Track the Customer Journey and Track Your Increase in Revenue

When searching for that next purchase what do you use? A smartphone? Tablet? Desktop? Social media? Or do you just head straight to your local high street? If you have answered yes to all of the above, then you are not alone. However, do the vast majority of businesses that track these data points, see you as a unique individual utilising multiple channels prior to purchase? The answer is no. And your customers are feeling the same pain!

There is no longer any excuse for this. At the end of the day your business is not about selling products, your business is about creating a smooth journey to purchase. Every customer is unique and that should be embraced. Customers are always looking for new ways of finding what it is they want and need with greater ease. Their expectations of relevancy, speed and responsiveness are ever increasing. On average, your customers are using up to seven different channels throughout the purchasing decision. Which means as marketers our job is getting harder as the customer journey is becoming more complex and unpredictable.

Maximise this Unique Opportunity

Despite this, there is an incredible amount of potential ready to be grasped by eager marketing beavers. The amount of data shared by your customers every day is astonishing. Every interaction a customer has with your brand. Every click. Every search. Every enquiry, view or purchase both online and off, your customers are giving you critical information about their wants, needs and lifestyle. This myriad of interactions combined, creates a unique customer profile and answers your all-important questions - Who is your customer? What do they want? What will encourage them to purchase?

Unify the Customer Experience

From a marketer’s perspective the customer journey has devolved into a series of chaotic moments - a linear purchase path no longer exists. Couple this with the vast array of platforms in use by a company at any given time leading to silo’d data, a disconnected and disjointed customer experience all too quickly becomes the norm.

Stitching anonymous user data to previously identified customers still proves too difficult for many. That problem is amplified when we take into consideration the fact that many users begin their journey on a smartphone – a vital first interaction that many brands are likely to miss. In fact, only 2% of those users purchase on their first visit to the website. So what about the other 98%? The need for re-marketing following that initial interaction is clear and this evolution in user behaviour isn’t just restricted to mobile.

So What are the Facts?

According to the new multi-screen-world-study by Google, 67% of customers who shop across devices typically use 3-5 within any purchase process. And that’s just user’s behaviour on your website

25% of consumers will consult social media before buying

69% of shoppers will move between devices before making the final purchasing decision in-store

While in-store, mobile still plays a big part, with 1 in 3 shoppers using their smartphone to find information instead of asking a store employee

82% of shoppers will use search engines when browsing in-store to look for a better deal elsewhere

This begs the question, is the purchasing decision moving solely online?

In layman’s terms your customers just don’t see the disconnection between channels and devices. They crave one seamless experience, as each moment can happen on any number of devices or channels.

Making Changes

The first step is to identify the right audience in the right moment. This can only be developed with a platform capable of a Single Customer View – a platform tailored and configured to your brand by capturing, storing and querying all data in-line with internal data sources and multi-channel marketing requirements. For example, a user who calls your contact centre, also installs your app; visits your website; purchases in-store and opens your emails, needs to be tracked and consolidated into a single unique customer profile.

To sum it up, without collating all activity, across each device and channel, you will never reach the light at the end of the tunnel - a true representation of your customer base and their engagement with your brand. Through correct data collection at each touch point, we’re better able to create defined profiles, which if you are dedicated enough to, will allow you to analyse and predict future behaviours. Now, wouldn’t that be brilliant!