Why the customer journey is more circuitous than you might think

Raj De Datta, CEO, Bloomreach

The concept of the customer journey has intrigued marketers long before even the invention of the internet. A customer’s journey doesn’t just consist of a single transaction, but takes in the complete picture of everything they experience when interacting with your brand.

Much has been written about the best ways of mapping the customer journey, with many different takes on the important stops along the way. But have we considered that mapping the customer journey may no longer be the best way to understand your customers?

Bloomreach CEO and co-founder Raj De Datta believes the future is brightest for those who can adapt to a new way of thinking about the concept. In fact, maybe the customer journey never really was what we thought it was to begin with. 

“In many ways, it is really an artificial construct,” says De Datta. “We have been told over many years that customers behave in a very linear fashion, when in fact, when we all think about our own shopping experiences, it’s anything but linear.”

But the fact that consumers and their demands are perhaps more complex than brands would like is hardly breaking news. Human beings are complex. Human communication is messy. Companies never truly know how a message might be received.

 

Images provided by Private Bloomreach gallery