Could your hard customer journey be the reason you are not making sales?

Sometimes the reason people are not buying from you is not because they don’t want to, but because it is hard to.

For many small businesses and startups, the business workflow is clear cut: Envision my product (or service) | Source for it (or for raw materials to create it) | Produce and/or Package it | Sell it | Provide after-sales support for it. This is usually summarized as the PLAN-SOURCE-MAKE-SELL-SUPPORT workflow – what converts your business idea to a business product.

However, it’s important to also consider that there’s a workflow that leads your customer to you. This flow entails them becoming aware of their need for your product or service, evaluating other options (including your competition), making their selection and paying you, and receiving their product/service. This workflow is summarized as the AWARENESS-CONSIDERATION-PURCHASE-FULFILMENT flow (or the Buyer Journey).

The Buyer Journey traditionally has four stages, but I’ve extended the journey stages to eight to account for the diversity of go-to-market and sales fulfilment process steps MSMEs adopt: AWARENESS-DISCOVERY-CONSIDERATION-DECISION-PURCHASE-CONFIRMATION-FULFILMENT-SUPPORT. Critically assess each part of your current Buyer Journey and reflect on what difficulties your target audience may be facing in their journey to convert from a potential customer to an actual customer:

• AWARENESS: It’s hard to find your platform, or where you are selling from. You are not available in the marketplaces or spaces folks go to find what you are selling.
• DISCOVERY: It’s hard to find what exactly they want to buy across your advertised range of products or services (i.e. what meets their precise needs).
• CONSIDERATION: It’s hard to find your comprehensive list of features and benefits to be able to evaluate them against what your competition offers.
• DECISION: It’s hard to reach you to express their interest in purchasing. You take hours, days or weeks to get back to interested buyers.
• PURCHASE: It’s hard to make payment – your payment channels are complicated or services are down.
• CONFIRMATION: It’s hard for you to confirm their payment – you can’t easily reconcile inflows to requests or don’t provide a payment confirmation feedback until you are asked
• FULFILMENT: It’s hard to get their goods/services delivered – they have to follow up on multiple occasions before you can confirm a precise timeline for fulfilment. Or they have to endure an unpleasant dispatch logistics process before they get their products.
• SUPPORT: It’s hard to get you to respond to their follow-on enquiries or request for support.

When your customers have a “hard” experience, even those that buy from you once will not be looking forward to a repeat occurrence.

What can you do today to make your customer journey easier?