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Consumer Decision Journey: What it is + Free Guide

Talking about a consumer decision journey is essential for any sales, marketing, and customer experience strategy . More and more customers are skipping the established schemes in the classic funnels and making decisions based on new factors in the match.

If you want to get to know this concept in-depth, in this article, you will find what it consists of, its main stages, and how to generate a successful journey for your clients.

Content Index

What is the consumer decision journey?

Importance of the consumer decision journey, stages of the consumer decision journey, how to guide a good customer decision journey, create your successful consumer decision journey with questionpro.

The consumer decision journey is a model of the customer buying process that describes how consumers make their decisions throughout their experience or relationship with the brand. This model evaluates how it can influence the customer’s purchase decision process by recognizing key touchpoints and customer interactions.

The consumer’s decision journey is not a linear model, so the actions they describe overlap and repeat until the purchase decision. The importance of factors such as customer loyalty and post-sale strategies is highlighted.

LEARN ABOUT: Perfect Customer-First Strategy

Understanding the consumer decision journey is vital because it can help a business understand how and when to engage with customers throughout their journey, from brand discovery to post-purchase and beyond.

This framework helps marketers better understand the key customer touchpoints where the right message to the right consumer can change their behavior.

The consumer decision journey model can help companies make continual improvements to customer lifetime value experience and lifecycle, fueling brand loyalty for years to come.

LEARN ABOUT: Customer Lifecycle

The consumer decision journey (CDJ) is an important part of brand marketing, marketing campaign, and figuring out how people act. It’s the process people go through when deciding what to buy, from realizing they need or want something to weighing their options to the experience they have after buying something.

From the following points of view, you can see how important the consumer decision journey is:

importance_of_the_consumer_decision_journey

Understanding consumer behavior

The CDJ gives useful information about what people think, feel, and do during buying. By looking at the different steps of the CDJ, marketers can learn more about consumer purchasing behavior and what drives consumers, what their preferences are, and what makes them make decisions. This helps businesses change their marketing strategies and messages so they can connect with customers at each stage of their trip.

Strategic marketing planning

By making a map of how a consumer makes a decision, marketers can find the key touchpoints and interactions where that can affect a consumer’s choice. Businesses can make the most of their marketing resources by strategically allocating them to touchpoints like online research, social media interaction, and in-store experiences. It lets marketers build targeted marketing campaigns and personalized experiences that resonate with customers at every stage of their journey.

Customer engagement and relationship building

The CDJ knows that a consumer’s trip doesn’t end when they buy something. It talks about how important the experience after a purchase is and how it can create loyal customers and company advocates. Businesses can build long-term relationships with their customers by focusing on giving great customer service, asking for feedback, and staying in touch. This can lead to repeat purchases and good word-of-mouth recommendations.

Adaptability and flexibility

The path a consumer takes to make a choice is not a straight line. Today’s consumers have access to a wide range of channels, platforms, and information sources that can affect their decisions at any point. By understanding that the CDJ is always changing, companies can change their marketing plans to keep up with consumer behavior and preferences changes. This ability to change helps businesses stay relevant and connect with customers in a digital world that is always changing.

Competitive advantage

Knowing and improving the consumer decision journey can give a business an edge over its competitors. By looking at how people act and what they like, businesses can find holes or pain points in the market and come up with new goods, services, or marketing plans to fill them. By giving customers a smooth and personalized experience, companies can set themselves apart from their competitors and give customers a positive and memorable experience.

Build your own Customer Journey Map .

The consumer decision journey consists of 5 main stages:

The trigger
The search for information
The evaluation of alternatives
The purchase
The post-sale experience

Now we will detail each one.

1. Discovery

A stimulus or trigger starts the customer journey when an individual realizes they have a problem and need a company product or service to solve it.

The first step of the consumer’s decision journey is recognizing the need for a service or product.

LEARN ABOUT: Customer Journey Mapping Tools

2. Familiarization with the solution

When considering a purchase, a person reflects on a set of initial consideration or brands that immediately come to mind due to their level of brand awareness .

When researching their options, consumers will again rely on internal and external factors and previous interactions with a product or brand, both positive and negative.

Consumers can search for options in a physical place or consult online resources such as Google My Business Reviews and their degree of recommendation on various brands in the information or familiarization stage.

3. Consideration

Consumers gather information by searching multiple sources and reading reviews to decide which brand has what they want or need.

Alternatives can come in the form of lower prices, additional product benefits, immediate availability, or something as personal as color or style choices.

4. Purchase

Once the consumer filters their options based on the information they have gathered in the evaluation phase, they choose a brand and begin the purchase.

Once they have gathered all the data, including comments from previous customers, consumers must come to a logical conclusion about the product or service to buy.

5. Post-sale experience and loyalty

This part of the consumer decision journey involves both the consumer and the seller reflecting on the post-sale experience as part of the process.

As a seller, you should try to assess whether the purchase met the consumer’s identified need, whether the customer is delighted with the purchase, and how you can continue the relationship to ensure customer retention and loyalty.

LEARN ABOUT: Employee Experience Framework

Now that you know what the customer decision journey consists of, we will present you with five ways to guide your customers to ensure a smooth process that guarantees the satisfaction of their needs and your sales success.

Boost your company’s brand awareness

The first step to creating a successful consumer decision journey is to develop a comprehensive brand advertising campaign to build brand awareness. This way, existing customers will be able to think of you as part of the first options that come to mind when they think of you.

You want consumers to know and trust you. And more importantly, you want them to feel like they have a problem that only you can solve.

Map your consumer decision journey

Building Customer Journey Maps are critical to comprehend the client’s key moments and pain points to which you must pay special attention to guarantee a smooth experience.

Knowing how to map customer journeys is a skill that your Customer Experience team must have or develop as soon as possible to offer potential customers access to the information they need at the right time so that they decide to buy your product or service.

Creating a funnel and planning the types of content that people may need is also advisable. Present yourself as a trusted source of knowledge and information, and include consumer-generated content such as customer reviews or case studies of your solutions on your website.

Know your competition and surpass it

Your sales, marketing, and customer service strategies should convince consumers that your product is superior to alternatives.

For this, you must prepare to overcome any objection; for example, on sales calls or post-calls , get to know your competitors so you can answer questions and compare benefits.

Evaluate the experience throughout the consumer decision journey

Having reliable data in real-time is one of the best ways to evaluate the consumer decision journey to take improvement actions at critical points.

To do this, you can use various customer experiences metrics such as CSAT , CES, NPS , and the Things Gone Wrong index to understand the most essential moments and the most appropriate strategies for each point of the customer journey.

Keep your commitment to the client

Make sure your customer continues to have a positive experience with your products. Post-purchase customer engagement can include follow-up emails, discount coupons, and newsletters to entice the customer to make an additional purchase.

One way to ensure a successful consumer decision journey is to develop loyalty strategies that help you promote long-term customer interaction and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Suppose you want to go further and offer a wow experience. In that case, you can create a community of customers and invite them to actively participate to earn rewards, interact with other customers, and develop new business ideas.

LEARN ABOUT: Buying behavior

The consumer decision journey involves various business areas, from digital marketing strategy to generating attraction in the discovery stage to the customer service and experience team to complete post-sale and loyalty successfully.

For a successful customer satisfaction journey, you’ll need tools that help you measure every moment in real-time, see your metrics, automate processes, and connect the organization so your team can make decisions to resolve any friction instantly. If you would be interested in having all these tools in the same solution, remember that with QuestionPro CX you can have them at your fingertips at any time. Request a free demo or write to us in our online chat for more information!

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Consumer Decision Journey

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The consumer decision journey.

14 min read Understanding the consumer decision journey – and working with what you learn – can help your marketing efforts, customer support teams, and product rollouts thrive. Here’s everything you need to know…

Author: Adam Bunker

Subject Matter Expert: Dave Pabley

What is the consumer decision journey?

The ‘consumer decision journey’ is the name given to a framework that deconstructs and explores the myriad factors that go into customer purchases. In other words: it’s the way we make sense of the consumer decision-making process.

Did you know that 70% of buyers fully define their own purchasing needs before they engage with sales people? If not, you might need to rethink what your customer decision journeys look like, and how you work to manage them.

Every time a customer buys something from a brand, it’s the result of a complicated set of processes and influences that – often – they’ve experienced in a nonlinear fashion. The consumer decision journey is a means to map and understand that path, with a view to try and meet potential future customers at every touchpoint along the way.

Understanding how and why new and previous customers make purchases is the holy grail of every marketing department in the world. And if you can actually influence those factors with your CX and marketing strategy? Even better. Doing that means unpicking the complicated rationale and stop-start nature of today’s buying journeys.

