Customer Journey
Quick definition
The customer journey is the full sequence of interactions a person has with a brand, from first becoming aware of it through purchase and beyond, across every channel and touchpoint.
Typical stages
- Awareness: the person discovers a need or the brand.
- Consideration: they compare options.
- Decision: they purchase or sign up.
- Use and retention: onboarding, support and repeat purchases.
- Advocacy: they recommend the brand to others.
Customer journey maps
A journey map is a visual of those stages showing what the customer does, thinks and feels at each step, which touchpoints are involved and where problems occur. It works best when built from real data such as interviews, support tickets and analytics rather than assumptions. Stage names vary between models; what matters is looking at the experience from the customer's side.
Using it
- Find gaps and friction.
- Align teams around one view of the customer.
- Decide where content and campaigns are most needed.
- Decide what to measure at each stage.
Journey and funnel
A marketing funnel describes stages from the business's point of view and usually ends at purchase. A journey is the customer's own experience and is rarely linear: people loop back, compare, pause and return through different channels.
Example
A traveler sees a hotel ad on social media (awareness), reads reviews and compares prices on two websites (consideration), books after receiving an email offer (decision), then stays and leaves a review (advocacy). Each step is a touchpoint the hotel can measure or improve.