What is a customer journey?
What are the two meanings of customer journey?
In marketing, the term is used in two senses. The first is analytical: in customer journey mapping, teams sketch out which touchpoints customers pass through, what questions they have and where they drop off. The second is operational: in a campaign platform, the journey is the concrete, automated sequence that represents this path.
An operational journey consists of an entry (for example via a segment or an event) and of steps: send, wait, wait for an event, branch, trigger a task for an adviser, reach a goal, exit. Good journeys plan not only the ideal path but also negative paths: what happens if the customer does not respond, has no email consent or has already signed?
Every exit has a reason – completed, converted, left the segment, displaced by a more important campaign. This makes it possible to analyse later why customers left a journey, rather than just counting how many did. These reasons give rise to the improvements for the next version of the journey.
Customers whose policies mature in the next 90 days enter the journey. Depending on their consent, they receive an email or a letter. Anyone who logs in to their personal landing page within seven days sees their options; if interest is high, adviser Christina Reuter is notified. Anyone who does not respond receives a reminder.
Distinction
| Term | Difference |
|---|---|
| Campaign | framework for an initiative; a campaign can contain several journeys |
| Touchpoint | a single moment in the journey, e.g. a letter |
| Journey orchestration | controlling many journeys at the same time |
Related pages
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Platform
Journey Builder -
Use case
Contract renewal & reinvestment -
Blog In preparation
[BLOG: Customer journey mapping – from sketch to automated campaign]