As more digital experience strategies incorporate a journey-based approach, it’s crucial to focus those efforts on a few foundational online customer journeys.
Customers using websites and apps often arrive with a different purpose each time. However, one thing remains the same: they expect the online customer journey to feel intuitive and seamless no matter their end goal.
To consistently meet these high expectations, it takes a digital experience strategy with a committed and calculated journey-based approach. In fact, that commitment can separate industry leaders from laggards: 93% of high-performing organizations believe in using a journey-based approach versus just 63% of low performers.
To simplify your own journey-based approach, focus on these three journeys and the most impactful digital experiences that comprise them:
From new users to returning users, customers don’t always visit a website or app with a specific goal in mind. These types of online customer journeys are more exploratory, with users trying to learn more about your brand, industry, products, services, or similar information. Given the open-ended nature of exploratory journeys, they’re harder to predict and require a less granular approach.
For exploratory journeys, you need to make it easy for customers to use your website or app’s most high-traffic components without a hitch. The digital experiences tied to these online customer journeys closely dictate user time on-site or in-app and the likelihood of repeat visits — these are impressionable moments for customers. Your digital experience strategy must aim to continually improve the most influential touchpoints of exploratory journeys.
To create a seamless and intuitive experience from the get-go, there are a few digital experiences your organization and digital teams should prioritize in exploratory journeys.
While designing your entire website or app to push transactions is ill-advised, it is wise to optimize goal-oriented online customer journeys for conversion while keeping experience front-of-mind. Whether the goal is to drive purchases, account sign-ups, subscriptions, or meetings, helpful conversion journeys pertain to prospects with clear intentions to engage, act, and convert on a goal.
Considering that conversion journeys directly impact sales and revenue, any friction, confusion, or frustration will more than likely disrupt a transaction. The most successful conversion journeys continually reduce the effort required to engage and convert while incorporating innovative and seamless experiences at every decisive touchpoint. These online customer journeys require a digital experience strategy that pays special attention to a few high-profile experiences especially responsible for converting prospects.
To create conversion journeys that meet customer needs and achieve business goals, your digital experience strategy must focus on optimizing a few key areas for customers.
Oftentimes, websites and apps act as the first touchpoint for assisting customers through issues, questions, and unknowns. To minimize incident escalation, it’s crucial to provide frictionless self-service barriers that are designed to resolve customer concerns as quickly as possible. Support journeys go hand-in-hand with digital experience success, so they require just as much attention as any other journey.
A customer’s state of mind is typically unstable or delicate in support journeys — they’re often either frustrated, confused, or uncertain. This puts pressure on organizations to create an extensive and responsive ecosystem of customer resources that enhance these journeys. And while they may end in other channels — such as call, email, text, or chat — the right approach to online customer support journeys can tangibly reduce the number of incidents requiring additional help.
To ensure support journeys mitigate incident escalation and guide customers to resolutions, your digital experience strategy should prioritize a few key website and app pathways.
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