The customer journey is the process that a customer goes through, from becoming aware of a product or service to purchasing and using it. It is a crucial aspect of new product development and industrial design, as it helps to understand the target market’s needs, preferences, pain points and emotions. By analyzing the customer journey, designers and developers can create products or services that meet or exceed customer expectations, deliver value and satisfaction, and foster loyalty and advocacy.
However, analyzing the customer journey is not a simple task. It requires collecting and interpreting data from various sources and stages of the journey, such as surveys, interviews, observations, web analytics, social media, feedback forms, etc. Moreover, it requires defining and measuring key metrics that can help to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of the product or service along the journey. These metrics can vary depending on the type, purpose and scope of the product or service, but some common ones are:
- Awareness: This metric measures how well the potential customers know the product or service. It can be assessed by indicators such as brand recognition, recall, reach, impressions, mentions, etc.
- Consideration: This metric measures the potential customers’ interest and engagement with the product or service. It can be assessed by indicators such as website visits, page views, time spent, bounce rate, click-through rate, downloads, inquiries, etc.
- Conversion: This metric measures how many potential customers become actual customers by purchasing or subscribing to the product or service. It can be assessed by indicators such as conversion rate, sales volume, revenue, average order value, customer acquisition cost, etc.
- Retention: This metric measures how loyal and satisfied the existing customers are with the product or service. It can be assessed by indicators such as retention rate, churn rate, repeat purchase rate, lifetime value, net promoter score, customer satisfaction score, etc.
- Advocacy: This metric measures how willing and enthusiastic the existing customers are to recommend or promote the product or service to others. It can be assessed by indicators such as referral rate, word-of-mouth, ratings, reviews, testimonials, social media shares, etc.
By tracking and analyzing these key metrics along the customer journey, designers and developers can identify the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service and the opportunities and threats in the market. They can also use this information to optimize and improve their product or service design and development process and their marketing and communication strategies. Ultimately, they can create products or services that deliver a positive and memorable customer experience that leads to loyalty and advocacy.