---
title: Back to basics - How customer journeys, buyer's journeys, and sales
  funnels compare
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

> **License:** Advanced license required.
>
> Features described on this page require the Xperience by Kentico **Advanced** license tier.

**Customer journeys**, **buyer's journeys**, and **user stories** may seem similar, but they serve different purposes. Understanding these differences enables marketers and businesses to design strategies tailored exactly to their audience's needs, all leading to more prospects moving through the **sales funnel** towards the final conversion.

Ready to choose the right path for you?

## Customer journey vs. buyer's journey

The _buyer's journey_ follows the awareness, consideration, and conversion stages (similar to what Kaushik's framework describes as **"See-Think-Do"**) – or the decision-making process leading up to a purchase.
The _customer journey_, on the other hand, continues well into the **"Care" stage**, addressing **retention, advocacy, and long-term engagement**, thus extending beyond the moment of purchase.

Think of these two approaches as if selling a car marks the end of the buyer’s journey – whereas offering insurance, servicing plans, and ongoing support reflects the customer journey in action.

This distinction highlights that while the buyer's journey **ends at conversion**, the customer journey ensures **ongoing relationship-building and brand loyalty**.

## Customer journey vs. user story

A _user story_ is a focused, step-by-step description of what a user needs from a **specific feature** – an approach commonly used in product development.

![User story -- specific feature from UX perspective](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/how-customer-journeys-buyers-journeys-and-sales-funnels-compare/CJ-map-user-story-wireframe.png "User story -- specific feature from UX perspective")

In contrast, a _customer journey_ represents the **broader, multi-touchpoint experience** a person has with a brand across their entire customer lifecycle.

![Customer journeys from the user perspective -- UX finetuning](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/how-customer-journeys-buyers-journeys-and-sales-funnels-compare/CJ-map-user-story-finetuning.png "Customer journeys from the user perspective -- UX finetuning")

![Customer journeys from the user perspective -- the whole story](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/how-customer-journeys-buyers-journeys-and-sales-funnels-compare/CJ-map-user-story-whole-story.png "Customer journeys from the user perspective -- the whole story")

Think of a customer journey as a full road trip from start to finish – covering everything from planning to arrival. A user story, on the other hand, focuses on a single action, like refueling the car or adjusting the GPS – addressing a specific issue or opportunity to improve one smaller part of the whole experience.

A well-crafted user story helps fine-tune **individual moments within the broader journey**, making the overall experience smoother and more intuitive.

## Customer journey vs. sales funnel

A _sales funnel_ maps out the business's structured approach to driving conversions by guiding prospects through "See-Think-Do" path in a **linear format**, but it doesn't account for one of the differentiating factors of a customer journey – the organic, non-linear interactions that often characterize customer behavior.

_Customer journeys_, by contrast, include engagement beyond the purchase, incorporating **customer retention, loyalty, and advocacy** well into the "Care" stage, focusing on the user's experience and decision-making at various life-cycle stages.

While a sales funnel moves prospects in a straight line toward conversion – like narrowing lanes toward a toll booth – a customer journey is more like a network of roads, where people take different routes, revisit stops, or continue driving well beyond the first destination.

The sales funnel is a visualisation of an expected ideal state of a **prospect moving towards the purchase**, while a customer journey accounts for all the real **interactions along the way and beyond**.

## How these concepts complement each other

Together, these frameworks provide a comprehensive overview of the customer's lifecycle from both the business and customer perspectives, while each still retains its unique quirks.

- User stories remain specific to UX design and product development, making them less relevant for business users.

- The sales funnel offers a structured approach from the business's perspective. It usually primarily addresses the earlier stages of the customer relationship, although it can extend into the upsell stage, too. An upsell after the original purchase then constitutes a new buyer's journey and a separate sales funnel, emphasizing the cyclical nature of customer engagement.

- The buyer's journey and customer journey overlap up to the "Care" stage, covering awareness, consideration, and conversion, but they diverge as customer journeys extend into retention and advocacy.

- A single sales funnel can encompass multiple customer and buyer journeys, as different users interact with a brand in various ways depending on their needs and behaviors.

## Next step

You now have a good grasp on what differences and what intersections there are betweem customer journey, buyer's journey, user story, and a sales funnel.
Let's move to the next stage and explore the [real value of customer journeys.](https://docs.kentico.com/guides/customer-journeys/get-started-with-customer-journeys/the-real-value-of-customer-journeys.md)