Understanding the consumer decision journey is really about asking a few key questions:

How can you meet your customers at important touchpoints?
How can you maximize each interaction?
What goes into each purchase decision?

If you have answers to those questions, you’ll go a long way toward ensuring you have the right processes, resources, and technology in place to help your business grow its customer base. You’ll know how and when to upsell, how to convert prospects, and what influences each and every purchase.

That’s a complicated task, but digging into customer analysis can really pay off – in some pretty meaningful ways.

Free course: Elevate your customer journey management today

‘Customer managed’ journey versus a ‘managed customer’ journey

Today’s customer is increasingly empowered in their decision-making, since they have access to much more choice, information, and branded content across a range of channels.

As such, it’s important that brands understand their role in the decision-making process. In most instances, things can’t be controlled in a streamlined way on the brand side – it’s the customer in control. That means organizations need to be adaptable, responsive, and able to meet the customer where they are, rather than the other way round.

While you might map out a perfect, best-case journey for your customer personas – a managed customer journey – things may not pan out that way. This gives rise to the idea of the ‘customer managed’ journey instead – one where your customers call the shots in terms of how they make their decisions, and you cater as best you can to their preferences.

Why is the consumer decision journey important?

Customer interactions and the journeys they create are more complicated, nonlinear, and omnichannel than ever. But that presents an opportunity: the brands that can leverage the tools at their disposal to unpick that complicated knot stand a great chance at winning over more customers than their competitors.

Today’s customers aren’t easily influenced or led down a specific path. Whereas in decades gone by you might easily nurture a customer down the sales funnel with a compelling TV ad and then an in-store salesperson, things are different now. In fact, even if you manage to get customers into your physical store, some 71% of them will still be using their phones to look up reviews or even to make their purchases.

95% of consumers read online reviews before making purchases, which can take the wind out of any marketing efforts’ sails if there’s no real strategy in place to maximize other customer journey touchpoints. In fact, chances are that by the time a customer speaks to a representative, they’re already most of the way along the buying process.

That means meeting your customers where they are – like online influencer accounts, for example, which 55% of 18-24-year-olds rely on.

Whatever the case, it’s important to understand the factors that influence buying decisions because that lets you personalize and tailor those experiences as best you can to capture more interest.

Beyond this though, getting to grips with the consumer decision journey means understanding that the journey doesn’t end with a purchase – that’s just part of a cyclical experience.

So let’s explore how that works…

Understanding how consumers make decisions

In the traditional purchasing funnel, customers move along the stages from awareness to purchasing and customer loyalty linearly, beginning with a widely cast net of possible brands, and ending with just one. But that model’s now outdated.

Today, customers move from touchpoint to touchpoint in a way that makes it impossible to put importance on any one part of the funnel over any other. Instead, the decision journey is cyclical – and capturing attention needs to be handled as part of a two-way conversation at every stage.

McKinsey’s research , involving some 20,000 consumers, has resulted in a new framework for the decision journey that it describes as having four interlinked phases:

“The decision-making process is a more circular journey, with four primary phases representing potential battlegrounds where marketers can win or lose: initial consideration; active evaluation, or the process of researching potential purchases; closure, when consumers buy brands; and postpurchase, when consumers experience them.”

Image credit: McKinsey.com

In fact, the journey here is more of a spiral than a circle; it’s in that fourth, post-purchase stage where the decision journey becomes a ‘loyalty loop’ that can repeat itself forever. McKinsey puts forward the following roadmap for those latter stages:

Purchasing: After initial consideration, the customer makes a purchase
Experiencing: The customer forms opinions on the product or service
Advocating: The customer spreads the word
Bonding: The customer becomes a loyal customer who makes repeat purchases

Tools and processes for enhancing customer journeys

Understanding the modern customer journey and adapting to it are two very different things. Customers expect more than ever before from their brands in terms of personalization , relevance, and the ability to meet them where they are, on the channels they care about.

That means that customer experience and marketing teams need to employ processes that can make every touchpoint work harder. Usually, that means using a mix of surveys , customer experience analytics software , and behavioral data to finetune every channel and provide more powerful, personal and adaptable experiences.

Let’s take a look at some of the methods, tools and processes you can use to do exactly that, across three key areas:

1. Omnichannel engagement

Your customers are moving between channels and platforms in search of the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. You need to be where they are.

Customer touchpoint analysis

Take stock of every touchpoint in which customers can interact with your brand. That’s everything from your website to your customer service portal, as well as TV ads, social media channels and third-party review sites.

Your first step here is to lean into digital analytics to understand your share of voice, your conversion rate on call-to-action links, and anywhere you’re underrepresenting yourself. This stage is an audit, in effect – are you meeting people where they already are?

Omnichannel customer engagement

Once you understand every touch point, you need to think about how you can tie them together. Customers may jump from one touchpoint to the next in any order, so you need to be able to offer them a consistent experience that’s channel-agnostic.

That’s as important in marketing as it is in customer service – both rely on being able to track customer movements and proactively engage with people.

Customer journey optimization

Journey optimization starts with customer journey mapping exercises, in which you use customer data and your own insight to map out potential routes your customers take toward purchase. How can those journeys be tightened and streamlined? Hypothesize around this, make changes, and then test to see whether things improved.

2. Behavioral analysis

How well do you understand what makes your customers tick? With the right software, you’ll be able to glean invaluable insights from the actions your customers do and don’t take.

Consumer behavior analysis

Understanding customer behavior allows you to adapt things to suit them – and identify where pain points and areas of friction lie. You’ll achieve this by using customer experience analytics suites capable of understanding behavioral heuristics.

These tools can identify patterns, show you how different audience segments act, and how purchasing decisions act as part of a wider whole.

Behavioral targeting strategies

Imagine if you knew that a specific customer always shops for a certain kind of product at certain times of the year, that they’re much more likely to make a purchase if there’s a discount with their name on it, or if bundling two items together will make them much more appealing than the sum of their parts.

These are examples of behavioral targeting strategies that require a rock-solid understanding of each and every customer – and customer segment. Tools like Experience ID can help you gather that understanding, and tailor your efforts accordingly.

Refining the purchase decision process

It’s important to understand areas of your customer experience that are letting things down – and negatively impacting the customer buying process. If you can track customers as they move through your owned digital properties, you’ll have a clear idea of where people are dropping off, and why shopping carts are being left abandoned.

With that information, you can make proactive changes to the user experience in order to refine that initial consideration stage and better influence consumer purchasing behavior.

Learn more about customer behavior analysis

3. Postpurchase excellence

Once a customer has made a purchase, they’ll move into that inner ‘loyalty loop’ track of the consumer decision journey. This is your chance to wow them with postpurchase excellence – and generate real loyalty .

Customer experience analytics

Customer experience analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing customer data so that you can better understand customer needs, viewpoints, and experiences. This will help you to increase customer engagement and customer loyalty at every part of their journey – not just after making a purchase.

If you can understand the experience as it stands for existing customers, you’ll be able to direct your internal teams to take action on issues that are affecting satisfaction and loyalty.

Curating the customer engagement journey

Customer service is a huge part of postpurchase (repeat) purchase decisions. If a customer has had a positive customer support experience, they’re much more likely to buy from you again. So it’s important that this side of the customer experience is being monitored and managed.

Contact center management tools with AI and natural language processing can help here, by scanning and understanding every interaction every customer has with your business and proactively suggesting where things can be improved. That could be through trends that a bunch of different customers all mention, or by spotting opportunities for support agent coaching.

Customer lifecycle management

To keep customers coming back, you need to be able to keep a good eye on their behavior and ensure that if they have feedback, you’re able to close the loop by making the changes they want to see.

That’s alongside continually delighting them with proactive, personalized offers and communications. Keeping customers for the long haul means fostering a human-centric approach that uses software, surveys and analytics to help you show just how much you value their business.

Delivering customer-driven journeys

The consumer decision journey represents a complex, ever-evolving landscape that demands a really nuanced and adaptive approach from businesses. In an era where digital platforms dominate and consumer behaviors shift rapidly, understanding journeys from a scientific perspective is not just beneficial – it’s imperative for sustained success.

By embracing journey insights, businesses can position themselves at critical touchpoints, offering personalized solutions that resonate with consumers’ needs and preferences at the right moments. Integrating advanced analytics, omnichannel strategies and customer-centric thinking is what’ll help you exceed the expectations of today’s savvy consumers.

In other words? As you navigate this dynamic terrain, the key to unlocking customer loyalty and driving business growth lies in the ability to continuously adapt, innovate, and deliver exceptional experiences at every stage of the consumer decision journey.

