What is a customer path?

Definition

The customer path refers to the typical journey taken by customers in their relationships and interactions with a company. It consists of one or more key moments.

The customer path in Feedback applies mainly to considered and involved purchases.

The customer path is a very similar concept to the purchasing path, but can be considered as being broader or more general.

In the context of Feedback Management, the customer path is structured around the questions customers are asked during satisfaction surveys.

It should be noted that the customer path has become more complex since the development of the Internet, as it generally includes both online and offline elements and has therefore become a multi-channel customer path.

For this reason, Feedback can include customer feedback collected from social networks.

Examples of Customer Paths

Tourism - typical customer path during a stay in a village club:

• Arrival
• Place of stay
• Welcome and Teams
• Accommodation
• Services offered
• Catering
• Entertainment
• Leisure facilities
• Departure

Distribution - typical customer path for a retailer:

• Shop
• Staff
• Products
• Checkout
• After-sales service

Linear and aggregated paths

Some paths are linear: when customers begin their interaction with the company, they will go through the majority of the interactions (or key moments) on the identified customer path. This is, for example, the case with the tourism customer path above.

Other paths are aggregated: when customers interact with the company, they only touch one key moment of the customer path at a time. This is, for example, the case with the after-sales service key moment for the Distribution path.

Usefulness for operational staff

The customer path is above all a resource for use by operational staff.

Even if the customer path is aggregated, it provides staff with an operational view of customer satisfaction.

In this way, the customer path can be seen as a general overview of all customers’ interactions with the company.

The chronological arrangement of the key moments simply allows the path to be read more clearly.