience from the customer’s perspective.

So what is digital journey? A digital journey is focused exclusively on the digital channels  available and used by your customer during their buying journey. These include your company’s website, social media channels, mobile apps, SMS messaging tools, and live chat .

Designing a digital journey

To design a digital journey that will delight your customers and keep them coming back for more, put yourself in their shoes. Define and understand each category of customer that interacts with your company. What are they trying to accomplish by purchasing from your organization? With a deep understanding of your buyers, now consider what content and offers appeal most to the customer. When, where and how should you deliver this information to them?

Additionally, you’ll want to design a digital journey that encompasses all stages of the buying cycle. Typically, these stages are awareness or browsing, filling an online shopping cart, and making a purchase. It’s also important to consider the buyer’s post-purchase needs and wants, whether that involves interacting with customer support or encouraging them to make another purchase from your company.

Benefits of creating an outstanding digital journey.

Focusing on your customer’s journey through a digital lens and ensuring it’s best-in-class can create value in several ways.

Grow revenue

By leveraging the rich at-your-fingertips data available through the technologies that fuel a buyer’s digital journey, you’re able to intelligently offer additional products to the customer. If 80% of the other customers who purchased decorative pillows also purchased a new table lamp, ensure that your digital journey displays your top-selling, in-stock offerings.

Improve customer experiences

As customers continue to embrace digital channels, companies have an opportunity to improve interactions and deliver improved customer experiences. Digital experiences are typically simpler and faster to use. Would you rather stroll aisle after aisle of a home goods superstore searching for a seasonal throw pillow? Or would you rather enter a few words into a search box and find the perfect item for your living room couch at home in your recliner?

Reduce costs

Lastly, a well-designed digital journey can help your company lower costs. By maintaining an easy-to-use help center on your website and leveraging chatbots in your contact center, you’re able to easily answer some of the most common questions a customer has without engaging live agents.

NICE CXone is the leading call center software  used by thousands of customers of all sizes around the world. As a cloud-native, unified suite of applications, CXone helps companies productively interact with customers through digital channels. Watch our webinar to find out more about the role contact centers play in shaping digital journeys .

Your customers are trying to reach you for service on digital channels – even if you’re not there yet. How many SMS text messages go to your call center phone number with no response? Who’s trying to find you on Facebook, Twitter, or WhatsApp and not finding you? Now with CXone it is easy to provide digital-first omnichannel service in all the channels your customers expect.

• Personalized digital interactions: deliver native experiences in each of 30+ messaging channels, such as rich media, emojis, and other collaboration tools.
• Simple to Activate: pre-integrated channels make it easy to offer to customers and agents.
• Easy to Say “Yes”: simple packaging removes barriers to offering all channels to customers and agents.

CXone empowers all your agents to deliver a true digital-first omnichannel customer experience by simultaneously combining all customer interactions in one intelligent inbox across multiple digital channels and voice for agents to select ("pull"), while dynamically prioritizing the most time-sensitive or real-time interactions according to service levels ("push"). All delivered in a single application – complete with full customer context, journey history, and sentiment.

• Single Interface:  one inbox for all digital messaging  and real-time (voice/chat) channels – retaining native experience of each messaging platform.
• Agents in Control: ‘pulling’ work in natural flow, while dynamic prioritization maintains SLAs – and prevents ‘cherry picking’.
• Customer Card: full customer context, journey and conversation history, plus sentiment.

With CXone, omnichannel interactions are managed holistically, from agents to supervisors and beyond. Integrated workforce optimization, analytics, automation and artificial intelligence across digital and voice interactions ensure complete management across contact center operations.

• Self-Service: native AI-powered chatbot and 20+  DEVone AI bots  with seamless elevation to agents.
• Intelligent Routing:  AI-powered natural language and Predictive Behavioral Routing  for voice/chat and digital messaging channels.
• Blended Agents: complete  quality, coaching , recording,  scheduling  tools to optimize management and engagement of a true omnichannel team.
• Digital Voice-of-the-Customer: feedback surveys and  speech/text analytics  that capture, analyze, and drive action on CX insights.