Ready to transform your understanding of the consumer decision journey? With Qualtrics® Customer Journey Optimizer , you can take your customers where they want to go—in the fastest and most profitable way.

Elevate your customer journey management today

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The Consumer Decision Journey Explained

November 17, 2023

View all blog posts under Articles

A consumer looks at items on a store shelf.

Understanding the consumer decision process is essential for effective marking, and those with an advanced education in applied psychology can better understand the motivations behind individual spending decisions, as well as consumer behavior on a larger scale.

What Exactly Is the Consumer Decision Journey?

The consumer decision journey is a behavior-driven framework that allows marketing professionals to assess how consumers decide to buy certain goods and services. It also helps marketing professionals strategize about how to influence these decisions. It is a template for building targeted marketing strategies. Factors considered in these strategies include target demographic, medium used, online presence and societal trends.

Why Understanding the Consumer Decision Journey Is So Important

Decades ago, businesses could seamlessly guide consumers through the sales funnel since most potential buyers had similar information and followed identical steps as they made purchasing decisions. But today’s consumer decision journey is more fluid and can be very different for different target audiences. Businesses must take steps to understand their customers’ different paths.

These days, consumers are bombarded with information about products and services, and it is easy for them to sift through it on their own. They no longer have to rely on in-person retail businesses for education or information. Instead, they can proactively research potential purchases, read testimonials, get to know brands and comparison shop online. This has led to more informed consumers, requiring marketers to build strategies that acknowledge this new reality.

Marketers need to use information derived from each of the consumer’s touch points with the product or brand to build proactive strategies that not only meet consumers where they are but also anticipate where they may be going. To do this, businesses must understand the psychology of the consumer decision journey and determine how they can influence its trajectory.

How to Map the Consumer Decision Journey

When McKinsey & Co. launched their road map for the consumer decision journey, they suggested a six-stage journey that began with consideration and evaluation. They have since transitioned to a shorter loop model built on the following stages:

Buying : the process of the consumer buying the product or service
Experiencing : how the consumer feels about the product or service after purchasing it
Advocating : the consumer proactively spreads the word about the product or service
Bonding : the customer develops brand loyalty

The final stage, bonding, creates a loop that brings the consumer back to the journey’s starting point. This loop provides marketers with a template for developing key consumer marketing strategies.

The decision journey is a process personal to each consumer. Businesses should use internal data to map out their customers’ unique paths. Some customers may even skip steps depending on their needs or their research.

Similarly, businesses are likely to find that customers tend to get caught up at similar points along the journey. Marketers who can identify these bottlenecks can much more effectively guide customers past the pain points and through the remainder of the journey. In some cases, website analytics can shed valuable light on when and where businesses tend to lose customers.

Businesses should also strive to determine the typical length of their customer decision journey, since it can vary greatly depending on the product or service. For many customers, the initial consideration stage includes an extended shopping phase. During this phase, customers read online reviews, use search engines to learn more about a brand or a product, visit stores to see products in person and look for deals.

When mapping their customer decision journey, businesses may also find it useful to take their research a step beyond normal practices. For instance, businesses that build their consumer decision journey around the values of their targeted consumers may develop new pathways on their consumer decision journey. Marketers should also consider looking at their competitors’ purchase paths to determine key places to intervene.

How Psychology Factors Into Consumer Decision Journey Mapping

Once they have mapped out their typical customer decision journey, marketers can begin targeting customers proactively. To guide the journey effectively, however, an in-depth understanding of consumer psychology and how it relates to purchasing decisions is key.

Marketers who understand the psychology of purchasing and consumer behavior can create campaigns that forge connections with potential customers. In this way, they can guide the customer along their decision journey while adding even more value to the customer’s experience. Ultimately, this may result in more satisfied customers who become loyal brand advocates.

While marketers have had to take manual actions to guide customers in the past, today, they can take full advantage of the digital tools at their disposal. Automated marketing tools enable professionals to streamline each step of the process, while proactive personalization gives them the power to alter their messages based on what they know about each customer. Contextual interaction allows marketers to change their behaviors depending on where customers are in the buying journey, while journey innovation gives them the power to A/B test continually.

Psychological Tools for Mapping the Customer Journey

It’s important to acknowledge psychology’s role in mapping the customer journey. For companies looking to forge deeper connections with consumers, it’s imperative to know how to optimize the application of psychological principles. To do this, companies can deploy specific tools whose purpose is to create efficient pathways for these intricate connections.

Customer Journey Maps

Raw data analysis typically yields “what” data. This type of information relates to concrete surface data quantified by predetermined metrics like a customer’s age, how long they stay on a web page, or how much money they spend at a specific location. A customer journey map goes beyond this surface by using psychology to help determine the “why” of the customer decision journey data that may ultimately drive interest in a product or a service.

Answering these questions can be difficult because the impetus of consumer behavior is primarily within their subconscious. While digging into the subconscious of each individual is not feasible, customer journey maps can help build a psychological profile of customers. This can help businesses extract educated guesses on what may psychologically motivate consumer behavior.

These tools can use data that slots consumers within a psychological archetype, which is then combined with “what” data to construct a more holistic consumer profile. This combination can help mitigate the potential for assumption and risk, which could help create more targeted campaigns that acknowledge current needs while anticipating future needs.

Empathy Maps

An empathy map doesn’t try to glean insights from an individual’s subconscious level. However, it does inform purchasing by using psychology to build understanding from the customer’s perspective. This typically requires the company to ask specific questions that may drive consumer decisions. These questions could cover topics such as:

What the consumer may feel when they use the product
What the consumer may see when using their product
What the consumer may be doing while using the product
What benefits the consumer may receive by using the product

Using psychology to see a product or service through the eyes of the consumer can further shift focus to consumer interests, which could allow them to develop more intuitive campaign strategies. It could also help them uncover potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses in their product or campaign. This can ultimately lead to improvements that can garner deeper consumer connections.

Become an Invaluable Part of a Company’s Growth

Psychology plays a vital role in both mapping and guiding the consumer decision journey. Understanding important psychology concepts can help marketers become more effective at targeting their audiences and communicating the right things about their products. Professionals skilled in applying these concepts can help a company optimize its marketing strategies.

The USC online Master of Science in Applied Psychology can help marketing professionals better understand and capitalize on the psychology behind consumer behavior. Earning this degree can help marketers shape campaigns that successfully leverage psychology on the path to purchase. Learn how our program can help prepare professionals to become game changers in business.

Data & Visuals

When making purchasing decisions, consumers go on a “consumer decision journey” comprised of four stages: consider a selection of brands; evaluate by seeking input from peers, reviewers, and others; buy; and enjoy, advocate, bond. This journey replaces the famous funnel metaphor.

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table of contents

A Guide to the Consumer Decision Making Process

Understanding how your customer thinks is not just beneficial—it's critical. The consumer decision-making process is the roadmap, the playbook, the secret sauce. It's the journey a consumer takes, from recognizing a need to purchasing and beyond.

We'll cover everything from the psychology of decision-making to the impact of current technology. You'll discover why understanding the consumer decision-making process is beneficial and vital in today's complex market. Ready? Let's get started.

Setting the stage - Why you should care

We're living in the age of the customer. Digital transformation has shifted power from brands to consumers and presented customers with endless choices. That's great for them, but not always so great for businesses competing for attention. Understand your customer, and you'll win their attention, loyalty, and advocacy.

The real cost of ignoring the consumer decision-making process

Data doesn't lie. Studies indicate consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. In contrast, even a single negative experience can drive away potential lifetime customers. It's clear: understanding the consumer decision-making process isn't optional; it's mission-critical. Ignorance isn't bliss; it's a direct path to obscurity in a marketplace that waits for no one.

The psychology behind decision-making

The emotional vs rational mind: the internal battle.

We like to believe we're logical beings, but the fact is, emotion is often the driver while logic rides shotgun. Marketers can use psychological principles like urgency, scarcity, and the 'halo effect' to appeal to the emotional brain. Understanding the emotional psychology behind purchases can guide you in creating irresistible marketing campaigns.

Social influences: How friends and family impact decisions

If you think peer pressure is just for teenagers, think again. Whether word-of-mouth or influencer reviews, social proof is a powerful driver of consumer behavior. In fact, social proof is so impactful that according to various studies, product reviews are 12 times more trusted than product descriptions from manufacturers. Clearly, it's not just what you say about your product; it's what others say, too.

