🦶🦶🦶🦶Fourth step into the customer journey!
Bonjour, Hello,
Welcome back! I’m delighted to have you here as we continue our exploration of the customer journey. Last week, we delved into the investigation phase, where our mission is to provide customers with ample information to make informed decisions. Today, in this fourth edition, we’re shifting our focus to the purchase phase.
TLDR (key takeaways):
- It’s easier than you might think to lose customers at the purchasing stage.
- The path to purchase should be seamless, obvious, and simple.
- Broken links, processing issues, hidden fees … disrupt the customer journey.
- Regularly test your payment process to ensure that there are no technical issues.
- Reflection question: can you optimize the purchase process?
This phase should be as smooth as silk!
Here’s a quick recap of the customer journey:
Awareness → Interest → Investigation → Purchase → Post-Purchase
Guess what? Today is the day your ideal customer is ready to make a purchase! Congratulations! 🎉
But hold on… (and believe me, I’ve experienced all the examples below firsthand, so I’m not making this up!)
- Broken payment page links.
- Issues with payment processing. I remember trying to book tickets to France and encountering payment problems not once, but five or six times. To this day, I still don’t understand what went wrong.
- Losing my entire shopping cart when I went back to the main website because I forgot to add an item.
- Frustration when a discount code didn’t work as expected.
- Discovering hidden fees or unexpected charges.
- The only available payment option being a bank transfer… Seriously?
Needless to say, these experiences do not create a great customer journey. Losing customers at the final step would be such a shame.
The path to purchase should be seamless, obvious, and simple. Your goal is to ensure that the process is as smooth as silk.
So, here are my advice and recommendations:
- Double-check that all your links are working flawlessly.
- Ensure your purchase process is clean, organized, and user-friendly:
- use clear and visible Call-to-Action – make sure the “Buy Now” or “Checkout” button is prominently displayed and easily identifiable;
- simplify the steps required to complete the purchase;
- minimize the number of form fields.
- Display transparent pricing, including any additional fees or taxes, upfront.
- Offer multiple payment options, even if it means incurring a small fee on your end.
- Avoid pop-up windows during this stage.
- Optimize your purchase process for mobile devices. Ensure that your website or platform is responsive.
- Regularly test your payment process to ensure that there are no technical issues.
Homework of the week
Ask one of your friends or family members to go through your purchasing process and give you transparent feedback.
That’s a wrap for today! Got queries or thoughts? Reach me at hello@jconsulting.solutions.