Customer journey
In short
The customer journey is every step a customer goes through, from noticing a need to buying and perhaps recommending you to others.
A customer journey rarely runs in a straight line. Someone who needs new gutters might ask the neighbour, search on Google, read reviews, look at your website twice and finally call from Google Maps. Each of those encounters with your business is often called a touchpoint.
The whole journey shows the gaps
When you see the whole journey, you also see the gaps. Maybe the website is good, but the newest reviews are five years old. Maybe people find you, but cannot find the price. One weak link can cost you the customer even when everything else is in place.
The customer journey also explains why it is hard to say which channel brought in the sale. That is what attribution is about. A sales funnel is a simplified version of the same picture.
How to map yours
Ask your five most recent new customers how they found you, and what they did before they got in touch. Write down the steps. Then walk the same journey yourself: search the way they did, read what they read and try to get in touch. We have written more about why the customer journey starts before the Google search.
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