Stages, touchpoints, and guiding the customer’s decision

Every customer journey is shaped by a series of touchpoints – moments where customers interact with your brand – and by customer segments, which you can define by where exactly customers stand in the buying process.

Understanding these elements is key to designing a seamless and intuitive journey that guides customers naturally from awareness to purchase and ultimately to loyalty.

Touchpoints

As customers move through the stages of their journey, they encounter different touchpoints – interactions with your brand that shape their perception and influence their decisions.

These touchpoints can be digital (social media ads, website visits, email campaigns) or offline (sales meetings, conferences, word-of-mouth recommendations). Each plays a role in building trust and moving customers toward conversion.

Customer segments

Customer segments represent distinct groups based on the customer’s level of engagement and readiness to buy. As customers progress through the journey, they transition between these segments, requiring different types of messaging and interactions at each step.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on five key customer segments:

1. Target Group – Potential customers with no active need (See stage).

2. Prospect – Aware of a potential need, exploring solutions (Think stage).

3. Lead – Actively considering options and engaging with brands (early Do stage).

4. MQL (Marketing-Qualified Lead) – Evaluating products more deeply (Do stage).

5. SQL (Sales-Qualified Lead) – Ready for purchase discussions (advanced Do stage).

6. (Loyal) Customer – A customer who has purchased and is now in the post-sale phase (Care stage).

The customer’s perspective

To understand how everything fits together, we can follow a contact as they pass through different touchpoints and are grouped into different customer segments. From there, it’s easy to see how these interactions align with the broader journey stages of See-Think-Do-Care framework.

But what is the customer really thinking at each stage – and how can we address their dilemmas?

From the outside, a customer journey might look like a series of logical steps. But from the inside – the customer’s perspective – it’s a blend of emotions, internal debates, shifting priorities, and practical needs. Understanding this internal narrative is key to making your messaging, touchpoints, and offers resonate.

To illustrate this, let’s follow the journey of Spudnik – a fictional potato chip company that wants to expand its operations beyond local markets. Spudnik’s team is searching for a DXP solution (Digital Experience Platform) that will support their growth ambitions, enhance their digital marketing efforts, and help them scale globally.

Each stage of their journey reflects a mindset shift – from indifference, to curiosity, to interest, to action.

Target group (See stage)

Mindset: “I’m doing fine. I don’t have a problem that needs solving.”

Customer need: None – or at least, nothing they’re actively aware of. This is the stage of latent need.

Spudnik’s journey: Spudnik’s marketing team is busy with day-to-day campaigns, using a patchwork of tools and manual processes. It’s not ideal, but it’s manageable. They aren’t looking for a DXP – they may not even know what a DXP is.

How to engage: This is your chance to plant a seed. Use broad brand awareness, thought leadership content, or relatable storytelling to spark curiosity or highlight opportunities they haven’t considered yet.

On customer journey Include contacts who engaged in specific custom activities, such as responding to a specific outreach campaign or reading targeted content. These actions – like viewing a customer story or a particular article – can signal early interest and help identify high-potential leads.

Prospect (Think stage)

Mindset: “Something isn’t working quite right… I wonder if there’s a better way.”

Customer need:

• Notice: Recognition of a potential need or challenge.
• Requirements: Beginning to define what they need to fix or improve.
• Search: Starting to explore possible solutions.

Spudnik’s journey: Spudnik’s marketing director is frustrated by how long it takes to launch multi-language campaigns. The team realizes their current tools are holding them back. They start searching for terms like “digital marketing automation platform” and “digital tools for international campaigns.”

How to engage: Be discoverable. Make sure your educational content, blogs, comparison guides, and SEO strategy can meet them where they’re searching. You want to be a helpful voice, not a hard sell.

On customer journey At this stage, include contacts who engaged in specific custom activities that show interest in options for solving the problem. For example, someone who viewed an educational blog post explored a high-level product comparison guide or interacted with other targeted content may be more likely to continue through the journey.

Contact / Lead (Think/early Do stage)

Mindset: “I’m starting to see some real options out there. Which ones should I seriously consider?”