• What does a digital experience manager do?
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• How can digital customer experience be improved?
• NICE CX AI Platform

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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Customer Journey Mapping Is at the Heart of Digital Transformation

November 4, 2015 • 12 min read.

Companies that carefully map out customer buying “journeys” are better prepared to transform their businesses, say experts from Wharton and NTT DATA.

Digital technologies such as analytics, mobility, social networks, cloud computing and the Internet of Things are making old ways of working redundant and forcing companies to transform. According to Raman Sapra, senior vice president and global head of NTT DATA’s digital business services, the best way to leverage digital is to take a comprehensive rather than a piecemeal approach. And a key tool to achieve this is customer journey mapping, where powerful new data collection and analytics tools are helping to provide deeper insights to fuel performance. In this paper, experts from Wharton and NTT DATA examine how this mapping is at the heart of digital transformation.

Companies such as Uber, Spotify and Airbnb are disrupting their industries. Take Uber. The popular taxi-hailing app does not own any vehicles and yet provides transportation to some 8 million users. Music-streaming service Spotify lets music lovers listen to a wide range of artists, yet it does not own a radio station. And Airbnb, a provider of accommodations with more than a million listings across the globe, does not own any lodgings.

These startups are leveraging new technologies to disrupt their industries while making life easier for users. But digital transformation goes deeper than simply improving the customer experience. It is also increasingly used to transform business processes and interactions within a company to keep it relevant in the digital age.

“Typically, digital is associated only with providing a superior customer experience. But digital can also help create new business models, drive operational excellence and enhance employee engagement,” says Raman Sapra, senior vice president and global head of NTT DATA’s digital business services.

“Typically, digital is associated only with providing a superior customer experience. But digital can also help create new business models, drive operational excellence and enhance employee engagement.” –Raman Sapra

New digital tools are extending information collection and then helping to turn an otherwise overwhelming flood of information into actionable knowledge. For instance, telecom providers can use data analytics to help predict data loss or network deterioration, as well as prevent service disruptions. More generally, companies can use social media to connect better with their employees. Or, they can tap data analytics to make decisions faster and bring operational efficiencies.

But before embarking on a digital transformation, organizations need to first identify their business imperatives and priorities, Sapra says. They need to understand what their customers, employees, partners and other stakeholders desire. They also must identify the digital possibilities in their industry. Using these benchmarks as a foundation, organizations can tailor a digital strategy and roadmap, and then proceed to build their digital initiatives.

There is one critical tool for successful digital transformation — smart customer journey mapping. “It is at the heart of digital transformation,” says Sapra. Adds Mahesh Kolar, director of mobility applications at NTT DATA: “There are many different ways, like focus groups and surveys, to understand the customer journey. But we believe that customer journey mapping is vital for giving organizations the ‘Aha’ moment when it comes to understanding their digital possibilities.” And new digital tools are now making it possible to create a much deeper understanding of the journey.

Identifying Digital Touchpoints

What exactly is customer journey mapping? “It is the definitive first step in the process of converting a current ‘as-is’ state to a future state that promises an enhanced customer experience,” says Siddharth Gaikwad, practice head of digital experience at NTT DATA. The term “customers,” he adds, does not only refer to end-users; it could be any stakeholder — such as employees or partners.

“A journey map is an illustrated representation of a customer’s expectations, experiences and reflections as it unfolds over time across multiple stages and touchpoints while using a product or consuming a service.”

“A journey map is an illustrated representation of a customer’s expectations, experiences and reflections as it unfolds over time across multiple stages and touchpoints while using a product or consuming a service.” –Siddharth Gaikwad

Take the booking of an airline ticket. Here, the journey mapping starts from the time the customer realizes the need to travel. It captures the customer’s various expectations at that stage. It then maps their actual experience of buying the ticket and even the emotions felt after the purchase. Expectations are thus benchmarked against actual experience.

By capturing the current “as is” state of a customer’s journey — in this case, the booking of an airline ticket — the map amplifies various pain points along the purchase path. For experience designers, questions that arise around the journey include the following: Do we know the customer’s context? Is the information about the various options adequate or even relevant? Are there too many details to be filled out multiple times? Is the whole exercise too time-consuming? Capturing the “as is” state can also predict likely future behavior.

