Alan Mulally, former CEO of Ford, insightfully noted, "The key is having a clear understanding of what the consumer is really wanting and then stepping into that in every way." It is this understanding that paves the way for successful brand navigation of the Consumer Decision Journey—an essential component in Strategic Planning.
Consumer Decision Journey or CDJ, is an iterative journey a buyer embarks upon when considering, purchasing, and using your products or services—an alternative to traditional marketing funnels. To leverage effective Consumer Decision Journey strategies, executives need to fully comprehend and proficiently navigate the four decisive stages: initial consideration, active evaluation, closure through purchase, and post-purchase experience.
The Crucial Nature of Initial Consideration and Active Evaluation
The initial consideration phase sets the stage for the entire Consumer Decision Journey. Here, consumers maintain a few established brands in their minds, which naturally shrink, rather than expand, as the traditional funnel would suggest. Therefore, building your brand prominence and maintaining top-of-mind recall is essential.
In the active evaluation phase, consumers add and subtract brands as they evaluate their options. Contrary to classic marketing theories, consumers are increasingly becoming more open to considering new brands at this phase, making it imperative to shift the focus towards appearing in their consideration set. Innovations in Digital Transformation make it easier for new brands to increase visibility, but it also challenges established brands to actively defend their turf.
Closure Through Purchase: Winning the 'Moment of Truth'
The closure through purchase phase is often referred to as the "moment of truth." It presents an opportunity for companies to boost their market share and force competitors out of the frame. Developments in technological platforms and digital media provide innovative ways to engage with customers and support, advise, and deliver value-adding services during these decisive moments.
Post-Purchase Experience: The Loop of Loyalty and Advocacy
Loyalty Loop: When customers skip the initial consideration and active evaluation phases, directly entering the closure through purchase, we observe the occurrence of the Loyalty Loop. This consumer behavior showcases the power of a brand and evidences a high level of customer trust and loyalty. To consistently maintain the loyalty loop, Operational Excellence is paramount—delivering consistently high-quality products and services while refining the customer experience.
Advocacy: Satisfied customers become advocates, willingly promoting your brand and bringing it into the consideration set of others. Positive reviews, recommendations, and referrals are manifestations of advocacy, bolstering the overall brand image and reputation. Performance Management and Risk Management strategies are critical in maintaining a customer-centric approach that spawns advocacy.
Advancing Through Insight-Driven Strategies
To optimize the Consumer Decision Journey, it's not enough to be present at every stage—brands need strategic insights to create targeted interventions. Employ a combination of traditional research, analytics, and big data to understand consumer behavior and tendencies better. Moreover, harness technologies, such as AI and machine learning, to offer personalized recommendations and solutions during the CDJ, thus heightening customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Lasting Principles and Emerging Best Practices
Customer-First Strategy: Putting the customer at the heart of your strategic initiatives changes how you operate, innovate, and deliver value. It has a profound bearing on the CDJ, influencing the experiences you create at every stage of the journey.
Build Through Data: Data and analytics give you invaluable insights into your consumer's desires, needs, and preferences. Data-driven interventions can significantly lift business performance across the consumer journey.
Digital Optimization: In today's digital world, the CDJ is increasingly veering towards digital platforms. Tactical optimization of channels, platforms, and touchpoints plays a crucial role in influencing consumer decisions.
Integrate and Personalize: Strive for an integrated, seamless CDJ, limiting any possible friction or discordance. Provide highly personalized experiences to increase the value perceived by consumers and instill long-term loyalty.
The Consumer Decision Journey frames how consumers connect, transact, and engage with brands. Thorough comprehension and strategic optimization of the CDJ can result in competitive advantage, customer retention, and increased profitability. As Peter Drucker once remarked, "What the consumer buys and considers value is never a product. It's always utility —that is, what a product does for him." Thus, curating optimal consumer utility at every stage of the CDJ will help the modern enterprise stay competitive and relevant in a fast-evolving landscape.
For more information, have a look at these management topics:
"If you are looking for great resources to save time with your business presentations, Flevy is truly a value-added resource. Flevy has done all the work for you and we will continue to utilize Flevy as a source to extract up-to-date information and data for our virtual and onsite presentations!"
– Debbi Saffo, President at The NiKhar Group
"As an Independent Management Consultant, I find Flevy to add great value as a source of best practices, templates and information on new trends. Flevy has matured and the quality and quantity of the library is excellent. Lastly the price charged is reasonable, creating a win-win value for the customer, Flevy and the various authors. This is truly a service that benefits the consulting industry and associated clients. Thanks for providing this service. "
– Jim Schoen, Principal at FRC Group
"[Flevy] produces some great work that has been/continues to be of immense help not only to myself, but as I seek to provide professional services to my clients, it give me a large "tool box" of resources that are critical to provide them with the quality of service and outcomes they are expecting."
– Royston Knowles, Executive with 50+ Years of Board Level Experience
"The wide selection of frameworks is very useful to me as an independent consultant. In fact, it rivals what I had at my disposal at Big 4 Consulting firms in terms of efficacy and organization."
– Julia T., Consulting Firm Owner (Former Manager at Deloitte and Capgemini)
"As a consultant requiring up to date and professional material that will be of value and use to my clients, I find Flevy a very reliable resource.
The variety and quality of material available through Flevy offers a very useful and commanding source for information. Using Flevy saves me time, enhances my expertise and ends up being a good decision."
– Dennis Gershowitz, Principal at DG Associates
"As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant's toolbox."
– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)
"Flevy is our 'go to' resource for management material, at an affordable cost. The Flevy library is comprehensive and the content deep, and typically provides a great foundation for us to further develop and tailor our own service offer."
– Chris McCann, Founder at Resilient.World
"Flevy is now a part of my business routine. I visit Flevy at least 3 times each month.
Flevy has become my preferred learning source, because what it provides is practical, current, and useful in this era where the business world is being rewritten.
In today's environment where there are so many challenges and there is the need to make the right decisions in a short time, with so much scattered information, we are fortunate to have Flevy. Flevy investigates, selects, and puts at our disposal the best of the best to help us be successful in our work."
– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE
SELECT CUSTOMERS
Since 2012, we have provided best practices to over 10,000 businesses and organizations of all sizes across the world—in over 130 countries.
Below is just a very small sample of our customer base.
Did you know?
The average daily rate of a McKinsey consultant is $6,625 (not including expenses). The average price of a Flevy document is $65.
Download our free compilation of 50+ Strategy & Transformation slides and templates. Frameworks include McKinsey 7-S Strategy Model, Balanced Scorecard, Disruptive Innovation, BCG Experience Curve, and many more.
Download our free compilation of 50+ Strategy & Transformation slides and templates. Frameworks include McKinsey 7-S Strategy Model, Balanced Scorecard, Disruptive Innovation, BCG Experience Curve, and many more.