Five things you absolutely must know about outsourcing manufacturing to China

Starting with General Electric, American companies have been outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost regions of the world since the 1970s. Lowering costs and maximising profits for their shareholders was offered as the primary motivation for this.

US companies first outsourced manufacturing to Mexico and later to China. Over the decades, the US and other western countries also moved to also outsource business services to India and Malaysia, and (more recently) to countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Belarus.

The decision to outsource anything – be it manufacturing or business services – is never an easy one because it entails a sea change in the way a business works. It has implications related to organizational structures, employee strength as well as not-so-obvious ones on inventory and logistics operations.

But business leaders often take this decision for the same reason General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch did about 40 years ago: because it makes financial sense. Outsourcing allows businesses to remain competitive by cutting costs. Businesses can then use these savings to expand or innovate.

Having said that, despite the reasonably long history of outsourcing in the world, the exercise is still not as simple as identifying a supplier in a low-cost region such as China and signing a contract with them. Then, as now, business leaders need to be aware that manufacturing in one’s home country is different from manufacturing abroad. There are differences in language, culture and even laws that need to be considered. A good leader will be aware of these differences and will design their strategy keeping these factors in mind. It is only then that their outsourcing project will be successful, which is the only way it will deliver its intended benefits.

As an expert in sourcing from China– having helped businesses in the West manufacture products and components in China since 2006 – I have a good sense of what it takes for such sourcing ventures to succeed. I will outline my top five learnings below.

1. FINDING A CHINESE MANUFACTURER: DEFINE YOUR STRATEGY WELL

A well-defined strategy is critical to the success of any project. So once you decide that you want to approach a Chinese manufacturerto outsource production, take the time to identify, analyze and consider the variables before you, as well as the opportunities and the risks.

A good strategy will take all these points into account:

a. Bring everyone on board: A project is more likely to succeed if it has the support of all its stakeholders. To start with, the business owner or leadership team should be convinced about the viability of the China sourcing project. Once the top team is invested in the idea, it gets easier to convince employees who will be executing this project.

What I have found is that in bigger businesses, the one group that is most likely to be sceptical about the project are middle-level managers who have practical fears such as decline in quality or loss of control over the production process and even job losses. All these can, however, be tackled if the company leadership can demonstrate how the benefits of sourcing in China far exceed the costs of finding a Chinese manufacturer and the associated risks.

One of the ways this can be done is with a total cost of ownership analysis, which helps you determine the complete direct and indirect costs of the proposed project. It will help show that outsourcing manufacturing to China still has clear financial benefits that will exceed the higher initial costs of the exercise in the long term.

Once the decision to outsource manufacturing has been made, bigger businesses can set up a team that will handle the project. If you are a smaller business such as a start-up, appoint a project manager to take charge.

b. Plan for the long term: If you plan your outsourcing manufacturing for the long term, it will be more likely to be:

• Financially rewarding.
• Successful.

With regard to financial rewards, many of the cost advantages of outsourcing manufacturing boil down to order volumes. This is especially true if tooling is involved. Tooling is a one-time cost for the process of engineering the tools that are necessary to manufacture components. The cost of tooling can be high, but spread over several manufacturing cycles, it evens out because of volume. Basically, the more units you manufacture of that product, the lower the per unit cost.

Similarly, a long-term approach is also important for the success of the project overall. I  have noticed that one mistake businesses often make is that they allocate teams and resources to help kick-start the outsourcing project and wind up the team after they receive their first shipment, thinking that everything will work like clockwork now that they have found a good supplier, one production cycle is complete, the shipment was delivered on time, and it met all specifications.

This attitude is a sure shot recipe to disaster. If you do this, you will notice that the quality of your product will deteriorate in the second shipment, and the third shipment may be unsaleable.

c. Decide whether you want to work on this alone, or with a sourcing agent: It may be a good idea to decide at this stage whether you want to set up a team in China, or employ a Mandarin speaker for the project, or hire a company that will take care of your outsourcing project for you. Several businesses that are new to outsourcing as well as those without the resources or inclination to set up an office in China could team up with China sourcing agents who guide them each step of the way.