Thereafter, in collaboration with domain experts across different parts of the organization and its extended eco-system, and using design methods like storytelling and card sorting, the map findings are converted into insights. Storytelling, the art of overlaying context, perspective and imagery around a user’s journey, combined with card sorting, the technique of identifying mental models or patterns, become important tools in rendering the “to-be” future-state. In creating the map, the organization can use the rapidly evolving elements of digital — analytics, mobile, social, the cloud and Internet of Things — to enhance the customer experience.

“By overlaying the digital possibilities upon customer journey maps, organizations are able to better visualize which aspects of their business they should focus on, which of the new technologies they should embrace and what new business models they can create,” says Gaikwad. “It helps them to realign their investments, technologies and business models so they can engage more effectively with customers, employees and partners.”

Patti Williams, a Wharton professor of marketing, points out that journeys help companies understand consumer decision-making. It reveals the types of information, sources, emotions and other factors that can influence them and their choices, she says.

Williams agrees that customer journey mapping is an important tool for transforming a business. “Journey mappings are deep, embedded consumer insights.” Developing a multilayered understanding of consumers and how they make choices in a contextual setting “offers companies the opportunity to change practices in a way that reflects the reality of consumer decision making.” Consumer journey mapping, she adds, “is at the center of all consumer-focused organizations and can transform many businesses.”

“Consumer journey mapping is at the center of all consumer-focused organizations and can transform many businesses.” –Patti Williams

And as Gaikwad points out, “very few non-consumer-focused organizations remain out there, and they will change very soon. Consumerization of the enterprise is driving that change.”

Overly simple customer journey models, however, will likely fall short, says Jerry (Yoram) Wind, a Wharton professor of marketing. It is crucial that mapping be dynamic. “Mapping is very difficult given the heterogeneity of all markets and [also because] the same consumer may have a totally different journey at different times because of different contexts.” In the airline case, for instance, consumers could be traveling for various reasons, such as a vacation, business trip or family emergency. “Thus, most maps, unless they are dynamic and include context, can be quite misleading.”

Customer journey mapping requires design, domain and facilitation skills. Typically, a customer journey map is created by using data from primary research, such as personal interviews, focus group sessions, brainstorming and shadowing, as well as secondary research such as gathering and collaborating over information from databases within the organization, websites, social media and so on. Many digital tools are growing rapidly in sophistication and usefulness, and enhancing the value of gleaned insights.

The first step is to define the exact area — for instance, product, service and task — where the organization wants improvement, and identify the “consumer.” For example, a hotel may want to improve its front desk service. Here, the “consumer” would be the customer-relations employees manning the front desk. But, if the hotel wants to enhance the self-check-in experience, the “consumer” would be the guests.

With the consumer defined, the user experience team then creates a “persona” based on the customer’s demographic and psychographic profile. This would include age, socioeconomic background, value systems, opinions, attitudes, lifestyle, likes and dislikes, and so on. Thereafter, this persona’s journey — comprising expectations, experience and reflections — is mapped across a specific task. These insights are then converted into touchpoints –where the organization literally makes a connection to the customer, whether via desktop or mobile, or through a web site or social media.

“The curious case of the touchpoint is that it does not work without context of the consumer,” says Gaikwad. This is where the new digital tools add a new dimension of value. “What better time than this digital age to mine that context — it’s available on the cloud, in the devices and all over social media,” he says.

In the case of guest check-in, some touchpoints suggested through journey mapping could be self-check-in hotel lobby kiosks. Based on the guests’ persona and their context, the kiosk could dispense personalized, magnetic access cards with QR codes (the quick response bar code), which, when scanned, could offer personalized suggestions.

“Mapping is very difficult given the heterogeneity of all markets and [also because] the same consumer may have a totally different journey at different times because of different contexts.” –Jerry (Yoram) Wind

Value Proposition For instance, if the guest is a child, the access card could recommend relevant kid-friendly activities. For business travelers, it could offer details about convention centers and other business-related information. Kolar notes: “The key is to see how much personalization you can provide and how much of it you can contextualize around a given customer in a way that delights them, but at the same time is not intrusive.”

