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CHAPTER 3
3. The customer journey and customer experience
If you are involved in online marketing, you often come across the term "customer journey".
In this section, we explain what it is and what you can do with it.
The customer journey is often explained as "the journey of a customer". This refers to the route
a customer takes to reach a certain goal. This can be a purchase, but also finding information
about returning goods. This route can be via social media applications, such as Facebook or
Instagram, or via a website or webshop.
3.1 The journey, the experience
The idea behind the concept of the customer journey goes far beyond this customer journey or
the mapping of the customer journey. What the customer journey is ultimately about is impro-
ving the customer experience, the customer experience! We will explain this and start with
the customer journey.
The customer journey
There is no single customer journey. There are many different customer journeys. A different
customer journey can be made for each customer goal. Some examples are:
• Making a purchase (the customer does not yet know the company).
• Repeat purchase.
• Finding information about returning goods.
• Finding opening hours.
• Finding and using online manuals.
• Logging into an application.
• Searching for a product or service.
And because there are many different types of customers (segments and personas), the custo-
mer journey, or the way the customer experiences the journey, can be different for each of them.
During the customer journey, the customer comes into contact with the product, the brand or
the company via various contact moments. We call such contact moments touchpoints.
3.2 The key journey: Buying
Making a purchase is seen by many as the most important customer journey. In the following
image we see an example of someone who wants to buy food. Visualising all the steps of the
journey is called "customer journey mapping". Take a look at the next page.
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