Customer Journey

Ecommerce is not just purchasing online but is a new way of doing things that includes interacting with products and brand. Nowadays, people, along with products, buy experiences. Convenience, information, support and post-purchase assistance, the ability to give direct feedback, ease of multi-channel shopping, meaningful offers are all parts of this experience.

You can design the customer journey and can lead them to desired outcomes like multiple purchases and loyalty. Planning this customer journey is the most comprehensive optimization one can do to increase conversions, revenue and profit from your online store.

 The customer journey, Today:

As mentioned above, many factors go into the time before businesses settle on a decision and make a purchase. It is one thing encouraging an individual customer to make a purchase, and it’s entirely another thing to achieve the same with a business. A business has many options when looking to purchase any product so; it is essential to make sure that your strategies capture the decision maker’s attention. 

The customer journey stages:

A customer’s journey can be broken down into manageable stages that are easier to evaluate and control. Here are six phases that a business goes through.

  1. The Awareness phase– this phase creates awareness around your products. During this phase, your target audience is searching for a solution to a need they have recognized. For example, maybe a restaurant needs a new billing machine, or a factory needs a new equipment machine. The business decision-makers may know but might not have an idea of where to achieve the needs. They need to make the decision early and find a product that produces a solid ROI (Return on Investment). As a business, it is your responsibility to help the audience to understand their needs better. For example, they know that they need a water purifier, but they might not know the type of purifier and capabilities that they are looking for.
    1. Creating content is one way in the awareness phase that will help guide the audience. Educating them more than promoting the product will help them understand what they need in detail. This way, it helps your business to gain their trust.
  2. The Consideration phase– Decision makers are responsible for their business’s budget, so they need to be innovative. They have to research at pace and dig deeper to choose an option that fulfils their business needs. As it is a business selling to other businesses, it is essential to remember that target audience too is familiar with the trade trick. It is necessary to stand out from other companies that sell similar products in the market. 
    1. Content creation can help your business as you can write about your product differs from others. You should be clear as possible to explain why one should choose your product. Other tools such as free trials and demos allow decision-makers to dig deep on the product’s information.
  3. The Assessment Phase– Things get more competitive in this phase. Here, the buyer has selected the best options available and will decide which one to purchase. With a verified Product Assessment, you can now boost your game even more to claim victory. A product survey through a questionnaire is helpful during the B2B buyer’s journey during the assessment phase. An Assessment is an interactive way to guide a buyer to understand the benefits you provide with your product. You have to prove your value, expertise without overselling and acquire a qualified lead and create an accurate picture of their needs, making it easy for the salespeople.
    1. Further, offer customized insights with links to your product or service. This is where your B2B eCommerce presence storefront functions are used. Your content should be relevant and have the right information about the product, such as specifications, industry certifications, etc.
  4. The Preference phase– In this phase, the buyer needs the approval to move forward with the selection. Now we know the buyers have justified the purchase before it is made. Having buyers on your side, you need the superiors on their side. Here’s how
    1. Personalize Everything – if you get an option to personalize, then you should. It means to provide customized prices, catalogues, shipping, payment options and, much more. While personalization is advantageous for B2C customers, a B2B customer will choose another site if you fail to support their payment method or invoicing requirements. So, it is vital to give customers a highly personalized experience on your commerce platform. 
    2. The next option is to create an interactive tool such as a calculator to determine pricing. Your research should be ready and should be based on location and customer data.
    3. Once when the buyer and their superiors are ready to take the deal with price and service, then comes the phase- Purchase.
  5. The purchase phase– Yahoo!, you have succeeded in winning them over and making them purchase your product. Yet, it is crucial to be available and careful to answer any last-minute questions of the buyer. Trouble during the check-out process can scare customers to purchase the product so, it is crucial to make sure that your shopping cart and the check-out process work well at all times.  
  6. The evaluation phase– This phase happens after the purchase of the product. Now, the buyer decides whether his product is beneficial or not. The buyer here not just purchased the product but bought a relationship with the business. Therefore, eCommerce and CRM operations in sync play an instrumental role. All the employees in sales, marketing, and customer support can access real-time customer data and provide the best support possible.
    1. A business will improve more to make its one-time buyer a loyal customer. Few improvements such as showing the cart history, quick order forms, and many more make it easy for the customer to shop.

 Wrapping up

The retail landscape has improved drastically over the past decade, and eCommerce happens to be the reason for these changes. Cheers! You have now guided you B2B customer through all the aspects needed and because of this hard work, they know why you are better than other options. For an eCommerce purchase, these steps can go a long way towards improving online shopping convenience.