Customer need:

• Identification: Exploring various vendors and solutions.
• Preselection: Shortlisting a few that seem to match their needs.
• Sales Process Kick-off: Reaching out to vendors to get a feel for fit.

Spudnik’s journey: Spudnik downloads a few whitepapers and signs up for a newsletter. They attend a webinar you hosted on scaling digital marketing operations. Eventually, they fill out a contact form to talk to sales.

How to engage: Make it easy to connect. Respond promptly. Offer tailored guidance without overwhelming them. Focus on credibility, social proof, and making their discovery process smooth and positive.

On customer journey Typical actions to put into the stage on the customer journey include signing up for webinars, subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a detailed guide, or browsing case studies. These actions show intent to evaluate, not just explore.

MQLs (Do stage)

Mindset: “This solution seems promising – I want to take a closer look.”

Customer need:

• Demo request: They want to see it in action.
• Product test: They want to try it, even in a limited way.

Spudnik’s journey: Spudnik schedules a live demo with your team. They ask about integration with their CRM and campaign workflows. They might try a sandbox environment or a guided product tour.

How to engage: This is the moment to show real value. Make the demo relevant to their specific use case. Provide hands-on opportunities that help them envision how your DXP can transform their work.

On customer journey Customers in this phase are closer to making a decision. In this stage, iclude activities such as demo requests, starting free trials, or pricing page visits come into play. They might also engage with sales, so include custom activities synced from your CRM, such as asking deep-dive questions or requesting technical specs.

SQLs (Do stage – advanced)

Mindset: “Let’s dig deeper – is this really the right choice for us?”

Customer need:

• Validation: Internal stakeholders (like IT or finance) want to confirm it fits technically and financially.
• Shortlist: You’re in the top contenders.
• Negotiation: They’re discussing pricing, contract terms, and support.
• Decision/Purchase: Final decision is made.

Spudnik’s journey: Spudnik is comparing three vendors. Your solution made the shortlist. Now procurement, marketing, and IT are all weighing in. After a few pricing calls and security assessments, they sign the contract.

How to engage: Support them through internal discussions. Be responsive, transparent, and helpful. Address objections proactively. Provide tailored case studies or ROI calculators if needed.

On customer journey At this stage, the lead is highly engaged and close to committing. Include custom activities such as requesting a custom demo tailored to their use case, asking for a trial license to build a proof of concept (POC), or reviewing implementation timelines. They often ask to talk to additional company representatives, such as the Customer Success team or Solution Architects, to evaluate fit, discuss deep technical requirements, and ensure long-term value.

(Loyal) Customer (Care stage)

Mindset: “We’ve made our choice – now it needs to work.”

Customer need:

Implementation & Go Live: Smooth onboarding and support. Usage: Regular use, updates, and issue resolution. Audit/Feedback/Reevaluation: Reflecting on performance, exploring new goals. Upsell/Renewal: Continuing the relationship.

Spudnik’s journey: Spudnik launches their first multilingual campaign using your DXP. The implementation went well, but they request a few customizations. After six months, they share feedback and ask about advanced analytics features.

How to engage: Keep delivering value. Offer support, learning resources, and success check-ins. Listen actively. Help them grow with you – whether through new features, services, or strategic advice.

On customer journey In this stage, include activities such as guided setup or onboarding sessions, their interaction with welcome emails with key resources, engagement with knowledge bases, tutorials, or learning portals or downloading first-use checklists or quick-start guides.

Gain trust, foster loyalty

To foster a long-term working relationship with a customer, that is one of the ultimate goals of jourmey mapping.

Just as each customer journey is uniquely shaped by the customer’s needs, each customer journey will look a little different, bending and looping, following the customer’s current progress along the path towards conversion. But chasing the individual contacts like Spudnik won’t bring you the large-scale success you’re looking for.

Instead, keep things simple and organized – Xperience’s Customer journeys empower you to do just that, retaining the linear format of a sales funnel in a neat little graph, and giving you a high-level overview of the different stages the contacts go through, so necessary to any strategic decission-making.

Next steps

Want to go further and super-charge your digital marketing strategy? Then let’s dig in how to connect customer journeys with Campaigns.