The Customer's Journey

A customer journey can be rather neatly described as everything that occurs from the moment a need is discovered to the moment it is satisfied - though it's likely necessary to specify that "a need" is meant as a single instance of a need rather than every instance in which a given kind of need arises in the customer's lifetime - as it is rare, except in advanced age to purchase "the last X you will even own."

For example, the journey surrounding the need of thirst begins the moment that an individual realizes "I am thirsty" to the moment that their thirst is sated and the need no longer exists.   That is:

1. The customer recognizes they have a need
2. The customer identifies what they must do to satisfy the need
3. The customer recognizes they must have other things in order to take the action to satisfy the need
4. The customer considers how to obtain those things
5. The customer acts to obtain the things
6. The customer acts to satisfy the need
7. The customer decides (perhaps inherently) the need has been sated

A customer who is addressing a need they have never experienced before likely goes through each of these steps - but one who has solved this need in the past can likely skip or at least shortcut the first four, provided that the action he took the last time satisfied his previous need, he is confident that the same results can be gained a second time, and the required materials to effect the solution are still available.

Firms are largely concerned with where their brand may be involved in the steps along the journey:

• Advertising is concerned with step two - to ensure that the customer understands the product is useful in satisfying a need
• Promotion is concerned with step three - to ensure their brand is the item the customer considers necessary to satisfying their need
• Logistics is concerned with the fourth step - to ensure that their product/service is conveniently available for the customer to obtain
• Retail is concerned with the fifth step - to provide a venue (store) in which the customer may interact to obtain them
• Manufacturing is concerned with the sixth - to ensure that the product they provide is useful in satisfying the need when it is used

I expect there is potential to address the first and seventh step as well, though it would be unusual for a person to seek a relationship with the manufacturer of a product he does not believe himself to need, or to maintain that relationship after the need has been satisfied.