Behavioral economics: Why we're predictably irrational

Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" takes us on a mind tour, revealing two systems that drive our thoughts. One is fast, intuitive, and emotional; the other is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. This explains why we can be incredibly smart and simultaneously make decisions against our best interest. As a business, you can apply behavioral economics to nudge customers in the direction that benefits both parties—emphasis on both.

A detailed look into the consumer decision-making model

Traditional vs. modern models: what's changed.

Traditional decision-making models presumed a linear journey: a customer realizes a need, searches for information, compares options, makes a purchase, and then evaluates their decision. Thanks to the internet, social media, and mobile devices, the process is less linear and more dynamic in today's digital ecosystem. Businesses need to adapt to this multifaceted consumer decision-making environment to stay relevant.

The 5 key stages of the consumer decision-making process

A comprehensive understanding of the consumer decision-making process involves knowing the five stages a consumer typically goes through. These are Problem Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase Decision, and Post-Purchase Behavior. Understanding these stages in detail is like having a playbook for consumer engagement. You'll know when to push when to nurture, and when to sit back and let the consumer come to you.

Stage One - Problem Recognition

Pinpointing the need: how consumers realize they want something.

In this initial stage, consumers realize they have a need that must be satisfied. These needs can vary from the very basic, like hunger, to more complex needs, like buying new software for project management. Regardless of the need, it triggers the consumer decision-making process. Companies that effectively stimulate problem recognition have the upper hand from the get-go.

The triggers: External vs internal stimuli

Problem recognition can arise from both internal and external triggers. Internal triggers are spontaneous and often emerge from emotional states or thoughts—like feeling hungry or bored. External triggers are prompted by outside influences, like advertising or word-of-mouth. A smart blend of focusing on both can give you a winning edge.

Stage Two - Information Search

The modern consumer's toolkit: how we search for information.

Once a consumer realizes a need, the search for information begins. In our hyper-connected world, consumers use multiple channels—social media, search engines, friends, blogs—to find their ideal product or service. This stage is a goldmine for companies that invest in content marketing, SEO, and social listening.

Search engines vs social proof: The battle for credibility

Trust plays a huge role at this stage. Consumers cross-reference product information with reviews, friends' opinions, and expert advice. Being visible on search engines is crucial, but good reviews and testimonials can be your secret weapon.

Information overload: How too many options can be a bad thing

The paradox of choice is real. When consumers face too many options, they often suffer from analysis paralysis, delaying or avoiding decision-making altogether. Simplicity sells; therefore, keep choices and product options streamlined when possible.

Stage Three - Evaluation of Alternatives

Brand loyalty vs price sensitivity: what really matters.

During this stage, consumers use their personalized criteria to evaluate different options. Some are loyal to brands they trust; others are sensitive to price and seek the most cost-effective solution. Knowing which type of customer you're dealing with is essential for targeting your offerings.

The Evaluation Criteria: Features, Benefits, and Reviews

Consumers have their unique criteria for evaluation, usually revolving around features, benefits, and reviews. Features are the product's attributes, benefits are how those features solve a problem, and reviews are the social proof. As a marketer, you should excel in presenting all three aspects compellingly.

Stage Four - Purchase Decision

Cart abandonment: why consumers get cold feet.

The cart abandonment rate averages around 70%, a massive blow to potential revenue. This usually occurs due to unexpected costs, complicated checkouts, or second thoughts. Mitigating these barriers can help ensure that a decision to purchase translates into a successful transaction.

The power of discounts and offers: How to seal the deal

Price reductions, coupon codes, and limited-time offers can tip the balance in your favor when a consumer is on the fence. These tactics create a sense of urgency and can expedite the decision-making process. But use them wisely; you don't want to deteriorate your brand value.

The role of timing: Why now is better than later

Urgency is a compelling motivator. Terms like "limited-time offer" or "while supplies last" can drive a consumer to act fast. Use these phrases carefully and thoughtfully; the overuse can lead to consumer skepticism.

Stage Five - Post-Purchase Behavior

Satisfaction vs regret: the emotional aftermath.

Once the purchase is made, the consumer enters a stage of evaluation and emotional reconciliation. This stage is your chance to turn a one-time buyer into a loyal customer. High-quality customer service, easy return policies, and solid warranties can tip the scales in your favor.

How consumer reviews shape future buying decisions

A happy customer is likely to leave a positive review, and these reviews play a significant role in future purchasing decisions for other consumers. Encourage satisfied customers to share their positive experiences, as it could be a determining factor for potential customers on the fence.

Customer retention: Turning one-time buyers into loyal customers

Retaining a customer is more cost-effective than acquiring a new one. Offering loyalty programs, sending thoughtful post-purchase follow-ups, and listening to customer feedback are some ways to nurture the relationship.

How businesses can influence the consumer decision-making process

Personalization and targeting.

With machine learning algorithms and data analytics, personalization has become more sophisticated than ever. The payoff is huge; personalized emails have 6x higher transaction rates. If you're not already personalizing, now's the time to start.

Customer Experience

A Harvard Business Review study showed that customers with great experiences spent 140% more than those with poor experiences. So, the math is simple: invest in customer experience.

Understanding and anticipating customer needs

Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and other tools offer actionable insights. These insights allow you to not just understand consumer behavior but also to predict future actions. In other words, it's like having a crystal ball, but one that's backed by data.

Ethical considerations: The line between influence and manipulation

Imagine knowing what your customer wants before they even realize it. Machine learning and AI algorithms can make this a reality. Early adopters of these technologies are already reaping the benefits, positioning themselves ahead of the curve.

As we increasingly leverage data and psychology to influence consumer decisions, it's crucial to remember the ethical implications. Your brand's long-term success is built not just on profits but also on trust. And in today's world, trust is more fragile than ever.

Understanding the consumer decision-making process is not just a strategy; it's an essential toolkit for long-term success. Businesses and marketers who ignore this fundamental aspect of consumer psychology do so at their own peril. Apply what you've learned and adapt as you go. Your customers — and your bottom line — will thank you.

Discover more

How to make a customer journey map, customer journey vs customer journey map, what are the 7 steps of the customer journey map, collecting customer feedback: methods and techniques, buyer journey vs customer journey, benefits of customer journey mapping, get on board in seconds, plans and pricing.

Customer Decision Journey

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Abbreviated as CDJ, customer decision journey is a model that describes the process customers undergo before making any purchase decisions. It is believed that there is no such thing as an impulse buy. New businesses always develop marketing strategies without considering the decision-making process by assuming that customers are always prepared to make a purchase. Every purchase customers make is a decision journey, involving interactions with different brands from initial contact to the point where they make a purchase.

Customer decision journey concept has been in existence for many years. However, the actual route that customers take to arrive at a purchase decision has changed over time and has made many companies modify their marketing strategies to fit the best model. Traditionally, companies used a linear approach to customer decision journey which was later modified to a more circular approach (McKinsey model).

The Old Approach

Some companies are still attached to the old model since the new model lacks sufficient evidence to support its effectiveness. The old approach simplifies this process into four steps.

Awareness – the customers know nothing about the company or its products. Also, they do not know their needs. Customers discover the products through advertisements or recommendations.
Selection – customers start analyzing information given to them about the product. At this point, they believe that their needs can be fulfilled.
Preference – they have assessed all the information and compared all possible solutions. They can now make a decision.
Purchase – they purchase the product they have selected hence becoming customers.

This approach only considers the pre-purchase decision and neglects to design the experience gained as customers use the product.

The McKinsey Model

Due to marketing evolution, customers have also evolved as well as the buying process. The McKinsey consulting company designed a model for customer decision journey consisting of four steps.

Consideration – customers consider several brands in the hope that they can fulfil their needs.
Active evaluation – they evaluate the brands considered by accessing several information databases. The number of brands is reduced depending on their pros and cons.
Buy – customers decide to go for the one brand that meets their needs and make a purchase.
Post-purchase experience – this stage explains what happens after the customers execute the purchase. At this point, the customers can use the product and gather experience. If they are fully satisfied, they may rate and recommend the product to others. This is word-of-mouth marketing which forms the core of the loop in McKinsey’s CDJ. Positive or negative feedback affects the evaluation phase and purchase decisions that customers make.

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Consumer Decision Making Process: Meaning, Stages, Levels, Models

Meaning of consumer decision making process.

Consumer decision making process involves the consumers to identify their needs, gather information, evaluate alternatives and then make their buying decision.

Consumer Decision-Making Process is one through which a consumer goes through for satisfying their needs by making appropriate buying decisions. It is a complex process which ranges from the recognition of needs, searching and collecting information, evaluating alternatives, purchasing the best product out of alternatives and post-purchase activities.

