Customer Journey Research: 5 Steps w/ Examples

Understanding the customer journey is essential for creating meaningful user experiences and achieving long-term success. Yet, many companies still overlook customer journey research.

A ClearVoice study revealed that while 70% of companies engage in content marketing, only 48% use a customer journey map, and just 43% validate its accuracy with actual marketing and sales data.

In this article, we will take a look at the whole process behind customer journey research – from individual stages to actual examples.

What is customer journey research?

Customer journey research is all about uncovering the emotions behind every customer interaction. As Steve Jobs once said: 

In particular, customer journey research is the process of uncovering how customers interact with your product throughout the entire customer journey.

It is worth noting that customer journey mapping research is not just about identifying those touchpoints but also understanding the ‘why’ behind these interactions. 

Customer journey research provides the insights and data needed for the creation of a critical artifact; the customer journey map.

These maps are visual tools that depict the customer experience across all the touchpoints through the entire customer journey.

Importance of customer journey research for product success

First and foremost, customer journey research offers organizations a unique opportunity to pinpoint sticking areas from customer feedback and address them promptly. 

Equally through customer journey research, organizations can uncover areas that delight the user and use those insights to optimize other key touchpoints.

On top of that, using a well-crafted customer journey map template can guide users toward actions like purchases or form submissions, which can boost conversion rates.

Overall, customer journey research can help organizations make data-driven decisions for product development and refinement.

Last but not least, customer journey research can help organizations retain customers as it offers powerful insights into what drives retention and conversion. 

In a nutshell, customer journey research is the best way to learn about your users. As Eric Ries said: 

Stages of the customer journey 

 Every digital customer journey has five key stages:

1. Awareness

This is the stage where customers first interact with the brand, product, or service. The awareness stage usually occurs through search engines, advertising, or social media platforms.

The focus of the organization at this stage should be on capturing the attention of their prospective customers by crafting content that speaks to their needs.

2. Consideration

Once the customer becomes aware of your product, the consideration stage begins. This is the stage where consumers start considering and evaluating their options.

This can mean comparing the price or offering against other options in the market, reading online reviews, or asking friends and family whether they have used the particular product or service in the past.

3. Decision

The decision stage occurs after the consideration stage and it is when the customer decides to purchase a product or service. This stage can be facilitated by factors like the ease of purchase.

For example, a frictionless checkout process on a website can work wonders at this stage! Additionally, incentives like free trials or demos can also prove to be extremely helpful here. 

4. Retention

This is the stage where organizations shift their focus to retaining customers. Excellent after-sales support and other initiatives such as loyalty schemes and discounts for repeated customers can really boost engagement at this stage! 

5. Advocacy

The final stage of the customer journey is advocacy. This is the stage where happy customers are turned into product advocates.

Offering incentives such as referral bonuses can massively help organizations maintain strong relationships with their customers and turn them into promoters.

When should you conduct customer journey research? 

Conducting customer journey research is not a one-off project. On the contrary, it is an iterative process that should occur throughout the product lifecycle. First things first, customer journey research should take place before the launch of the product. 

This can ensure that the product meets the needs of the customers. Post-launch is another key point in time to conduct customer journey research.

During the post-launch research, organizations have a unique opportunity to gather user feedback and understand how their users interact with the product throughout the entire product lifecycle as well as identify potential bottlenecks.

Organizations should also conduct periodic customer journey research studies to ensure that the product stays aligned with the ever-changing customer needs and behaviors.

Last but not least, customer journey research is a great tool for when a decline in sales is observed as it can help product managers uncover sticking points in the customer journey and address them on time.

5 steps of the customer journey research

Here is a five-step process to nail your customer journey research plan:

1. Identify the research goal and scope

Start by identifying the goal of your research and try to better understand the scope of your study. Think about the reason why you want to conduct the research.

Is it about optimizing a particular touchpoint, or do you simply want to increase customer satisfaction throughout the entire journey? 

Consider an e-commerce platform faced with a high rate of abandonment carts – affecting their sales noticeably.

The main goal of their customer journey research would be to understand the different user journeys, uncover the reasons behind the abandonment, and find actionable solutions to address it. 

