Customer Journey (SaaS): How To Turn Users Into Advocates

Brands may be separated by industries, but one thing binds all of them. That’d be navigating customer journey problems. From trouble figuring out user personas to channel conflict, there are plenty of problems with customer journeys.

If you’re reading and feel ‘This is so me’, here’s a full-fledged guide that will help you fix those problems before things get too late.

What is a Customer Journey?

A customer journey is the path a user takes from looking for a product to finally becoming a customer. Right from becoming aware of a problem, considering a solution, and deciding to finally onboard.

This is only halfway through. From onboarding, the user experiences the product, works on making their life easier, and subscribes to a paid plan. Once they experience the Aha moment, they choose to continue using the product.

Finally, when their quick wins turn into bigger victories to help achieve their organizational goals, they become your brand advocate.

Key Stages of the SaaS Customer Journey

1. Awareness

The awareness stage is all about how your potential customers discover the product. They either realize there’s a problem and search or they accidentally stumble across your products.

This is how they land on your landing page:

Search for “problem solving” tools
Browse a couple of blogs on Page 1
Search Quora or Reddit to find reviews
Watch Youtube reviews
Click on Google Search Ads
Browse through product offerings and use cases
Check out the founding team and key members to assess their expertise
Take a look at the pricing pages; affordability is a major factor here

Once the user lands on your site, trigger a survey after the first 5 seconds.

what is customer experience journey: Awareness

2. Consideration

Your users typically begin testing out a product and evaluating its features. From checking educational content to comparing alternatives, customers will book a demo only after exhaustive secondary research.

This includes multiple demos, reaching out to existing customers, and inquiring about the progress.

This is what the journey looks like:

Look for trust signals like certifications from accredited bodies along with testimonials
Read the common FAQs on your website plus pricing plans
Check out case studies and look for a product comparison chart looking at features, use cases, and a head-to-head comparison with other alternatives
Usually consists of 2 to 3 alternatives
The visitor books a free trial or demo and scans the pricing plans word-to-word
Since not all leads may convert, you must measure the Lead velocity rate(LVR) to track the qualified visitors from month to month

You can conduct in-app surveys asking users about what led them to explore your app.

Ideally, you can ask What is your primary goal for using our product? to understand the problem or motivation of the user. This will help you gauge the intent and qualify the user further.

Not just this, you can use feedback widgets as a non-intrusive way of collecting feedback. The numbers do justice with the web feedback widgets having response rates between 15 to 25%.

Another added advantage—it can extract both qualitative and quantitative data.

While most first-time users never return, you have a great chance to bring a good chunk of them using email surveys. By bringing them back, the interaction loop is restored. While the conversions lie between 1 to 5%, these are closer to becoming a paid user.

3. Decision

In the decision stage, the users may now be fully aware of the problem and it's time to make a decision. During this phase, prospects might sign a pilot project, and consult with key decision makers if any.

The user evaluates alternatives in terms of pricing, functionality, and integrations. It’s now where they demonstrate unique behavioral traits such as:

Using the product to solve a particular problem—for a CRO software, it could be plugging in tools like Google Search Console to identify the high friction points
Start involving team members to implement the product in action—-for a sales recording tool, it might be recording calls and identifying areas of improvement
Analyze the results and look for improvements such as the number of deals closed, significant conversations(involving questions on ROI, use cases, and mutual fit), etc
The prospect might go deeper in determining the win rate, response rates, and revenue levels
Here you’ll have to measure product session, frequency of use, and feature adoption rate
Finally, they might have questions about integrations, privacy, and security compliance problems that need to be addressed
When all of this is discussed, the deal is won when the customer signs the contract

Once you are past this, ask for feedback using post-engagement surveys, iterative, and segmented follow-ups.

Here is an example of a post-engagement survey question.

how to make customers experience easier: Decision

4. Onboarding

The onboarding phase marks the beginning of users beginning a more serious trial of things. Simply put, the prospects will have a stakeholder or the key decision maker on board.

Here’s what happens during the onboarding process:

Users start exploring the product a tad deeper and will work with a customer success or customer support
This is the time when you take a peep into the level of involvement through activation metrics such as visitor-to-sign-up ratio, and Time to First Value(TTFV)
The TTFV measures how soon the customer finds value or benefit from your product
For instance, for Figma, it could be collaborating with a team member within 24 hours while for Slack it could mean 50+ messages in 7 days, and for Blitzllama it is 2 surveys within 30 days
For this to happen, you’ll need ample resources like product videos and help documentation available
Depending on the product, ensure that there’s less dependency on customer support
To help users derive value, help users by reducing their effort and ultimately reduce their time to market
Understandably, reaching the highest value takes time, instead aim for the nearest value
Imagine you’re a subscription management tool, the nearest value could be a consolidated view of all apps with renewal dates with an option to set a price cap
With a couple of quick wins leading to a bigger milestone, your users will be able to achieve the Aha moment

Now, the feedback related to onboarding is the most critical touchpoint but unfortunately, this is where most brands fail.