2. CHINA SOURCING: CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRODUCT OR COMPONENT

You may have a vast catalogue of parts or components that you can manufacture abroad. But it is best to focus here too. Start small. Choose a product or component that has enough value and can be ordered in quantities that will make a difference to your financial statements. Here are a few questions you could ask yourself.

a.What is the quantity you are looking at? The larger the order, the lower the overall unit price especially if there is tooling involved (as mentioned earlier). The size of your order also matters because it gives you more control over the factory and its quality control processes.

b. How labor intensive is it?Outsourcing labor intensive products is likely to bring you bigger savings.

c. Is it a prototype or innovation?In my opinion, it is better to avoid these for your first outsourcing project. There are many reasons for this. One, such projects can be a drain on resources as constant modifications in tooling can lead to additional expense and time delays for your project. Two, from what I have observed, suppliers are not very keen on such projects either and are not necessarily motivated to carry out modifications and sample runs repeatedly. Three, when you first start outsourcing, you need to see quick results because of the scepticism among your team about the project. Prototypes or innovations rarely give you these motivational wins.

This is not to say that you should abandon any hope of developing prototypes and innovations with your Chinese manufacturer. You should not rule out the possibility completely. But it is advisable to go down that path of china sourcing only once you have established a good relationship with your supplier and are confident of its capabilities.

d.Do you have up-to-date drawings for the product? Choose a product for which you have up-to-date drawings. You know your product best and must communicate its specifications to someone halfway across the world. If your drawings and specifications have been revised – and have red felt pen marks all over them – draft a final version of it before you send it across to the factory in China.

Once you identify a supplier, you could also find out what file format of the drawings the supplier needs and send across that version. This attention to detail helps minimise misunderstandings or mistakes, helping contribute to your project’s success.

Sourcing Agents can help you monitor factory production

Similarly, from your experience of manufacturing that product at home, if you are aware of any potential problems that can crop up during the process, do attempt to resolve them before you outsource manufacturing as – in my experience – any problems you face in a factory at home will rarely disappear in a factory across the world.

3. IDENTIFY SUPPLIER, VERIFY SUPPLIER

Identifying a reliable supplier is crucial for the success of your outsourcing project. You can do this sitting in your home country with the help of the internet. For verification, however, it is recommended that you visit the factory at least once before production starts unless you have appointed a sourcing agent to handle the project for you (because then the agent handles this for you).

1. Identify supplier:You can search for suppliers on Google, by:

• Visiting B2B websites such as Alibaba and Global Sources.
• Visiting trade fairs such as the mega Canton Fair that is held twice a year in China’s Guangdong province.
• Tapping trade associations and businesses in your industry network at home.

b.Assess supplier: Once you draw up a longlist of suppliers from these sources, assess them on the basis of their production capacity, quoted price, quality standards, location and ability to communicate clearly and promptly.

You should know that certain provinces in China specialise in manufacturing specific products – Zhenjiang province, for instance, is known for electrical appliances and plastics while Guangdong province is known for machinery, electronics and lighting. Identifying factories for your product in geographic areas where similar factories are found helps keep costs down because the manufacturing supply chain is more efficient in these regions.

Similarly, you should know that inland factories are likely to offer you cheaper prices per unit than factories near ports, but then your shipping costs may increase.

Assessing production capacity is important because the supplier should be able to manufacture your current requirement, as well as any projected increase. At the same time, signing on a supplier who has a huge capacity may not be the best thing if your order will not engage the whole factory because their attention will be spread over a number of businesses and not exclusively on yours.

You need to take into account all these factors while determining which supplier to shortlist.

1. Verify supplier:Once you have a shortlist of potential Chinese manufacturers it is time to verify their credentials. This is to:

• Check if the shortlisted companies can indeed manufacture what they say they can and have the capacity for your current and future orders.
• Ensure that the shortlisted supplier is a manufacturer and not a middleman or trader. Many suppliers on B2B websites happen to be middlemen who don’t offer the best price because they take a cut. You will get the best price only from a manufacturer.
• Protect yourself from fraud as you need to be absolutely sure of who you are dealing with before sending across any money – even if it is for a sample.

Here are a few ways you can conduct verification on shortlisted suppliers:

• Review the supplier’s ratings on B2B websites
• Check if the supplier has a website, find out the contact information and call the office to ask a few questions about who they are and what they do.
• Ask the factory or factories for their business licences, registration and certification details as well as audited accounts and Value Added Tax invoices.
• If the factory is a small company and doesn’t have an online presence, you could identify its Chinese name and location and then identify the local government office that will have kept that factory’s registration records. You can tally the details the factory has sent you with these documents. These documents will be in Mandarin though, which is why it is important to have a Mandarin speaker as part of your sourcing team.
• Visit suppliers yourself: If you have a large order or are keen on bagging a supplier for the long run, it is best to visit the factory yourself as part of the verification process (most sourcing agents do this for you too). During your visit, take a look at the factory floor to make assessments on cleanliness, attention to quality and worker safety. Does the factory look organised? Are the offices and factory spaces clearly demarcated and labelled? Make a request to take a look at their inventory. This will give you a sense of the raw material they use, their production capacity and current orders.

