Customer Journey Analysis Done The Right Way: 11 Core Tenets

Improving your customer experience—it’s likely high on your list of business goals. The key to improving it is understanding and adapting the journey to individual customer interactions. Regardless of where a customer interacts with your brand (online, offline, or a mixture of both), there are multiple journeys your customers undergo.

Outlining the multiple steps and journeys your customer’s experience is something called customer journey analysis (or customer journey mapping). Below, we’ll explain what the consumer journey is and how to analyze it, why it’s important to map these journeys, and how to do so effectively.

Explaining what a customer journey map is

Think of a customer journey map as a visual representation of the steps your customers take when they interact with your brand. It starts from their first point of contact to the final purchase (and beyond). A high-quality customer journey map highlights your customers’ needs, emotions, pain points, and challenges of your customers at every stage of the customer experience. Doing so gives you a clear picture of their experience.

What is customer journey analysis?

On the other hand, customer journey analysis is the process of reviewing and assessing your customer journey map to understand where customers might be experiencing friction or dropping off. Using customer journey analytics allows you to identify opportunities where you can improve the experience and make it smoother, more engaging, and more rewarding.

The Five Stages of a Customer Journey Map

There are five stages to mapping your customer journey. Each one represents a different touchpoint between your clients and your company. It’s important to keep in mind that every customer journey might not be linear or follow these stages in order.

In general, however, keep these customer journey stages in mind:

Awareness

When your customers first become aware of or interact with your brand, they’re in the awareness stage. This is where the journey starts, and it’s often driven by a problem or need customers have. At this stage, customers might find your brand through ads, family or friends’ recommendations, social media, mobile apps, or even search engine results. The goal here is to capture attention and spark curiosity.

Consideration

Once an individual is aware of your brand, they transition into the consideration stage. Here, they’re exploring options, researching features, reading reviews, and weighing the pros and cons of various solutions. It’s in this stage that your messaging needs to shine—show them why your product is the best fit for their needs.

For example, a customer who has learned about your energy-efficient appliances during the awareness stage might visit your website to compare prices or read customer testimonials to see if your brand meets their specific needs.

Decision

Also called the first purchase stage, this is when customers are ready to make a choice. They’ve narrowed down their options, and now it’s all about the final push—something that reassures customers they’re making the right choice when choosing your brand. Offering an exclusive offer, limited-time discounts, or a clear demonstration of the value your product brings can help convert your customers.

Retention

The retention, or loyalty, stage is all about keeping your customers happy after they’ve made their purchase. This stage focuses on delivering a positive experience, providing excellent customer support, and encouraging customers to make repeat purchases. Customers who feel valued and satisfied are more likely to stick around and keep buying from your brand.

Advocacy

The final stage is advocacy, where satisfied customers become ambassadors of your brand. They start recommending your brand to friends, sharing positive reviews online, and even creating content about their experience with you. At this point, your customer has turned into a passionate supporter of your brand.

For example, let’s say the customer who bought your appliance shares their positive experience on social media or leaves a positive review on your website. Their endorsement not only helps you build credibility but also creates a ripple effect, encouraging others to consider your brand.

Why is it important to do customer journey analysis?

Customer journey mapping and analysis help your business—and they do so in many ways. Here are just a few reasons they’re important:

Know and Understand Your Customers

Customer journey analysis helps you better know your customers—what they need, how they think, the emotions they experience at your touchpoints, and what their pain points are. Analyzing their journeys gives you insights into customers’ motivations and decision-making processes. This analysis essentially allows you to step into your customers’ shoes and make more informed decisions about your marketing, sales, and customer service strategies—all of which help you make more meaningful connections.

Improve Return on Investment (ROI)

Identifying the key touchpoints that are driving conversions and customer satisfaction is another huge benefit of customer journey analysis. These insights also allow you to focus your resources where they matter most. For example, if customers are responding well to a specific marketing campaign or a particular step in the sales funnel, you can allocate more of your budget or efforts toward those areas.

Identify Product Offering Gaps and Unmet Needs

Taking a deep look into your customer journey can show where there are gaps in your product offerings or unmet needs in the market. Maybe customers are spending more time at a certain point in your journey because they can’t find the right solution, or maybe they’re frustrated by a lack of options in a specific category. Recognizing these pain points allows you to adjust your product or service to meet those needs and better align with customer expectations.

Personalizing Experiences

Mapping out every stage of the journey allows you to tailor communications, offers, and interactions based on individual behaviors, preferences, and needs. Those personalized experiences make customers feel valued, increasing the likelihood of repeat business. For example, if you notice customers are researching specific product features, you can send them content offers related to that feature, enhancing their experience and building stronger loyalty.

