No, I'm not referring to the number of the bus they take to your office or shop but rather the journey that takes them from 'unaware' to 'loyal customer' and keeps them there. 

This is not a new concept and has been utilised in sectors such as health care for many years. The understanding and knowledge of how a patient interacts with health care has enabled pharmaceutical companies to identify when patients 'get lost' in the system. This has real implications from a patient health point of view and can be seen as 'different' to other sectors. Or is it?

Your customers will have multiple touch points with your organisation and brand. Some involve people and others media of some sort, the majority of which you know about and influence. What about the touch points that are less well known or even unknown? 

I recently worked with a boutique hotel on their wedding event customer experience and sales process. The wedding income accounted for a large percentage of the turnover and therefore was in the spotlight. Through customer journey mapping we were able to produce a simple 'flow' of touch points and interactions. The visual nature of this process highlighted several areas where the potential customer could 'get lost'. The solution: using the phone instead of email. The awareness raised by the mapping process highlighted a small change to a customer experience that had an immediate effect; 2 new bookings. This example demonstrates the start of a customer journey. The same technique will allow you to highlight those points when repeat customers could potentially 'get lost'. Remember, it costs 7 times more to find new customers than to keep existing ones.

What does your customer/client journey look like?