The customer journey is one of the most important concepts to understand and leverage as an entrepreneur and business owner, because understanding the importance of each step in the journey will allow you to convert leads into loyal customers.
The first two steps in the customer journey are awareness, specifically of the customer regarding your business, and findability, or how effective your businesses’ social presence and marketing is. These two first steps are extremely important, and without these, the next 4 steps cannot occur. After all, if a customer can’t find your business, how are you going to make sales? Luckily, there is a simple, effective, and efficient way that you can ensure you are maximizing your customers’ awareness and your businesses’ findability. This method is by using brandSuite Local. brandSuite Local will allow you to push data to aggregators and straight to directories, make updates to your business’ phone number, hours, location, etc… all in real-time, and show proof-of-performance to see how well the system and its various functions are working for you. The best and most foolproof way to ensure you are hitting these first two steps is through using brandSuite Local.
The third step is reputation. Once you have leveraged brandSuite Local to maximize your listings, and hopefully through that have generated some sales and clients, the third step is to manage your reputation. This can be attained through quality customer service, conducting surveys and reviews with existing clients, and having outstanding communication between you, your team, and your clients to ensure everyone’s needs are being met. Another key aspect of having a good reputation is responding to and managing your reviews. In fact, 95% of consumers read reviews before making a purchasing decision, so it is extremely important that your loyal customers leave positive reviews, and that your business has a good reputation.
The fourth step is conversion. In order to convert a client, your business needs to have key information the customer is looking for, such as hours of operation, phone number, and address, (all of which can be managed through brandSuite Local) be easily findable, and have a website that is easy to navigate, runs smoothly, and allows the client to find what they need efficiently. Once all of these quality checks are met, it is your job to provide a high-quality product that suits the customers’ needs and to sell them on your product. Having necessary information in place will give a good impression of your business to the client, and make them more likely to trust and utilize your company to do business.
The final step is advocacy, or if your customers will recommend you to other people. This step comes down to your customer service, and how communicable, reliable, efficient, and trustworthy you and your business are. If you are meeting your client’s goals, helping them grow, and being a good business partner in general, then you should feel free to ask them to leave a review of your business, so potential customers can see how reputable your company is. These reviews will drive sales, continue to build a base of people who swear by your product, and help build a reputable brand.