4. COMMUNICATE CLEARLY

In our experience, a lot of problems that crop up with regard to manufacturing in China have a communication problem at the root. This is rarely deliberate, it is just due to the differences in language and business culture.

In India, for instance, most middle management employees are able to communicate with foreign customers in English. In China, however, barring factories located in developed coastal provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangsu, not all staff (probably only sales employees) are proficient in English.

The language difference along with differences in business culture – where the Chinese party is wary of asking questions because of a cultural belief that asking questions makes them look bad – is a potent cocktail for disaster.

But entering a business relationship anticipating these pitfalls helps you take steps to prevent misunderstandings from happening.

Sourcing agents will help bridge the communication and culture gap

One way of doing this is to write down all standards and specifications and acceptable deviations clearly – in Mandarin – in the manufacturing agreement.

This is to prevent any problems from cropping up later in the production process that will be expensive and sometimes difficult to fix.

Deviations that seem acceptable to many Chinese manufacturers are quite unacceptable to many buyers and their customers. For instance, specifications such as “smooth finish” could mean one thing to you and another thing to the assembly line manager or engineer in the Chinese factory.

In my experience, deviations from stated standards are something buyers really have to stand their ground on, and having clearly written technical specifications often come to your aid in this.

5. DRAW UP CONTRACTS IN MANDARIN, ENFORCEABLE IN CHINA

No business transaction is complete without a contract. When you outsource to China, any contracts you draw up with your supplier must be specific to China. A template that you have used in the US will simply not do.

This contract must be drawn up by a lawyer, written in Mandarin (with an English translation, of course, but the Mandarin version should be the one that prevails in case of a dispute) and enforceable in China.

All terms related to the parties involved, the agreed price, payment terms (mode of payment, frequency, exchange rate etc), quality specifications, mode of shipping, timely delivery must be defined clearly in the agreement. The liability for breaching contract and dispute resolution methods should also be made clear.

One of the most common agreements signed between the buyer and the supplier is the NNN (non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention) agreement, which is a stronger version of the NDA or Non-Disclosure Agreement that is popular in the US.

Signing a NNN is particularly important if you want to protect your IP Rights in China. Write in a strong contract damage provision in this agreement to deter your supplier from copying your product.

Photo by Adi Constantin on Unsplash

Best car insurance for high-risk drivers

You may be someone who has a lot of traffic tickets under your name.

If people would name different traffic violations, you know that you have probably done most of them.

What if you have tried driving well all your life but you have done one infraction? This may be enough to make insurance companies view you as a high-risk driver. This is actually a big deal because your car insurance premiums will definitely increase.

The moment that you are considered as a high-risk driver, you are no longer qualified to get the best auto insurance rates that will be offered by different companies. Still, this does not mean that you cannot check out https://www.cheapautoinsurance.com/ to know more about the different car insurance policies that are available.

Insurance for High-Risk Drivers

There are some insurance companies that may know the plight of the high-risk drivers so they would like to offer more that will be considered more affordable as compared to what they expect to pay. You cannot expect that the rates will be as good as the rates that will be offered to careful drivers but would you rather drive your vehicle without any car insurance? Aside from the fact that this is not allowed, you do not want to be in a situation wherein you have to dig deep into your pockets to pay debts because of a car accident.

Who are Considered to be High-Risk Drivers?

There are some people who may not even realize that they are already considered high-risk drivers. These are some of the things that insurance companies will look at when deciding if a person is part of the high-risk category or not:

• You may have already gotten one too many tickets. Some of these tickets may be the same which means that you have done certain violations several times.
• There are different accidents that you are already involved in and most, if not all of them, are your fault.
• You have gotten a DUI or DWI.
• There are instances when you have driven without a license and you have gotten caught.
• Street racing even when you know that it is illegal.
• You have done a traffic violation that has caused a fatality.

You may think that being a high-risk driver is only related to how you drive but there are also other factors that can make your car insurance premiums higher such as the following:

• Having a bad credit score. You may not realize this but this is still one of the things that insurance companies will look at when they are deciding on the premiums that you have to pay for.
• You may be a young driver that has no driving record yet. The fact that you are young already makes you a high-risk driver.
• Your previous auto insurance from another company has lapsed and you did nothing to stop this.
• The car that you are driving is considered to be unique and exotic. This is not the type of car that people will just see everywhere. This makes it high-risk because your car has a higher chance of getting stolen. If you get into an accident, the parts that you may need to improve the appearance of your car are expensive and hard to find.