It is simply a process which depicts the journey of the consumer from starting to end for making buying decisions. Marketers use this process as a source of information for acquiring all important data related to consumers.

Stages of Consumer Decision Making Process

There are several steps involves in decision making process of consumers. These steps are explained in detailed below: –

Need Recognition- Process of consumer decision making starts with the identification of need or problem. It is a stage where consumer found out that they are missing something and look for means for filling such a gap. The consumer determines his wants that motivate him to search for opportunities for satisfaction of his needs.
Information Search- Once the problem is identified by a consumer, he searches for information regarding distinct products available in the market. Consumer gathers data regarding various products and services that can satisfy his want. He uses both personal as well as a commercial source for this purpose. Personal source involves family, friends, peers etc. and commercial sources involve newspapers, T.V., radio and the internet.
Evaluation of Alternatives- After gathering information from all sources, consumers checks various product alternatives for selecting the most appropriate one. He evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of different available alternatives. The consumer will develop a set of choices with regard to attributes of product, brand etc. that meet his want, preferences, taste, personality and lifestyle.
Selection and Trial- Consumer here make his first purchase for the trial of products keeping his set of choices in mind. He purchases several products in small quantities or uses them for a short span of time for developing an opinion towards product.
Purchase decision- Once the consumer is fully satisfied with the quality of product after taking a trial, he finally buys the product for fulfilling his needs. Here consumer has acquired all of the required knowledge after evaluating all facts and arrive at final conclusion to buy a product. He finally makes a choice of product, brand, dealer, decide an amount and purchase time.
Post-purchase behaviour- It refers to post-purchase behaviour of consumer where he evaluates whether the product has met his expectations or not. He will find out that a product is either useful or not. There may be three outcomes after making a purchase: – Product actual performance is equal to the expected performance that will lead to repeat purchase decisions by consumers, product actual performance is greater than the expected performance which will lead to build consumer loyalty and third case is where product actual performance is less than expected performance where consumer will reject the product.

Levels of Consumer Decision Making

Extensive Problem Solving- This is the early stage in decision making of consumer where he has not developed an evaluation criterion. Buyer has a very little information about products and brands, therefore is highly involved with products for their critical evaluation. Large no. of brands is evaluated and there is enough time available for finalizing product. These type of decisions are taken for buying high cost products such as car, bikes etc.
Limited Problem Solving- Limited problem solving is an advanced stage of consumer’s decision making. Consumer has moderate involvement with products for choosing the suitable one. He conducts a general search for products and only few alternative brands are evaluated. Choice criteria is well defined buyer takes less time to complete purchase process. It takes place in purchasing products like clothes, shoes and cosmetics.
Routine Response Behaviour- Here, consumers have a very low involvement with products and do a little evaluation of alternatives. He has a strong predisposition towards one brand and takes all purchase decisions frequently. Cost of product purchased is low and any product that fulfil needs is chosen quickly. It applies in case of products like soap, toothpaste, shampoo etc.

Models of Consumer Decision Making

Economic Model- Economic Model is a model that assumes a consumer to be rational person and all decision are taken by him on rational basis. He has an ability of doing a comparison of variety of products, performing analysis of their advantages and disadvantages which provides them efficient information for taking appropriate purchase decision. He is well-known about all existing alternative brands and give them a ranking considering their features, quality, uses and drawbacks. Economic model is considered to be unrealistic as people do not always behave rationally while purchasing a product and lacks skills, existing values and perceptions.
Passive Model- Passive model believes that promotional campaigns of marketers influences the decision making process of consumers. They respond directly to advertisement appeal made by brands in market. This model is opposite of economic model, as it believes that evaluation of products will be done by consumer as per their market position and how they are being promoted in the market. Passive model is also an unrealistic model as it ignores the fact that individual have a capability of themselves acquiring information from market for evaluating alternatives before making buying decision.
Cognitive Model- This one of the best model out of all 4 consumer decision process model. Cognitive model assumes that all purchase decisions are taken by consumer according to their interest and market understandability. This model fully ignores the role of promotional campaigns of marketers and consumer’s rational needs in their decision making process. All marketers must assist consumers in creating short-cut decision rules that would result in fast purchase decisions.
Emotional Model- Emotional model of consumer decision making assumes that emotions of individual plays a major role in influencing their buying decisions. Consumers are believed to be emotional who acts as per their emotions. They associate themselves with goods and services which results in impulsive decisions by them. Time taken to decide the product is less, and a positive and negative emotion is developed regarding the product. Hence, only those products are purchase that brings positive emotions and all those that brings negative emotions are avoided.

Consumer Decision Rules

Compensatory Decision Rule- It is a decision rule in which relevant attributes of product are taken into consideration while evaluating them for making a purchase decision. He carefully balances the pros and cons of every attribute of product before finalizing it for purchase.
Non-compensatory Decision Rule- According to this rule, any positive attribute of product cannot make buyer to overlook its negative attribute. It believes that product positive evaluation will not compensate for negative evaluation of product.
Conjunctive Decision Rule- Under this rule, a minimum cut-off point is established by consumer for each attribute of product. A brand is avoided if any of its attributes fall below the cut-off point.
Disjunctive Decision Rule- Here, cut-off point only for relevant attributes of product is established by consumer. Product exceling in at least one attribute is chosen by consumer.
Lexicographic Rule- It is the one where attributes of product are ranked in terms of their importance and then a comparison of important attributes is done. Product exceling in attributes important to consumer is chosen.

Howard Sheth Model of Consumer Behaviour – Definition, Levels, Variables
10 Consumer Behaviour Models – Short Notes
Advantages and Disadvantages of Decision Making
What are the 7 steps of Decision Making
Importance of Decision Making in Management
Objectives and Characteristics of Decision Making

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Consumer Decision Journey

Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ) is a model that describes how consumers make purchase decisions. It is therefore non-linear, meaning that the actions overlap and repeat until the final purchase decision, rather than following successively. The CDJ highlights the importance of Word of Mouth Marketing by incorporating factors such as customer loyalty, and the post-purchase experience after purchase into the model.

1 General information
2 Consumer decision journey
3 Relevance to online marketing
4 References
5 Web Links

General information

The traditional approach to the description of purchase behavior involves four stages. A central assumption is the purchase or conversation funnel. The analogy of a funnel is used to attempt to trace the consumer’s path theoretically and find out where the consumer got into contact with the company touchpoints.

Initial contact: Consumers begins with a certain number of brands of which they became aware through advertising or recommendations from friends and acquaintances.
Selection: They reduce the number of brands by selecting and limiting certain features of the product or potential brands.
Comparison: They assess and compare.
Purchase: They decide for a brand and thus for a product.

This sales funnel is the starting point for the newer model of the consumer decision journey. The circumstances that play a role during a purchasing process are changing at a similar pace as technological developments. Consumers nowadays have numerous opportunities to make contact with a brand, including on mobile devices. The traditional model cannot adequately reflect these touchpoints which lead to purchasing decisions. In addition, only a fraction of the consumers conclude the buying process in one session. Many purchases are only made after about two weeks when consumers visit a website again.

Consumer decision journey

The McKinsey consulting company conducted a study in 2009 with over 20,000 participants from different sectors and three countries. The findings of this study form the basis for the CDJ model. [1]

It consists of the following phases:

Consideration : Consumers start with a set of an average of three to four brands or companies if they are not already loyal customers of a company.
Evaluation : Now they evaluate the brands being considered. A significant difference to the funnel becomes clear already. The consumer can access a variety of digital channels to get information. Search Engines , Social Networks and Blogs serve as a source of information. Companies can pick up their customers at these touchpoints or micro-conversions.
Buy : When the consumer considers their needs met, they will make a purchase. The barriers should be as small as possible at this touchpoint so that the consumer can conclude a purchase with as few clicks as possible.
Experience, Advocate & Bond : These describe what happens after the purchase. Consumers uses the product and accumulate experience. If they are positive, they may give a rating and recommend the product. Word-of-mouth marketing plays a central role in the CDJ, as this feedback affects the evaluation phase. There is a loop. Negative feedback affects purchase decisions from other consumers. But it can also be used as an improvement suggestion for future products. If a consumer’s experience with a company has been consistently good, they may become a more frequent and loyal customer. There are two types of loyalty. One relates to loyalty programs, which include special offers for example. The other type of loyalty focuses on the management of customer relationships and the experiences a consumer has with a company. This includes contacts with customer service or conversations in various social networks.