Thus, a series of connected maps covering each phase in the customer lifecycle can give an organization complete control over their capability to deliver a product or a service, Gaikwad says. In the hotel example, there could be different maps for check-in, housekeeping, concierge service, food and beverage service, and checkout. Typically, an accurate map takes up to a couple of weeks to create based on the persona, and “if done properly, it can have a shelf life of a couple of years, even in the current market where paradigm shifts are happening so regularly,” he adds.

The Way Forward

Williams believes customer journey maps should be updated frequently and often can involve an ongoing investment. Creating a journey map is an intensive process influenced by time and materials, so “budgets influence how frequently they can realistically be done. But as changes occur, they should be updated.” Williams adds that “different customer segments will have different journeys, so journeys should be understood at a segment level” as well.

One of the biggest challenges, as with so many initiatives, is getting senior management’s commitment. Successful customer journey mapping takes time and close collaboration. The effectiveness of a map depends in part on how well managers engage in the map creation process and how far into the future they can project as they analyze customer insights.

While converting journey map findings into actionable insights about digital touchpoints requires senior members across functions to brainstorm together, this is often easier planned than executed. Busy executives typically are preoccupied with operations, and many organizations work in silos — so the all-important coordination can be challenging. Storytelling and card sorting come handy to motivate, incentivize and create stickiness among diverse groups to help keep on track.

While the value of traditional journey maps is widely accepted, there remains the issue of setting metrics for the return on investment (ROI) for the latest, digital approaches. At present, “I don’t know if there is a sure way of defining a clear return on investment for customer journey mapping,” says Kolar. “We think it is a powerful tool to understand the context of the users and to take them from their current state to a heightened state of customer delight.” The new digital tools are helping. “With advanced analytics, the value, effectiveness and cost of an investment can be understood early on and course corrections can be made to minimize impact.”

Kolar believes digital customer journey mapping is here to stay. Because of the tremendous reach of social media, a single vocal customer or employee can have a big business impact. This makes it all the more important for organizations to be on top of their game.

“My sense is customer journey mapping will become a mandatory tool for digital transformation. Enterprises will begin to do customer journey mapping as the first part of their planning activities.”

Adds Sapra: “Most customer journeys of today are rendered as static maps. As digital tools advance even further, “I think they will become a lot more dynamic. They will become a current document that will get updated in real time in this connected world. That’s when the map will become even more valuable.”

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The Power of a Digital Customer Journey Map

By: Steph Nagl

In any business, you want to prioritize the customer experience. That experience often starts before someone decides to make a purchase and doesn’t end when the transaction is completed. Seeing the whole picture is essential in order to improve the customer experience (CX).

The customer experience (CX) is critical to bottom-line growth. According to research from CX Index , a positive CX alone drives over two-thirds of loyalty—more than price and brand combined. One of the most effective ways to determine how to improve people’s interaction with a brand is by examining the digital customer journey map. 

Digital marketers today need a firm understanding of digital customer journey mapping, including what it is, why it matters, and how to best use it in their overall digital marketing strategy. 

What Is a Digital Customer Journey Map?

First, it’s important to understand what a digital customer journey is. It refers to the steps that the modern consumer takes on their path to conversion, including every touchpoint from engagement and awareness to post-purchase behavior.

Traditionally, the customer journey followed a linear path of: exposure to an advertisement on TV or radio, a customer visiting a brick-and-mortar store, followed by them making a purchase. In today’s world, the experience is vastly different as a result of technology:

• An average U.S. household has a total of 22 connected devices .
• The average American spends between 5-6 hours on their phone every day. 
• 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase on their phone in the last 6 months. 

Digital marketers must ensure they’re viewing the customer journey through the digital lens as well. One way to do that is with a digital customer journey map—a visual representation of the experience that also provides insight into the customer needs and potential factors that directly or indirectly impact their needs and behaviors. 