You could start with a simple question like this using Blitzllama.

5. Support

Once your paying customers come in, customer support becomes the key differentiator.

The customers are looking to accomplish their tasks without having to rely on customer support. While that’s the goal, there comes a part like unfamiliarity with certain use cases or not being able to leverage a feature to its fullest. Or maybe a dreaded bug.

So, here’s what you need to measure and monitor:

If a customer raises a ticket or doubt, ensure you work on resolving the issue at the earliest—the key to higher response rates
The average response time should be under 2 minutes while email shouldn’t exceed 120 minutes
Improve your time to first response rate—the average time is 21 seconds; don’t hesitate to switch phone calls since 13% of customers prefer this
Listen to the problem and share possible solutions—deploy the best agent on the job
Create buckets and rate the pain into varying degrees—high, medium, and low
Ask open-ended questions to get qualitative feedback
Monitor ticket volume—the number of tickets for a particular issue means it needs to be addressed
Strive to resolve the issues during the first interaction—the lower your first contact resolution time, the better
Make it easy for the customers—don’t let your customers vent their frustrations on social media; do this and you have a low customer effort score(CES)
Track your cost to conversation—if an average call costs you $5 instead of $1, the support agent needs training
Improve your handling time—ensure quality conversations and resolution; the ideal benchmark is to improve your previous time

After every support call, you could start with a simple question such as

6. Retention

In the penultimate stage of retention, customers have attained a level higher than the aha moment. They have gone from being monthly users to weekly users and daily users.

Here’s a probable list of actions users in the retention phase might take:

They find incredible value because it gels with their workflow—a revenue management tool might help users segment based on their interactions
Actively adopt a feature and surpass the average adoption rate for a particular period
Regularly respond to in-app messages such as product updates, and surveys, or sign up for educational masterclass or 1:1 product teardown
Show interest in upgrading—award free credits to nurture them into high-value customers
You’ll have to monitor metrics such as health scores—identify which users are at risk of churning; identify those who show a steady interest in the product
Measure inactive users using D30—the percentage of users who return after 30 days
Measure dormant users through M2—the percentage of users who return after 60 days
Based on the behavior, award brownie points—invite customers to be part of an exclusive community and early access to upcoming features
Use cohort retention to identify trends or patterns between active users and passive users to analyze the feature adoption rate and potential churn rate
Find your NRR between different cohorts and find if it is positive (>100%) or negative (<100%)—this will help you identify the reasons to fix issues
Drop in progress sheets—a timeline from when they started till the present containing the goals achieved, milestones accomplished
Offer a curated list of free tools with a 1-month subscription to woo them

To assess their willingness to continue being a paid user, here’s a question you might be willing to answer:

Customer journey experience in SAAS: Retention

7. Advocacy

In the final stage, the users become advocates when they develop a habit of using the tool for their work. They rely on the tool because it helps them win milestones like improved performance after a quarter.

They show fewer signs of churn and are likely to be the brand advocates. Here are the ways to help them become your brand ambassadors starting with:

Making it a habit—customers have developed a habit via a cue (in-app messages), routine(performing a task in less time), and reward(wins)
Focusing on helping them achieve keystone habits—timely completion of tasks, escalation of problems, keeping things in the queue, and developing a growth loop something that’s an ideal example for a project collaboration tool
Helping them minimize unit economics so they can prioritize segments based on profitability—follow the 60:30:10 where 60% includes operational costs, 30% includes recurring costs, and 10% is long-term costs
Capitalize on the power of anticipation—help customers complete their goals by way of exclusive goal setting and progress tracking, for eg. a B2B message testing tool could help survey users with a specific CXO role
Build FOMO with a regret nudge—share a case study highlighting how a competitor leveraged a particular feature to solve a problem well eg. increased win rate by 15% MoM

As the user comes to the end of the customer journey, here’s a feedback question you can ask:

Start with an NPS question like the one below

key elements of customer journey: Advocacy

Ask customers about their willingness to refer

Would you be interested in a referral program that rewards you for recommending our product to others who become paying customers?"