Relevance to online marketing

The model of the consumer decision journey tries to represent the complexity of a purchase process and extends the traditional model by a few essential points. In particular, the addition of touchpoints and feedback loops is to be mentioned here. Many consumers now buy products with a mobile device and interact with brands in various ways. The CDJ model underlines the importance of communication that runs in both directions and across different devices. Touchpoints are targeted, which have a considerable influence on the purchasing decision and thus also appear relevant from a monetary point of view. [2]

In addition, reviews, recommendations and reviews play an increasingly important role in the purchasing process. One of the most important findings of the CDJ model is that care for the customer relationship should not stop after the purchase. Instead, the Customer Experience should also be positive in the phases after the purchase. The consumer can act as Influencer by rating a product. They will promote the positive image of a brand or product and in the best case becomes a brand advocate, in other words, a loyal customer who advertises a product with their recommendations.

↑ The consumer decision journey mckinsey.com.. Accessed on 07/20/2015
↑ Your customer’s purchase journey has changed – has your marketing? smartinsights.com. Accessed on 07/20/2015
Infographic Customer Decision Journey
Digitizing the consumer decision journey
How to create a marketing funnel
Online Marketing

What is CX?

You might have an intuitive sense of what separates good CX, or customer experience, from bad. Imagine, say, you want a latte. When you visit the coffee shop, are staff members attentive? If you are a regular, do they greet you by your name? Was the store designed intuitively? Do they take your order promptly and hand you your cup with a smile? If you have a problem, is it promptly resolved, or is someone sent to help you? Do they proactively reach out to understand your overall experience?

All of those questions touch on elements of customer experience. The four components of CX are brand, product, price, and service.

Basically, CX refers to everything an organization does to deliver superior experiences, value, and growth for customers. And it’s crucial in an age when how a business delivers for its customers is just as important as—if not more important than—the products and services it provides. In a digital world, where customers review and share their experiences with a company in public forums, it has become vital for companies to connect with customers across their journeys at an emotional level. Not only is customer experience the right thing to do for customers but it also results in 3x returns to shareholders .

The COVID-19 pandemic was a test of how to connect with customers in times of crisis . And many did surprisingly well in providing good CX, for instance, by swiftly reorienting their efforts to meet customers’ primary needs with respect to safety, security, and everyday convenience. Take, for example, e-commerce companies and food delivery services that developed methods of contactless delivery to keep customers and drivers safe as the virus spread.

This article offers a brief overview of customer experience-related topics and answers questions such as:

What are customer journeys?

How to measure customer experience, what is the consumer decision journey, what is customer care, how to improve customer experience.

A customer journey describes the customer’s end-to-end experience, as opposed to their satisfaction at various individual transactions or touchpoints. These can include many things that occur before, during, or after the customer experiences a given product or service. Examples of customer journeys include bringing a new customer on board, resolving a technical issue, or upgrading a product.

Consider onboarding a new customer. At one company , this process took about three months and on average entailed nine phone calls, a technician visit, and interactions via both the web and mail. While there was a 90 percent chance, at any given touchpoint, of the interaction going well, average customer satisfaction fell nearly 40 percent over the course of the journey. More important than solving issues at the level of individual touchpoints was to reimagine the approach to service operations around the most crucial CX journeys.

Attending to full customer journeys instead of touchpoints can drive stronger business outcomes. For instance, a McKinsey survey found that customer satisfaction with health insurance is 73 percent more likely when the entire journey works well than when only touchpoints do. Looking to the hospitality industry, customers of hotels that get the entire customer journey right may be 61 percent more willing to recommend those hotels than customers of hotels that just focus on touchpoints.

If your company is looking to reinvigorate its customer experience, three efforts can help you move from touchpoints to journeys :

Observe. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: What do they see? This can help organize and mobilize employees around customer needs. In addition to identifying and understanding the customer’s journey, you’ll need to quantify what matters to customers and define a clear aspiration and common purpose.
Shape. When you design customer experiences, interactions must be reshaped into different sequences. Even if your effort starts small, it can swiftly become much larger and entail the digitization of processes, the reorientation of company culture, and nimble refinements in the field.
Perform. Making the transition to prioritize journeys can be a journey in itself that takes years and requires deep engagement from everyone in the company, from corporate leaders right down to the front line.

Learn more about our Growth, Marketing & Sales and Operations practices.

You might have a hard time imagining how you measure something as ephemeral as the magic your company creates for customers. But it can be done. Best practice calls for three guiding principles to help optimize customer-experience measurement :

Measure the customer experience at the journey level, rather than at the level of touchpoints or overall satisfaction.
Invest in hardwired technology that captures feedback on a daily basis from multiple channels, integrating survey results and other data into comprehensive dashboards.
Cultivate a mindset of continuous improvement at all levels.

Depending on the level of CX adoption within an organization, consider the power of predicting CX , which can help you stay ahead of customer churn and dissatisfaction. Why? Survey-based systems alone don’t necessarily meet the needs of today’s companies; they’re limited, reactive, ambiguous, and unfocused. Predictive customer insight may unlock more powerful insights to improve customer experiences.

The consumer decision journey (CDJ) is a reconceptualization of the traditional marketing funnel. In this approach, the way customers make decisions is framed as a circular process involving four phases where customers can be gained or lost:

initial consideration
active evaluation, or the process of researching potential purchases
closure, when consumers buy brands
postpurchase, when consumers experience those brands

And conceptions of the consumer decision journey continue to evolve , especially in light of the new technologies and capabilities available to consumers. Today, it is important for brands not only to react to customers but also to actively shape their decision journeys. This may mean compressing or even eliminating the consideration and evaluation phases to drive competitive advantage . To foster an accelerated customer loyalty journey , four distinct but interconnected capabilities are crucial:

Automation can be used to streamline the customer journey (for example, being able to snap a photo of a check and deposit it via your bank’s app rather than physically visiting a bank branch).
Proactive personalization uses a customer’s information to instantly customize CX.
Contextual interaction uses knowledge about where a customer is in a journey to deliver them to the next set of interactions.
Journey innovation finds new sources of value, such as new services, for both the customer and the brand. This involves companies mining their data and insights about customers to figure out what other services they might appreciate. The best companies also design customer decision journeys that allow open-ended testing and frequent prototyping of new services or features.

Learn more about our Growth, Marketing & Sales practice.

Circular, white maze filled with white semicircles.

Looking for direct answers to other complex questions?

Customer care generally happens within contact-center operations. These are sometimes referred to as call centers, and people working at these organizations support customers throughout their journeys with a company’s products or services—no matter where customers need help (in-store, online, via mobile apps, etcetera). This is as all part of providing an omnichannel customer experience. Contact centers play an important role in customer care, and a forward-looking vision for these centers could entail hyperpersonalization to meet customers’ expectations in a way that’s both strategic and experience oriented.

How has COVID-19 changed customer experience?

COVID-19 changed customer experience in several ways. Many companies needed to shift the ways they worked with customers, for example, by providing alternative digital experiences when it was not safe for physical stores to be open. More broadly, how your company interacted with customers throughout the pandemic may have triggered an immediate and lingering effect on customers’ sense of trust and loyalty. In times of crisis, meeting customer needs with empathy, care, concern, and connection is important. It can help frame short-term responses, build longer-term resilience, and prepare for success after a crisis passes by keeping a pulse on how preferences are changing in real time. And it’s worth noting that more than three-quarters of consumers changed their buying habits during the pandemic—and in addition to value and convenience, purpose also drives shopping decisions.

What does digital customer experience mean?

Digital customer experience refers to elements of the experience that happen online or with the support of digital and analytics. This can facilitate interactions that are holistic, predictive, prioritized, and focused on value.

Consider the example of a leading airline that built a machine-learning system to track and prioritize customers who might choose a different carrier because they experienced multiple flight delays or other issues. The system, built in three months, drove an 800 percent increase in customer satisfaction and also reduced churn for priority customers by 60 percent.

When it comes to digital customer experience, companies are increasingly aiming to transition to predictive insights that could represent the future of CX . Some CX leaders are pushing on predictive CX platforms, which consist of three key elements:

a customer-level data lake, with customer, financial, and operational data to develop a rigorous understanding of customer experiences
predictive customer scores using analytics that track what’s influencing customer satisfaction and business performance
an action and insight engine that’s shared with a broad set of employees, via tools such as customer-relationship-management platforms, through an API layer

These platforms can play a powerful role in linking CX to value and building clear business cases to improve CX. Of course, companies must stay attuned to customers and the privacy imperative . And it will also be crucial to build security into the digital customer experience .

Learn more about our Growth, Marketing & Sales , Digital McKinsey , and Risk & Resilience practices.

What about customer experience and loyalty?