Enhance Cross-Departmental Collaboration

Customer journey analysis doesn’t just benefit your marketing department; it promotes collaboration across all your teams. And when everyone in your company understands the customer’s journey, they can work together to address pain points and improve the experience. For example, marketing can pass on insights to sales teams to improve pitch strategies, while product teams can use customer feedback to refine product features.

How To Do Customer Journey Analysis in 11 Steps

Now that you understand why customer journey analysis is so important, let’s discuss how to do customer mapping step-by-step.

1. Find the Friction Points in Your Customer Journey via Mapping

Figuring out where friction points are is the first step in mapping your customer journey. Doing so allows you to see where users are hesitating, getting confused, or dropping off. Once you’ve identified those areas, you can start thinking about how to remove them.

2. Analyze the Drop-Off Rates of Different Customer Journeys

Look at your entire customer journey and figure out where customers are losing interest in your brand and abandoning their purchase. Is it after the first page loads? Or is there a specific moment in your process where they’re hesitating? By recognizing these drop-off points, you can take targeted actions to address those issues.

3. Look at How Customers Progress With Your Product at Various Starting Points

Users enter your customer journey process from different doors. Some start on the homepage; others might land directly on a product page through a social media post. By tracking how users from different entry points are progressing through your product, you understand which pathways are the most successful and which need optimization.

4. Establish Clear Goals for Individual Milestones and Analyze How Different Customer Segments Meet Them

Set goals for key user milestones—like signing up for an offer or completing a purchase—and track how different user groups achieve them. Are first-time users progressing as smoothly as repeat customers? Do high-value customers reach those milestones faster than low-value ones? Analyzing these variations helps you identify which segments need more nurturing or which stages of the journey might need refining.

5. Deeply Look Into Your Customer’s Behavior To Find Positive and Negative Patterns

Your customer behavior data holds a wealth of knowledge that can help you improve your customer journey mapping. Looking at how customers interact with your products at different starting points can help you identify positive behaviors (such as customers who convert fast) and negative trends (customers who abandon their cart without making a purchase for example). Customer analysis helps you identify those trends so you can adjust your approach, drive engagement, and address pain points that lead to frustration and churn.

6. Measure Customer Churn to Use Cohort Analysis

Cohort analysis allows you to group customers based on shared characteristics, behaviors, or time of acquisition to measure how different user groups perform over time. Tracking things like retention rates and churn within each cohort allows you to pinpoint trends and patterns.

7. Look at How Often Features are Used Via Feature Heatmaps or Tags

Tracking which features customers are using can help you better understand their needs and preferences. Using heat maps or tagging specific features can help you visualize where users spend the most time and which areas of your product are driving engagement. On the other hand, if a feature is getting little attention, it may need to be more prominent, better explained, or even improved.

8. Utilize User Session Recordings To See Where Customers are Dropping Off

Session recordings allow you to watch exactly how users interact with your product in real-time. By analyzing these recordings, you can gain a clearer understanding of where users are getting stuck or confused, giving you a detailed, human perspective on where your experience breaks down. You can then use this data to make improvements in your customer journey model that eliminate obstacles and enhance the user experience.

9. Identify Where Users Convert

The conversion point is one of the most important aspects of the customer journey. By identifying where users typically convert, you can optimize those moments to increase the likelihood of success. Look for trends in the paths that lead to conversion, and identify the factors that encourage your users to take action. From there, you can refine your processes and remove barriers that might prevent customers from converting.

10. Gather Feedback To Find and Fix Friction Points

Customer feedback is invaluable for understanding where your customer experience falters. Collecting feedback through surveys, interviews, or feedback forms gives you direct insights from users about their pain points. It also allows you to capture emotions and opinions that might not be apparent through data alone, giving you a fuller picture of where your journey needs adjustment.

11. Look at How User Sentiment Changes Over Time via Survey Analytics

Survey analytics help you track how customer sentiment evolves during their journey with your product or service. Are your customers happier after a specific feature update? Are users expressing frustration at a certain point in the journey? Analyzing your survey results over time allows you to spot shifts in sentiment that indicate where things are improving or where problems are brewing.

Customer Journey Mapping: Unlock More Opportunities for Growth With Podium

Mapping your customer journey is more than just tracking the steps your customers take—it’s about really understanding your customers’ experiences, from the first time they interact with your brand to their ongoing relationship with it. By visualizing their path, you can identify key moments in your user experience where you can make a lasting impact, streamline touchpoints, and anticipate needs before they arise. The best way to do this is with Podium’s AI Employee.

Podium’s AI Employee is more than just a tool; it’s a game-changer that delivers a seamless, personalized customer experience at every stage of your customer journey—whether it’s engaging prospects during the initial discovery phase, guiding customers through their decision-making process, or providing timely support post-purchase. With Podium’s AI Employees, keeping your customer journey connected, efficient, and responsive at every touchpoint is easier than ever.

Ready to elevate your customer experience? Get started by watching a demo.