Customer Journey
The customer journey is the full sequence of experiences a person has with a brand, from first exposure through purchase and beyond.
What the customer journey is
The customer journey is everything a person experiences with a brand across time and channels: the first ad, the site visits, the purchase, the delivery, the support email, the reorder.
Unlike the funnel’s tidy stages, the journey is mapped as it happens: loops, revisits, and channel hops included.
Why the customer journey matters
Shoppers experience the brand as one continuous thing; companies run it as separate departments. Journey mapping exposes the seams where those departments drop the handoff.
Mapping the journey
- List the touchpoints customers pass through
- Mark what the customer needs and feels at each
- Find the gaps: unanswered doubts, dead ends, silences
- Fix the worst gap first, then remap
Frequently asked questions
Journey vs funnel: what’s the difference?
The funnel is the business’s view of stages toward purchase. The journey is the customer’s view of the whole experience, including everything after the sale.
Where do ecommerce journeys break most?
At silences: between order and delivery, and after delivery. The brands that keep talking through those stretches keep the customer.