If you offer a good CX, chances are your customers will be loyal to you or your brand. But that doesn’t happen without real effort. “Consumers are changing, and consumer trends are driving this,” says former McKinsey partner Jess Huang on the new generation of customer loyalty programs . “With the move to digital over the last ten years, consumers are spending more and more time on their phones and various digital channels. This makes it much easier to access the consumer, but there is also a lot more noise. Brands are trying to figure out the right way to break through that noise and develop a relationship with the consumer.”

Loyalty programs are vital to doing so, but two-thirds of them fail to deliver. Focusing on eight elements can help your loyalty programs perform better:

Don’t be afraid to offer customers incentives to redeem their loyalty points.
Consider the customer segments where there’s “breakage” (people whose points expire), and think about potential opportunities for improvement.
Enlist strategic partners to enhance offers and rewards.
Offer points-plus-cash options.
Measure success based on engagement, not just accruals.
Segment customers into groups you can handle.
Personalize test-and-learn across customer segments.
Create a standard P&L to accurately measure the incremental impact of loyalty programs.

Is customer experience the same in B2B and B2C contexts?

Much of CX in B2B isn’t the same as in B2C. Here’s why :

relationships often go deeper in B2B
longer, more complex B2B journeys involve more individuals
customization is more widespread in B2B than B2C
the stakes are usually higher in B2B deals, as individual B2B customer relationships are often worth millions of dollars

Nevertheless, more B2B customers say they would like a better customer experience—one that is more like those of B2C customers. And in complex B2B sectors like industrial services—think aftermarket service contracts for jet engines, industrial robots, or utility-transmission equipment— better customer experience is increasingly critical for growth . In a survey of 1,000 B2B decision makers, lack of speed in interactions with their suppliers emerged as the number-one “pain point” and was mentioned twice as often as price.

Keeping a finger on the B2B pulse can help you understand and respond to emerging B2B customer needs , especially in light of the shift to omnichannel . Adjusting your approach for the mix of traditional, remote, and self-service sales channels is increasingly important—and 94 percent of B2B decision makers say new omnichannel sales model are as effective or more effective than prepandemic sales models. For even more, here’s a case study of how a B2B organization in China became more customer-centric.

How do different industries approach customer experience?

Because customer needs and expectations vary by context, different industries may approach CX in different ways. Here are just a few examples of how industries grapple with the issues:

Automotive. Car companies are putting customer experience in the driver’s seat —whereas manufacturers once competed on their engineering capabilities, CX is now a true differentiator, and customer-centric innovation is crucial.
Travel. The COVID-19 pandemic turned travel upside down, and travelers’ customer experience is emerging as a challenge during the recovery. Doing better could entail aiming higher on experience, understanding customers more deeply, and moving faster operationally.
Retail. Retail and consumer CX likely needs to account for a variety of omnichannel operational considerations . Retailers also need to stay attuned to the rise of the inclusive consumer and make adjustments to serve their needs. And preparing for the future of shopping , where technology is everywhere, will also be important.
Banking. CX transformation in banking can pay off by delighting customers and, in turn, delivering revenue and cost improvements for banks themselves. And in regions like Asia–Pacific, digital innovation in banking offers some insight on whether or how banks should rethink customer engagement . Keeping up with customer trends can also unearth new opportunities, for instance, as we’ve seen with buy now, pay later financing models. Fintech players may be on the vanguard when it comes to taking the friction out of financial services for customers.
Insurance. Many insurers have invested heavily in digitizing customer journeys and processes to improve the experience. A user-first, omnichannel approach could rely on the availability of online purchasing capabilities, the ease of navigating online journeys, and seamless integration of sales support and advice. The rise of insurtechs has also helped the industry address some customer pain points.
Healthcare. In coming months and years, “Care at Home” could reshape the way health systems deliver patient-centered care . The rise of telehealth could also affect CX in healthcare . Focusing on whole-person care could improve outcomes for patients with behavioral-health conditions. Monitoring healthcare consumer insights will remain important, and providing compassionate, personalized care can benefit both patients and healthcare organizations.
Utilities. Transforming CX in utilities helps customers and can allow utilities themselves to drive out costs. Self-service and digital channels are crucial in this context.
Government. Prioritizing and improving customer experience in government can offer big benefits for customers. It can also give employees greater purpose—and improve agencies’ reputations.
Service businesses. Are customers of industrial-services businesses happy? The bar is rising, but for industrial OEM customer experience , organizations will need to better understand what customers want and need.

What are the differences between customer experience and employee experience?

While the design thinking that transformed customer experience is now also transforming employee experience (EX) , there are some differences between the two:

A customer journey is often a lot quicker than an employee journey. It might take months or even up to a year for employers to hire a new employee. That’s a lot longer than most customer journeys.
Many employers’ interactions with their employees continue to be top-down instead of being a constant, two-way iterative process—as successful customer journeys have become. For instance, while many companies are exploring hybrid work options, others are considering a full return to the office, even though many of their employees would prefer to continue working from home.

But happy employees are crucial to providing good CX—meaning that CX and EX are related. In that regard, improving employee experience in service of building a customer-centric culture can have a powerful effect. Just consider how much mindsets matter here: some employees, for instance, might think, “I’m not involved in asking for customer feedback.” But in a customer-centric culture, reframing that so employees feel empowered to create opportunities to ask for customer feedback can pay dividends.

Learn more about our Growth, Marketing & Sales , People & Organizational Performance , and Operations practices.

Three building blocks are essential in transforming or improving customer experience throughout your organization:

Build aspiration and purpose. A clearly defined CX aspiration should deliver on your company’s purpose and brand promise. Have you developed a customer-centric vision and aspiration, linked it to value, and translated it into a concrete road map?
Transform the business. Here’s where you discover customer needs, design solutions, and deliver impact, whether that’s via customer journeys, products, services, or business models.
Enable the transformation. After introducing a new experience for customers, your company needs to consider how to sustain its efforts. This involves transforming employee mindsets; building capabilities; stepping up on technology, data, and analytics; establishing cross-functional governance and an agile operating model; and deploying systems to measure and manage performance.

Improving customer experience can make a big difference. In over a decade of helping more than 900 companies design and implement enterprise-wide CX programs, approaches that rest on these building blocks have delivered 15 to 20 percent boosts in sales conversion rates, 20 to 50 percent reductions in service costs, and 10 to 20 percent improvement in customer satisfaction.

It’s also important to stay attuned to customer experience pitfalls so your organization can avoid them. These include failing to link CX to value, taking a narrow view of CX, and applying limited creativity; don’t miss the examples of how other organizations have sidestepped these issues in transforming CX.

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s Customer Experience collection. Learn more about the Marketing & Sales , Operations , and McKinsey Digital Practices, and check out customer experience–related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

“ Six customer experience pitfalls to avoid ,” March 17, 2022, Itai Miller, Kevin Neher, Rens van den Broek, and Tom Wintering
“ Next in loyalty: Eight levers to turn customers into fans ,” October 12, 2021, José Carluccio, Oren Eizenman, and Phyllis Rothschild
“ This time it’s personal: Shaping the ‘new possible’ through employee experience ,” September 30, 2021, Jonathan Emmett, Asmus Komm , Stefan Moritz , and Friederike Schultz
“ How to boost growth in industrial services: Better customer experience ,” July 28, 2021, Hugues Lavandier , Senthil Muthiah, Kevin Neher, Stephanie Trottier, and Hyo Yeon
“ Prediction: The future of CX ,” February 24, 2021, Rachel Diebner, David Malfara, Kevin Neher, Mike Thompson, and Maxence Vancauwenberghe
“ The three building blocks of successful customer-experience transformations ,” October 27, 2020, Victoria Bough , Ralph Breuer , Nicolas Maechler , and Kelly Ungerman
“ The human touch at the center of customer-experience excellence ,” October 8, 2020, Alex Camp, Harald Fanderl , Nimish Jain , Bob Sternfels , and Ryter von Difloe
“ The CEO guide to customer experience ,” McKinsey Quarterly , August 17, 2016, includes interviews with Alfonso Pulido , Ron Ritter, and Ewan Duncan
“ The consumer decision journey ,” McKinsey Quarterly , June 1, 2009, David Court, Dave Elzinga, Susan Mulder, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik

Want to know more about CX?

