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How to Build a Seamless Customer Journey Across Digital Channels
Building an intentional and consistent customer journey can eliminate friction on the path to purchase, no matter which digital channels your customers use.
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Modern customers typically engage with brands across multiple digital touchpoints, including websites, social media, email and mobile apps. A seamless experience can convert interested prospects into repeat buyers, while points of friction can cause them to drop off just as quickly. Below, we’ll break down how to audit your customer journey and improve the user experience across every touchpoint and channel.
This article is sponsored by Acuity Scheduling.
Understanding the digital customer journey
The digital customer journey starts from the moment they discover you and continues through to the final sale and follow-up messaging. The journey isn’t over once a prospect becomes a customer either; once you make a sale, it becomes about engaging your customer and getting them to make another purchase in the future.
As Brandon Dawson, co-founder and CEO of Cardone Ventures, points out, this journey might not be linear or look the same for every customer.
“In today’s marketplace, people don’t move in a straight line,” said Dawson. “They might find you on Instagram, check out your website later, see a retargeting ad and then make a buying decision after watching a video or reading a review. If you’re not thinking about how each of those touchpoints connect, you’re leaking opportunity.”
Each interaction between a prospective customer and your brand falls into one of these five stages of the customer journey:
- Awareness: When a prospect becomes aware of your business.
- Consideration: When a prospect is actively researching potential solutions to their particular need.
- Purchase: When a prospect becomes a customer by buying your product or service.
- Retention: When a customer continues to patronize your business, typically following a positive brand experience.
- Advocacy: When a satisfied customer recommends your offerings to other prospects.
To consistently drive customers to the final two phases (i.e., long-term customer loyalty), you’ll need a deep understanding of not just your customers’ needs and pain points, but the digital customer journey as a whole.
“Every interaction is a chance to build trust — or lose it,” Dawson explained. “If you’re not intentional about optimizing that experience across channels, you’re creating friction, confusion and ultimately, revenue loss.”
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map is a visual representation of every interaction a customer has with your brand. The process of customer journey mapping typically includes:
- Identifying your target audience and creating buyer personas
- Listing each touchpoint a customer may encounter, including your website, social media, email and so on.
- Evaluating real user data, such as click-through rates and bounce rates, to drive adjustments.
Identifying the factors that drive or detract from customer engagement throughout the journey — and crafting digital experiences accordingly — makes it more likely that users will find and stick with you over your competitors
The cost of friction in digital touchpoints
Every digital touchpoint is an opportunity to make a good impression and ultimately move a prospect toward a sale. Any barriers along that path — a clunky website, unclear terms or an unresolved query — can easily have the opposite effect.
A Salesforce report found that today’s customers expect a positive experience across all channels: 73 percent of surveyed consumers stated that they expect brands to understand their needs and preferences. These customers are also willing to shop elsewhere if they don’t receive it, with 71 percent switching brands at least once within a year.
“Every friction point is a moment where a potential customer can — and will — drop off,” Dawson said. “Slow load times, unclear messaging, buried calls-to-action or disconnected follow-up processes are some of the biggest culprits. People don’t have patience — they have options.”
Fortunately, taking steps to minimize friction in the customer journey can help boost customer satisfaction and, subsequently, your bottom line. According to NTT Data’s 2023 Global Customer Experience Report, more than 90 percent of CEOs reported that CX improvements have directly impacted their net profit.
Identifying critical touchpoints in your digital ecosystem
Before you can guide customers through the funnel, you need to identify the key digital channels where those interactions will occur.
Dawson noted that the most critical channels are the ones where “trust is earned and decisions are made.” Depending on the type of product or service you offer, those touchpoints may include any or all of the following.
Website and landing pages
For many new customers, your website serves as their first impression of your brand. It’s where they learn about your company’s mission, values and offerings — all of which help shape their decision to move forward and invest in your business.
To turn initial curiosity into action, your site needs clear navigation, fast load times and conversion-ready features like embedded scheduling tools to ensure a smooth booking process. Acuity Scheduling, for example, integrates seamlessly with websites, business software and social media platforms so visitors can easily book appointments with just a few clicks.
Social media
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok offer a direct line for businesses to connect with highly relevant, targeted audiences. With the rise of social commerce — where companies sell directly to consumers via social media — these platforms have evolved into full-fledged sales channels where consumer engagement can lead to conversion.
Scheduling integrations and online booking features, help businesses streamline bookings directly from a post or profile, making it easier to capture leads through social media and convert them more quickly.
Despite the proliferation of other digital channels, email is still one of the most effective ways to build customer relationships. It’s a direct way to send personalized messages, such as welcome sequences to re-engagement campaigns, that encourage action and engagement.
Effective email marketing requires clear calls-to-action, strategically timed communication and embedded scheduling links that help readers act without hesitation. With the right tools, businesses can streamline the client management process with automated appointment reminders, intake forms and scheduling capabilities, making every email a deliberate next step in a customer’s journey.
Scheduling and appointment booking
Scheduling is a critical conversion point in the customer journey. It’s the moment when consumers turn their interest into a commitment. When a customer is ready to act, any confusion or roadblocks in your scheduling process can prevent them from taking the next step.
