Keep the Customer Journey Rolling

The customer journey runs from the first moment someone visits a website to the sale. It sounds as if it should be a cinch, but there are quite a few hitches between these points. In short, you need to keep your customers rolling along happily all the way through to the checkout button.

Here are four tips to help you to do just that.

Know your customer

You need to know your customer’s persona so you can tailor your business to them. Find out about their needs, wants, likes and dislikes, even if you have an established customer base. If you’ve recently found a new base, getting to know it is doubly important.

Create an empathy map so you can really interact with your customer – what does she dislike most? What does he really want from a product? Is she too busy to bother with filling out feedback forms? How much time does your average customer spend on social media and what do they worry about and aim for?

Have a look at historical data

If you think you’ve hit on a good conversion rate strategy then you need to back it up with data. Look at existing customers to find out things like how long they stay with you, how often they place orders, do they always jump at sales or do they avoid opening promotional emails? All these facts can help you to keep customers engaged.

If you see customers who have made repeat orders, or who have referred friends to your business, then you should make re-targetting them a priority – offer them special deals or a loyalty programme, for example.

Delight and educate customers

Ultimately it’s all about the payments, but your website shouldn’t be all about that. You need to take your customers through an enjoyable process that might actually teach them something. How exactly do your recycled tyre clipboards get recycled? How does your venture benefit that school in Nepal? Every customer will find a certain aspect of your business the most interesting, so try to be all things to all customers.

For new customers, for example, their landing page should be about how to use your product. For long-term clients, an update on the Nepalese school will please them most – as well as a special discount for their loyalty. Then they make the payment!

Keep your customers happy

It’s cheaper to keep an old customer than to find a new one. This is why it’s worth the effort to update your blog, dish out loyalty points, offer usage tips and send birthday emails. It’s a long haul journey, not a short hop!