The 5 Stages of a Digital Customer Journey 

Every path to purchase will be different, but at some point, all customers will go through these stages to some degree:

1. Awareness

The consumer starts the research process after determining that they have a need for a product or service. Oftentimes, they will turn to the internet to further their research and consume various forms of educational content. During this stage, you want to put your company’s name on their radar through ads or relevant content that may address the customer’s needs.

2. Consideration

The consumer enters this stage after conducting research and beginning to compare different solutions for whatever need they might have. Ideally, they will look at your company as a viable option. To help them reach a decision, this phase may involve visiting your website again, attending a webinar, or requesting a free trial. 

3. Purchase

They’ve made a decision and completed a purchase from your company. This phase is critical to overall CX because it will influence future behavior. The purchase process needs to be as seamless and easy as possible.

4. Retention

Once the shopper has become your buyer, it is time to nurture that relationship in order to earn their loyalty. During this phase, it’s important to look at opportunities for future purchases, leveraging analytics and offering loyalty incentives such as reward points.

5. Advocacy

Now it’s time to turn your buyer into your brand’s advocate. After establishing trust and a connection, your customer is more likely to make a purchase in the future as well as recommend your product to others through customer-generated content (word-of-mouth referrals, reviews, and other endorsements).

To successfully move a customer through this journey, it’s important to gain a deeper understanding of their motivations and overall experiences. A journey map makes this possible.

Why Is a Digital Customer Journey Map Important? 

In order for a business to remain competitive, it must adapt to changing customer behavior. Today’s customers have access to more information (and more options) than ever before. It’s made them more empowered but also more demanding. Your business must ensure you are offering an exceptional customer experience at every touchpoint.

Digital customer journey mapping allows you to:

• Walk in your customer’s shoes 
• Make more informed decisions on content creation and content marketing
• Identify gaps in the existing experience (and make efforts to fill them)
• Gain valuable insight into customers’ wants, needs, feelings, actions, and aspirations
• Use data to predict and influence how customers will behave

How Do You Create a Digital Customer Journey Map? 

When you map out a customer’s digital journey, you are outlining every possible opportunity that you have to connect with that client. Knowing more about each touchpoint allows you to craft targeted engagement strategies on the right platforms. 

Here are the general steps to follow in creating your own map: 

1)Set objectives for the map

2)Conduct research to create buyer personas 

3)List out all customer touchpoints (website, paid ads, social media, blog, etc.)

4)List out the most common actions your customers make at each step

5)Determine the resources you have and the ones you need at each touchpoint 

6)Go through the journey yourself and analyze the results 

Dive deeper into the process of creating digital customer journey maps with an online Master of Digital Marketing degree program  or an online Digital Marketing and Analytics certificate from Wake Forest University’s School of Professional Studies. 

Learn more today. 

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The 4 Pillars of Successful Digital Transformations

• Nathan Furr,
• Andrew Shipilov,
• Didier Rouillard,
• Antoine Hemon-Laurens

A framework to help leaders decide where to invest.

Digital transformation can mean a lot of different things. For leaders, it can be hard to know where you should be focusing investment — and what kind of digital transformation you’re really after. The authors outline four pillars of digital transformation: IT uplift, digitizing operations, digital marketing, and new ventures. Which pillar is the right starting point for your company depends on your context, needs, but also your digital maturity.

Despite years of discussion, understanding what digital transformation means for established companies remains a daunting challenge. Leaders put in charge of a digital transformation feel pulled in many different directions, with competing demands from IT, marketing, sales, and operations. Without a clear understanding, the wrong people are often put in charge, with the wrong resources, and the wrong KPIs, setting the digital transformation project up for failure.

• Nathan Furr is a Professor of Strategy at INSEAD and a coauthor of five best-selling books, including The Upside of Uncertainty, The Innovator’s Method, Leading Transformation, Innovation Cap i tal , and Nail It then Scale It .
• Andrew Shipilov is a John H. Loudon Chaired Professor of International Management at INSEAD. He is a coauthor of Network Advantage: How to Unlock Value From Your Alliances and Partnerships .
• DR Didier Rouillard is the Corporate VP of Quadient, a customer experience software company operating globally.
• AH Antoine Hemon-Laurens is Senior DigitalNOW! partner at Quadient.