We recommend tools like Acuity Scheduling, which streamlines the booking process by syncing with your calendar and allowing customers to choose an appointment time that fits their schedule — no back-and-forth emails or phone calls required. With 24/7 access, customers can book on their own schedule, using a page that reflects your brand’s style and supports the correct time zone and appointment types.
On the backend, Acuity helps you stay organized with features like detailed customer profiles, automated appointment reminders and built-in safeguards to prevent overbooking.
Customer support
The customer journey doesn’t end after a booking, and neither should your customer support. Post-purchase touchpoints ensure your customers feel supported and appreciated, boosting their perception of your brand rather than leaving them feeling like just another transaction.
Timely, helpful follow-up communication reinforces the quality of service your brand offers to customers at every stage of the sales funnel. Focus on providing excellent customer service with features like automated follow-ups and feedback requests, encouraging customers to share their thoughts and further engage with the brand. These interactions can build customer trust, leading to repeat bookings and long-term loyalty.
No matter where your business has a digital presence, it’s important that each touchpoint answers three key questions your customers are thinking about, said Dawson:
- What do you want me to do?
- Why should I care?
- Can I trust you?
“If you’re not answering those questions, you’re creating confusion — and confusion always creates failure,” he added. “Show up often, show up everywhere and remove every obstacle between interest and action.”
Conducting a customer journey audit
Auditing your customer journey lets you step into a buyer’s shoes and understand how your digital touchpoints are helping or hurting their progress through the sales funnel.
“Most friction … [is] buried in slow follow-ups, vague messaging or confusing next steps,” said Dawson. “The key is to slow down, document the journey and get brutally honest about where you’re losing people.”
Here are some key steps you can follow to gather valuable insights about your customer journey and identify areas of improvement.
Use the right journey mapping tools and techniques
The right combination of tools and auditing strategies can give you a clear picture of where customers are struggling in their journey to buy from you. Some useful types of software and analytics to explore include:
- Journey mapping software. Tools like LucidChart, Smaply and UXPressia allow you to build visual maps of the full customer experience. You can highlight each step and touchpoint along the way, along with the ideal outcomes to measure against your actual customer journeys.
- CRM platforms. The best CRM software lets you track activity, communications and conversion data for prospects and current customers across channels in one central hub. Some popular tools include HubSpot, Pipedrive and Salesforce.
- Behavior analytics tools. This software helps you analyze specific customer behaviors to see exactly how users interact with your site or app. You can generate website heatmaps, detailed session information and behavioral data by user segment using tools like Crazy Egg, Google Analytics and Hotjar.
- Survey and feedback tools. Conducting surveys using tools like Jotform, Typeform and SurveyMonkey gives you direct input from customers on their experience, including where they may have encountered confusion or friction.
- Scheduling and engagement data. Take a look at data from your scheduling automation software to spot trends in no-shows, cancellations or abandoned bookings to better understand your customers’ decision points.
Analyze your data to identify customer drop-off points
The information you gather from analytics tools, CRM platforms, and scheduling systems can help you piece together the full customer experience, including where things are going smoothly and where there are bumps in the road.
“Use a CRM to track [customer] interactions and response times, and review performance data to identify where leads are dropping off or where conversions stall,” said Dawson.
For example, metrics like high bounce rates, low time-on-page metrics and abandoned carts or forms may mean those touchpoints have unclear messaging, technical glitches or confusing navigation.
A/B test to directly compare performance of specific journey elements
If you’re unsure which element of a digital touchpoint is leading to conversions or abandonment, you can run A/B tests to understand what works and what doesn’t.
Choose one variable to start and test different iterations across two different versions of a landing page, email or social post. For example, you might compare two versions of an email subject line to see which one gets higher opens and click-through rates, or test whether embedding a scheduling widget directly on a page drives more bookings than linking to it externally.
Insights gained from A/B tests can help you make decisions about your digital customer experience based on actual user behavior rather than hunches or internal team preferences.
Test your own journey and talk to your team and customers directly
While tools and data can be helpful in validating assumptions and theories, the best thing you can do as a business is think like your customer and go on the journey yourself.
“Sit down and walk through every single step of your process, from the first point of contact to the final sale and beyond,” Dawson said. “What do they see? What do they hear? What do they click? Where do they hesitate?”
Dawson advised gathering insights from key team members like salespeople, marketers, and customer service reps to identify inconsistencies, delays, and breakdowns in the customer journey. Then, go out and talk to actual customers to get their firsthand experiences.
“Ask your customers what confused them, what they expected and what almost caused them not to buy,” Dawson added. “You’ll be shocked by how much insight you can gather just by asking the right questions.”
Make targeted improvements based on your results
Once you’ve identified weak spots or friction points, figure out which ones are having the greatest impact on conversions and take action to address them.
“Fix the biggest bottlenecks first,” Dawson said. “The goal isn’t perfection — it’s momentum. And once something works, document it so it can be repeated, delegated and scaled.”
Designing a Digital Buying Journey With Your Customer in Mind
Building a seamless digital journey takes thoughtful planning and consideration of what your customers want and need. By identifying areas of friction early, optimizing key customer touchpoints and using tools like Acuity Scheduling to streamline the experience, you can create pathways that not only convert prospective buyers but also delight them enough to keep coming back.