Why Use A Customer Journey Map?

1. Ensure customer needs and team goals derive a mutual fit

When your customer and the team aren’t on the same page, a lot of things may stray off course. From what is important, is it worth it, to the costs incurred, a customer journey map will help both stay in sync to meet a common goal.

It’ll help you avoid sunk costs and achieve Objectives and Key Results(OKRs) , something necessary to avoid feature creep and even technical debt.

2. Enhancing user experience and satisfaction

With a customer journey map, you know the experiences after certain touchpoints. It helps you visualize the experience from a customer’s POV. Additionally, it helps you create a consistent experience across touchpoints making product usage smooth.

3. Identifying pain points and opportunities for improvement

Thanks to customer journey mapping, product teams such as yours can identify friction points, pain points, and other user experience problems. Otherwise, you’ll face customer churn and a decrease in product usage.

How To Do Customer Journey Mapping?

1. Identify concrete goals

Before you work on customer journey mapping, you’ll have to define concrete goals to ensure that the goals align with the overall goals of the organization.

It should serve as a benchmark for all the stakeholders involved. Some examples include:

Driving new acquisitions by 15% using problem-focused and solution-first content
Increase the MAU and DAU by 30% in the next 6 months by using in-app messaging
Increase feature adoption by 12% via regular follow-ups using helpful product content
Reduce the time to first value from 10 days to 7 days
Determine which metrics will be used to measure results—something that allow the stakeholders to measure from time to time

2. Define Customer Personas

List your ideal customers from present and past customers. Identify the motivations, habits, and behaviors that are unique to your segment.

One way to do this is to use a tool called SparkToro to create actual personas. Start searching using the ideal parameters such as profession, interests, and behaviors. Also, run a check on the geographical region they serve.

Other ways to do it are customer interviews and surveys to identify the most critical problem and how it aggravates if not solved. If it ties to their north star metric, then you have your customer persona.

In addition, map a second persona who has the authority to decide founders or seniors. Check out the content they consume and the business influencers they follow to get a pulse of the situation.

3. Identify Touchpoints

Each stage of the customer persona has different touchpoints that form a part of the attribution path. As per GA4, the touch points are divided into:

a. Early touch points (25%)

Organic search, social media, and search ads
Website visit
Free trial or Demo
Email Sign up

b. Mid Touchpoints(50%)

Onboarding
Support interactions
Feedback mechanism
In-app engagement campaigns

c. Late Touchpoints(25%)

Renewal notifications or upgrade notifications
New feature introductions
Exit survey

4. Collect and Analyze Data

Once you have all the data, you’ll have to draw patterns between:

Top performing channels and their role in conversions or events such as demo booked, discovery call, free audit, etc
Find out the average session time, and scrolling behavior based on user ID
Identify your low-performing channels or touchpoints and conduct a usability test—rage clicks, dead clicks, and kickbacks could be the reasons
Once you find the issues and solve it go back to running campaigns

Just to be 100% accurate, we recommend running regression tests, attribution modeling, and Markov chain analysis. The Markov Chain helps in identifying jumps from one touchpoint to another.

5. Customer Interviews

Once you have everything in place, conduct customer interviews and ask them the following list of questions:

What were the main reasons you decided to use our product? to identify the initial touchpoints and motivations
Walk me through the process of how you use our product on a typical day/week. Understand the customer's workflow and where the product fits in
What are the most critical features for you? Pinpoint the high-value touchpoints
What are the biggest challenges you face when using our product? Identify friction and pain points
How does our product compare to alternatives you considered? Understand how products are evolving
What information or resources would help you get more value from our product? helps in creating more product resources
How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend or colleague? Raving customers who just might be ready to help you
In your own words, how would you describe our product to someone who hasn't used it before? Understand how customers convey the product's value proposition

6. Visual Representation

As you finalize your customer journey, create a simple map that helps all the stakeholders and teams involved in understanding the overall picture. Ask other functional teams to help validate the information.

Create a specific view to help quickly identify pain points for each user segment.

The next steps involve coordination with the engineering teams to create the product roadmap, working with marketers to pull users, and finally creating a product feedback loop that helps in making iterations to the customer journey map.

Wrapping Up

Like all things, even if your customer journey isn’t constant, it’s going to change and become more complex, but the phases and customer behavior will likely remain the same.

Summing up, awareness helps you attract users seeking solutions, consideration helps you inspire confidence, the decision helps win stakeholder approval, onboarding helps users experience the product, retention determines if a user is staying or leaving, and advocacy means championing our product.