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6 Stages of Digital Transformation: The Complete Guide

Gartner reports that 91% of businesses are already engaged in digitization efforts, and 87% of top business leaders consider digital transformation a priority.

This indicates that digital transformation is no longer optional but a necessity for businesses.

However, the path to digital transformation is not a simple linear one, nor is it a one-size-fits-all approach.

It requires careful planning.

In this article, we will uncover the stages of digital transformation and guide you on transforming outdated processes into impressive, smart procedures.

If you wish to embrace digital transformation and stay relevant in the ever-evolving digital landscape, read on.

Understanding Digital Transformation

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is the digital makeover of a company . It's about integrating digital technologies and strategies into every aspect of your business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers.

This transformation is not just limited to adopting new technologies; it requires a complete shift in how you do things. It reshapes your business model, processes, culture, and customer experiences.

At the core of digital transformation is the company's leadership and culture. That's why a digital transformation may fail without strong leadership and a culture that embraces change

, even with the latest technology, customer insights, and services.

So why is digital transformation so crucial?

• Today's customers expect quick, personalized, and efficient interactions. Embracing digital transformation allows businesses to meet these expectations, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Rapidly evolving markets require agility and innovation. Digital transformation facilitates businesses to quickly adapt to changes and remain relevant in the eyes of the audience.
• Digital transformation empowers you to make informed decisions with data that drive growth and efficiency.
• It breaks down barriers, allowing businesses of all sizes to compete globally and explore untapped markets.

The impact of digital technologies varies across industries. Here are a few examples.

1. Retail : Mobile apps - especially store branded apps, e-commerce platforms, and personalized marketing techniques have revolutionized the retail industry. They allow businesses to reach targeted audience, create tailored shopping experiences, and optimize supply chain processes.

For example, Target's digital transformation strategy utilizes AI, data analytics, and other technologies to improve customer service. They spent about $2.7 billion in tech in 2023, mostly on software, networks, and services from different vendors. They have developed their mobile app, which allows customers to scan their store receipts and get cash-back rewards.

2. Healthcare : Digital technologies like telemedicine, wearable devices, and electronic health records enable healthcare providers to improve patient care, enhance remote diagnostics, and facilitate better communication between doctors and patients.

As an example of digital transformation in healthcare, Mayo Clinic is a renowned worldwide healthcare provider that offers high-quality care using the latest technologies. On the other hand, Zocdoc utilizes technology to provide telemedicine services.

3. Financial Services : Fintech innovations such as online banking, mobile payments, and blockchain-driven solutions have transformed the financial industry, providing customers with convenient, fast, and secure financial services.

For instance, a leading US bank, Goldman Sachs, embraced technology to revolutionize finance. They automated trading, used data to make informed decisions, and launched "Marcus," a digital bank for retail customers.

To successfully navigate the digital transformation journey, a structured approach is essential.

• A structured approach provides clarity and sets clear objectives for the digital transformation journey. It helps you understand what you want to achieve and how can you reach there.
• It helps you stay on track by outlining the necessary steps, milestones, and timelines. You can also identify potential roadblocks and plan accordingly.
• It is necessary to help you allocate resources effectively, ensuring you are well-equipped with the right people, processes, and technology.
• It encourages collaboration across different business units and stakeholders.
• It helps you manage risks effectively, minimizing the potential impact of unforeseen events and challenges.

The Six Stages of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation takes time - It is not an overnight thing.

It has different stages, each essential for a successful digital future.

Here are the six essential stages of digital transformation you'll need to navigate through your digital transformation journey.

1. Traditional Processes and Business as Usual

Here, businesses operate in a traditional manner, often relying on manual processes.

In this phase, technology is mainly used to facilitate existing processes and functions. Digital initiatives are ad hoc and lack a strategic focus.

The company might adopt technology based on immediate needs rather than considering long-term objectives. It's like using digital tools as quick fixes instead of seeing the bigger picture.

A key aspect of this stage is that organizations might not fully comprehend digital transformation's potential benefits and opportunities. They may not realize the transformative power of digital technologies.