2. Create a target customer persona

The second step is to create a target customer persona. A customer persona is a fictional customer with characteristics that represent your ideal user.

Crafting a target customer persona can really help you laser-focus your research on the right audience.

For instance, the e-commerce company in question creates a fictional character to grasp the nuances of that particular behavior by stepping into their user persona’s shoes!

A customer persona could be Elena, a 32-year-old female who values convenience and frequently shops online but hates shipping fees.

3. Recruit participants

Now that your target customer persona is ready, you can start recruiting participants for your study.

Using a variety of communication channels, such as social media platforms, along with your own customer database can be a great way to reach a more diverse audience.

Keeping the example of our e-commerce company, it now knows more about its ideal customer persona – so they are ready for participant recruitment.

In this stage, they would choose to use social media and advertising in online female-dominant social groups to recruit participants that fall under their ideal user persona ‘Elena’! 

4. Collect customer feedback

Once you have recruited your participants, it’s time to start collecting your customer feedback.

You can do so by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, such as surveys, user interviews, usability testing, or even a/b testing to compare variations of the same touchpoint and assess effectiveness.

Remember, your customers are your best advisors—embrace their feedback to fuel your progress. As Bruce Temkin said:

For example, the e-commerce company uses an array of methods to collect feedback – including surveys and in-depth customer interviews. They also conduct usability testing to uncover any sticking points or technical glitches.

Based on some early findings, they also decided to conduct some A/B testing to assess some potential design solutions. 

5. Create customer journey maps

Now that you have collected some juicy customer feedback, you are ready to create your customer journey map. A customer journey map is a visual representation of all the different touchpoints throughout the entire customer journey.

This map can be used as a tool not only to identify areas for improvement but also to understand the instances where customer expectations are met! 

In this case study, the company has used the feedback that they have gathered from their research to create a detailed user journey map for Elena.

They map out the main touchpoints from product discovery to the abandonment of the cart, highlighting key pain points, and untapped opportunities but also suggestions for improvement. 

Customer journey research methods

Here are some of the key customer journey research methods:

1. User interviews

User interviews are a great way to get in-depth qualitative data and better understand customer behaviors, motivations and also pain points.

They are immensely useful when it comes to uncovering the ‘why’ behind certain interactions or behaviors.

2. Customer satisfaction surveys

Customer satisfaction surveys are another great way to gather juicy qualitative insights. Those surveys can be used as a barometer for the main customer sentiment and can gauge the level of satisfaction at a particular touchpoint.

3. Website usability testing

Usability testing is a great way to assess particular parts of your customer journey and understand whether the interface ultimately helps the customer achieve their goal. Usability testing can help you ensure a frictionless digital customer journey by addressing sticking points.

4. A/B testing

A/B testing is a great way to gather insights on how to improve an interaction as it allows you to compare two or more different variations to understand which version best resonates better with your customers.

Try it yourself and see these research methods in action! 🐝

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5. Competitor analysis

Last but not least, competitor analysis is another great tool for customer journey research. 

This method can help you uncover gaps in your own process as well as find those areas that make you stand out from your competition. 

Creating a customer journey map

Your customer journey map should always be based on data that you have collected through your customer journey research.

1. Start by setting clear objectives for your map! Simply ask yourself why you are creating this user journey map. 
2. Continue by defining the different user journey phases and map those out in a visually clear way.
3. Once you validate the user journey start adding research nuggets to link the dots and better understand the emotions that might occur through the different journey phases.
4. Finally, finish off by identifying sticking points and areas of improvement. Don’t forget to also provide actionable solutions on how to address those! 

Wrapping Up

Customer journey research is critical for businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve in today’s ever-changing customer-centric market.

Understanding each stage of the customer journey and gathering actionable insights to improve them allows organizations to create seamless user experiences. This approach boosts satisfaction while fostering loyalty and advocacy.

If you are searching for a tool to better understand your customers, we recommend UXtweak.

With a range of features, from usability testing and card sorting to surveys, gaining insights about your customers is made easy. 🐝

Want to learn more about how UXtweak can help? Talk to our team today!

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