Six customer experience pitfalls to avoid

Next in loyalty: Eight levers to turn customers into fans

Prediction: The future of CX

IMAGES

Customer journey models [McKinsey model & RACE Framework]
The consumer decision journey [Infographic]
Definition and Examples of the Consumer Decision-Making Process
The consumer decision journey [Infographic]
Marketing Theories: the Consumer Decision Making Process
The McKinsey Decision Journey and social marketing

VIDEO

#vlog9 Digital Marketing Strategy the Consumer Decision Journey
Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ)
The Customer Decision Journey
Customer experience transformation
McKinsey’s Consumer Decision Journey Model Marketing Guide
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COMMENTS

The consumer decision journey
The increasing complexity of the consumer decision journey will force virtually all companies to adopt new ways of measuring consumer attitudes, brand performance, and the effectiveness of marketing expenditures across the whole process. Without such a realignment of spending, marketers face two risks.
PDF The consumer decision journey
The consumer decision journey 3 How consumers make decisions Every day, people form impressions of brands from touch points such as advertisements, news reports, conversations with family and friends, and product experiences. Unless consumers are actively shopping, much of that exposure appears wasted. But what happens
The new consumer decision journey
In 2009, we declared that the traditional "funnel" model—in which consumers began with a set number of brands in mind and whittled them down until they decided what to buy—had been usurped by what we called "the consumer decision journey." 1 This journey involved shoppers taking advantage of technology to evaluate products and ...
Customer journey models [McKinsey model & RACE Framework]
Learn how to use McKinsey's consumer decision journey model and RACE Framework to plan, optimize and improve your digital marketing strategy. Compare the loop model with the traditional funnel and explore the stages of customer engagement.
Consumer Decision Journey: What it is + Free Guide
The consumer decision journey model can help companies make continual improvements to customer lifetime value experience and lifecycle, fueling brand loyalty for years to come. LEARN ABOUT: Customer Lifecycle. The consumer decision journey (CDJ) is an important part of brand marketing, marketing campaign, and figuring out how people act. It's ...
The consumer decision journey
The 'consumer decision journey' is the name given to a framework that deconstructs and explores the myriad factors that go into customer purchases. In other words: it's the way we make sense of the consumer decision-making process. ... But that model's now outdated. Today, customers move from touchpoint to touchpoint in a way that makes ...
The consumer decision journey: A literature review of the foundational
The consumer decision journey model has become increasingly important to understand consumer decision-making processes. Although the term originally emerged with Court et al. in 2009, the various current perspectives of the consumer journey suggest the existence of distinct literature and theoretical roots that have yet to be fully explored in detail.
The Consumer Decision Journey Explained
The consumer decision journey is a behavior-driven framework that allows marketing professionals to assess how consumers decide to buy certain goods and services. It also helps marketing professionals strategize about how to influence these decisions. ... They have since transitioned to a shorter loop model built on the following stages: Buying ...
The Consumer Decision Journey
When making purchasing decisions, consumers go on a "consumer decision journey" comprised of four stages: consider a selection of brands; evaluate by seeking input from peers, reviewers, and ...
PDF The Modern Consumer Decision Making Journey
ncreased choices, access, and availability. Modernization, globalization, and digitalization have made it easier for consumers to explore, research, educate, and empower themse. ves throughout the decision-making journey. For example, in moment-of-truth activities, consumers turn to modern resources to research, educate, and compa.
Consumer Decision Journey: What It Is and How To Use It
The consumer decision journey, or the McKinsey Model, is a model developed by management consulting company McKinsey & Company that reflects the customer buying process. This framework evaluates how consumers make purchasing decisions and ways marketers can influence these decisions. Marketers can use this model to evaluate their key touch ...
A Guide to the Consumer Decision Making Process
The 5 key stages of the consumer decision-making process. A comprehensive understanding of the consumer decision-making process involves knowing the five stages a consumer typically goes through. These are Problem Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase Decision, and Post-Purchase Behavior.
Ten years on the consumer decision journey: Where are we today?
The journey, instead, reflects a more complex reality of shifting choices, decision criteria, and triggers. Today, after almost a decade, we have a database that covers more than 125,000 consumer decision journeys—used to help marketers influence consumers and drive growth—across 350 brands in 30 different industries.
McKinsey Minute: New consumer decision journey
McKinsey partner David Edelman explains how companies can now shape the consumer decision journey.
The McKinsey Model for Customer Decision Journeys
Definition Abbreviated as CDJ, customer decision journey is a model that describes the process customers undergo before making any purchase decisions. It is believed that there is no such thing as an impulse buy. New businesses always develop marketing strategies without considering the decision-making process by assuming that customers are always prepared to make a purchase. Every purchase ...
Consumer Decision-Making Process Explained (With Real-Life ...
The consumer decision-making process is a series of steps an individual undergoes to make a purchase. A good knowledge of how your customers make buying decisions allows you to create more targeted marketing strategies to interact with your customer at each stage of the decision-making process. The five stages of the consumer decision-making ...
The consumer decision journey: A literature review of the foundational
The consumer decision journey model has become increasingly important to understand consumer decision-making processes. Although the term originally emerged with Court et al. in 2009, the various current perspectives of the consumer journey suggest the existence of distinct literature and theoretical roots that have yet to be fully explored in detail.
Consumer Decision Making Process: Meaning, Stages, Levels, Models
It is simply a process which depicts the journey of the consumer from starting to end for making buying decisions. Marketers use this process as a source of information for acquiring all important data related to consumers. ... Cognitive Model- This one of the best model out of all 4 consumer decision process model. Cognitive model assumes that ...
Consumer Decision Journey
Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ) is a model that describes how consumers make purchase decisions. It is therefore non-linear, meaning that the actions overlap and repeat until the final purchase decision, rather than following successively. The CDJ highlights the importance of Word of Mouth Marketing by incorporating factors such as customer ...
Digitizing the consumer decision journey
Already, the consumer decision journey has been altered by the ubiquity of big data, the Internet of Things, and advances in web coding and design. 1 ... and by applying various algorithms and models to longitudinal data, companies can better model the cost of their marketing efforts, find the most effective journey patterns, spot potential ...
Driving business growth by zeroing in on the consumer decision journey
Article (PDF-248 KB) One part of the consumer decision journey (CDJ) turns out to be critical to driving the growth of a business: the initial consideration set of brands from which customers shop. In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey's Barr Seitz speaks with partner Dave Elzinga and partner Bo Finneman about this most important ...
The consumer decision journey [Infographic]
To help you understand your consumers' decision journey we have created this new infographic which summarises the latest thinking on how to use online marketing to influence purchase. Infographic: Today's consumer journey and the influences on purchase. Recommended Download: Free digital strategy infographic bundle.
What is CX (Customer Experience)?
What is the consumer decision journey? The consumer decision journey (CDJ) is a reconceptualization of the traditional marketing funnel. In this approach, the way customers make decisions is framed as a circular process involving four phases where customers can be gained or lost: ... -service sales channels is increasingly important—and 94 ...

Consumer Decision Journey: What it is + Free Guide

What is the consumer decision journey?

Understanding consumer behavior

Strategic marketing planning

Customer engagement and relationship building

Adaptability and flexibility

Competitive advantage

1. Discovery

2. Familiarization with the solution

3. Consideration

4. Purchase

5. Post-sale experience and loyalty

Boost your company’s brand awareness

Map your consumer decision journey

Know your competition and surpass it

Evaluate the experience throughout the consumer decision journey

Keep your commitment to the client

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Why is the consumer decision journey important?

Understanding how consumers make decisions

Tools and processes for enhancing customer journeys

1. Omnichannel engagement

Customer touchpoint analysis

Omnichannel customer engagement

Customer journey optimization

2. Behavioral analysis

Consumer behavior analysis

Behavioral targeting strategies

Refining the purchase decision process

3. Postpurchase excellence

Customer experience analytics

Curating the customer engagement journey

Customer lifecycle management

Delivering customer-driven journeys

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How Psychology Factors Into Consumer Decision Journey Mapping

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Recommended Readings

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A Guide to the Consumer Decision Making Process

Setting the stage - Why you should care

The real cost of ignoring the consumer decision-making process

The psychology behind decision-making

Social influences: How friends and family impact decisions

Behavioral economics: Why we're predictably irrational

A detailed look into the consumer decision-making model

The 5 key stages of the consumer decision-making process

Stage One - Problem Recognition

The triggers: External vs internal stimuli

Stage Two - Information Search

Search engines vs social proof: The battle for credibility

Information overload: How too many options can be a bad thing

Stage Three - Evaluation of Alternatives

The Evaluation Criteria: Features, Benefits, and Reviews

Stage Four - Purchase Decision

The power of discounts and offers: How to seal the deal

The role of timing: Why now is better than later

Stage Five - Post-Purchase Behavior

How consumer reviews shape future buying decisions

Customer retention: Turning one-time buyers into loyal customers

How businesses can influence the consumer decision-making process

Customer Experience

Understanding and anticipating customer needs

Ethical considerations: The line between influence and manipulation