However, they understand that to move forward and grow, they must explore embracing digital technologies. So, in this stage, the focus is on understanding that change is necessary and taking the first steps to examine the potential of digital transformation. It's like laying the groundwork and preparing for the exciting stages that lie ahead.

2. Experimental

In this stage, organizations start grasping the value of digital technology and begin investing in it.

Digital efforts pop up in various departments, and there's a growing awareness of the need for digitalizing processes to amp up efficiency.

Leaders might notice competitors gaining ground due to digital transformation, or employees might see benefits through social media or past experiences.

However, these efforts often lack coordination and a clear strategy. There's no ongoing push to start a transformation.

At this point, organizations are building digital skills.

3. Formalized

The formalized phase is a turning point where top-level management and employees embrace the positive effects of digital transformation.

Organizations create a digital strategy that matches their business goals, aiming to optimize processes and bring things together.

Cross-functional teams drive digital projects, and data-driven decision-making becomes critical.

Some resistance to change may occur, with employees feeling uncomfortable and customers struggling with new software or services.

While small initiatives may happen at the individual department level, these achievements contribute to the likely success of digital transformation.

4. Strategic

In the strategic stage of digital transformation, organizations develop a strategy that aligns with their business goals.

This strategy aims to create new business models or modify existing ones and identify the necessary digital capabilities to achieve desired outcomes.

Leaders build support among all stakeholders and create a culture of innovation to drive change management . They evaluate and acquire new tools and technologies that support a digital-first mindset.

This approach helps determine if the digital initiatives are producing the expected benefits.

5. Converged

In this digital transformation stage, organizations focus on digital plans and set aside what they need to make it happen.

They form dedicated digital transformation teams, set aside budgets, and collaborate with external partners to ensure their company becomes truly digital.

At this point, different transformation efforts become one big plan for the whole organization.

The digital plan matches what the business wants, and digital tools are used everywhere in the company. The company works in a digitally-enabled system, focusing on being highly agile, efficient, and adaptable.

This stage is super important because it's when companies really get into dealing with changes in the market.

6. Innovative and Adaptive

In this digital transformation stage, organizations reach a state of continuous innovation and adaptability.

They commit to ongoing digital optimization and innovation.

This stage represents high digital maturity, where organizations often lead their industry. They actively seek emerging technologies, experiment with new business models, and embrace change.

Digital transformation becomes ingrained in their culture, and they constantly explore new ways to stay ahead and meet customer demands.

This stage is about always getting better and being ahead of others in the business.

Challenges and Solutions in Digital Transformation

Digital transformation brings incredible business opportunities to thrive and succeed in today's fast-paced technological landscape.

However, it

can be a challenging ride.

Let’s explore some common challenges and their potential solutions -

1. Failure to Cultivate a Digital Culture

Establishing a digital culture is essential not only during the transformation process but also as a foundational step that should precede any planning for change. Unfortunately, many businesses fail to recognize this crucial aspect, which can have serious consequences.

Without such a culture, your stakeholders may be unprepared for the upcoming changes.

This lack of readiness can lead to a drop in performance and employee efficiency during the transition phase. It's like expecting someone to run a marathon without proper training beforehand!

One of the main reasons for this failure is often the sole focus on the transformation process itself, without considering its impact on the stakeholders.

To successfully navigate a business transformation, you must create a digital culture across your organization.

This involves encouraging employees and other stakeholders to embrace digital tools, technology, and solutions, which will help shape their mindset.

A key strategy here is to start slowly and clearly explain the transformation process. By taking the time to educate stakeholders and allowing them to become accustomed to the changes gradually, you set the stage for a successful business transformation.

By building a digital culture, you create an environment where employees feel comfortable and confident using digital tools and technologies. This familiarity ultimately helps them adapt and thrive during the transformation phase.

2. Integration of Legacy Systems with Modern Technologies

Companies have already invested significant capital in legacy systems and are still benefiting.

However, these legacy systems, powered by obsolete software and outdated technologies, are a major bottleneck in digital transformation.

They are inflexible and slow, making integrating with new technologies or adapting to transitions challenging. Additionally, they are vulnerable to significant security breaches, which is a pressing concern for businesses.

To tackle the challenges presented by legacy systems during digital transformation, organizations should adopt a strategy that includes modernizing the systems, integrating data, and managing change.

Modernizing these legacy systems updates and improves the underlying technology, making it more compatible with modern digital technologies.

Developing data mapping and transformation processes and leveraging data integration middleware can ensure data flows smoothly and be shared effectively between the systems.

3. Lack of Defined Scope of Digital Transformation & Executive Buy-in

A CIO Report highlights that the primary causes of digital transformation failures are unclear digital strategy, undefined scope, and implementation by senior leadership.

These findings are supported by a Harvard University Review, which reveals that CEOs of renowned brands like GE and McDonald's have been asked to step down due to struggles adapting to the digital age and meeting evolving customer needs.

The definition of digital transformation varies across businesses, making it impractical to stick to a standardized methodology. This is primarily due to the changing behaviors and needs of customers.

A significant reason why many C-level executives give up on digital transformation is the challenge of executing numerous initiatives without clear, measurable outcomes.

Another major obstacle preventing the progress of digital transformation is a lack of clear understanding of what this journey entails.

Develop a clear strategic plan that is based on digital transformation metrics.

This plan should outline who will be impacted by the transformation and how it will influence the performance and efficiency of the organization.

It is crucial for CEOs to have open discussions with employees, briefing them about the planned transformation.

This will help business leaders gain a deeper understanding of the real-time problems that must be addressed and the measures to overcome them.

Effective communication and collaboration with employees are key to successful digital transformation.

4. Siloed Decision-making

One of the challenges of smooth digital transformation is organizational silos.

These siloes create obstacles throughout the transformation journey, from strategy building to putting them into action.

Silos result in disconnected decision-making, with each team or department focusing on its issues and solutions in isolation.

The situation worsens due to the absence of a shared vision that guides every team towards a common business objective. This limitation hampers efficiency and stifles innovation within the organization.

Organizations need to focus on creating an environment that fosters collaboration and communication.

This involves setting up clear communication channels to encourage regular team interaction, allowing for the free exchange of ideas and insights.

Building a common vision and goals aligned with overall business objectives is also essential. This step ensures that all teams are working towards the same targets.

Another approach organizations can adopt to overcome siloed decision-making is forming cross-functional teams that bring together diverse expertise.

Leadership alignment across departments is crucial for cohesive decision-making, and integrating digital tools facilitates seamless information sharing.

5. Lack of Resource Availability

Inadequate resource availability and poor resource management planning can be risky for businesses.

Therefore, it is crucial to analyze the available resources before developing a product roadmap, ensuring a seamless implementation of the project.

Poor planning with a lack of resources can lead to below-par results, ultimately impacting the business's overall performance.

A well-defined strategic plan is critical even before initiating the transformation process.

This helps business leaders understand how to allocate and manage resources effectively, enabling them to plan accordingly and ensure the successful execution of the digital transformation initiative.

To ensure successful digital transformation, building a pool of talent with expertise and skills in technology is imperative. This talented team will play a crucial role in strategizing and delivering projects on time without compromising quality.

Digital transformation needs careful planning, and having an inexperienced and unskilled team will make the process challenging. Therefore, it is crucial to have a clear plan for the available resources and leverage them effectively to drive the business forward.

By assembling a skilled and knowledgeable team, businesses can navigate the complexities of digital transformation more effectively, increasing the likelihood of successful outcomes.

Embrace Digital Transformation with Imaginovation

In our blog post, we've outlined six stages of digital transformation that serve as a roadmap to guide you toward achieving your goals. Whether you're just starting your digital journey or already underway, these digital transformation stages will keep you on track and propel your business to the next level.

At Imaginovation, we specialize in creating tailor-made digital products and offering expertise in digital transformation.

Please contact us if you're ready to take your business to new heights. Our team of experts is here to support you throughout your digital journey.

As an award-winning web and mobile app development company, we have an impressive track record of creating remarkable digital success stories.

Let's talk and explore how we can collaborate to make your digitization journey a success!

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