How to Get the Best Auto Insurance?

You are a high-risk driver and getting car insurance is more challenging for you as compared to others. Do not fret because there are still a few things that you can do to get the best car insurance:

• Get an insurance agent. The agent will make it easier for you to compare and narrow down the different insurance policies available for drivers like you.
• Take some driving courses that may improve the way that you drive.
• Make your vehicle safer by installing the right security items that will protect your vehicle further.

Do not pick the very first car insurance policy that you see. You can actually take a look at CheapAutoInsurance to get to know the different policies that are being offered in your area. Having the right car insurance will allow you to stay protected every time you drive.

A beginners guide to Forex trading – All you need To Know About it!

It is fair to say that Forex is the most important financial market available today, having a daily turnover of more than $4 trillion. Some of you might also know it by the name of foreign exchange.

Forex represents an ability to buy or sell world currencies in exchange for another one. This is eventually creating such massive market in the world, so it is not surprising to see so many people trying to be good at it.

For example, the total sum of money traded here daily is much bigger than the whole GDP of many countries.

It is also worth mentioning that foreign exchange is one of the most liquid markets on the planet. The trick behind this is in business hours. It doesn’t matter if it is day or night, Monday or Sunday, the markets are going to be active which means you can trade at any time you want! There are no restrictions. The main difference from the stock market (besides the one mentioned above) is that trades in forex are taking place between persons holding currencies, not through the exchanges. Of course, there are peak hours when most of the forex traders are online.

All beginners who are interested to try it out should learn a couple of basic things before opening an account. The first and the key one is currency pairs – the most important component of the whole market.

The value of one particular currency in comparison to others is measured by a currency pair price movement.

The general division of currency pairs nowadays is to majors, minors, and exotics. The number of potential currency pairs on the market is unlimited, but of course, there are the most common ones, usually coming from the top five or six world’s economies (the majors). The minors don’t have any pair that includes currencies coming from tier one.

Some of the most popular exotic pairs nowadays are the Hong Kong Dollar, the Chinese Yuan, Russian Rubble and so on. We recommend rookies to forex trading stick to the majors. ‘Lots of betting sites are now offering also financial betting as trading on currencies is of interest of many punters out there’ said Ethan Rowe from leading UK site BestBettingSites.Online. ‘After all this is not surprising as after all there is just a fine line between trading and gambling’, added Rowe.

How The Trading Actually Works – Place Bids, Ask For Prices

All foreign currency trading platforms are offering two basic options – Bid and Ask Prices. A bid is where participants simply indicate their price to buy a specific currency. The prices are changing a hundred times per day, which is making this whole process even more interesting. The movements are of course caused by the demand and supply in the market.

The Ask Price is a feature used to let others know about the price one is likely to sell a specific currency pair. Like the Bid feature we mentioned above, there are many fluctuations included in the Ask Price as well! The main idea of making a profit here is buying a currency when it goes low or hopefully reaches the bottom, and then re-selling it for a much higher price when it gets up on the feet.

Some of the most common Forex trading terms you need to know about

If you get into a group or forum of people who are already experts at Forex trading or at least have a couple of months of experience, you might run into some terms never heard before. Some we are going to mention below could be of crucial importance for long term success, so make sure to understand them fully before trading anything.

A Pip is the first one and it refers to a changed value between two foreign currencies. Let’s say EUR/USD pair moves at price from $1.02 to $1.03. The difference between these two numbers, $0.01 is representing one Pip.

Second, we would like to mention here is a Spread. Spread is the difference presented between the buying and the selling price in Forex trading. Let’s take a look at another example. The Bid price for EUR/USD is 1.11 and the Ask Price is 1.12. The spread, in this case, would be 0.01 or one Pip. However, the price of this specific currency pair will have to be over the spread for a trade-to become profitable. The main advice here is to look for a smaller spread as possible – it may make it easier to make a profit on small price fluctuations. Many experts act rapidly when they see thin spreads. It’s a sign of an urgent trade.

The third on our list of terms is Margin. This one shows the amount of money in Forex account that allows the trader to do trades of certain sizes. It serves as collateral for trading. There were many misinterpretations of margins lately by the rookies – it is not any sort of a fee or cost for trading.

How To Get Started

The first thing you need to do before making the first trade is to open a Forex Brokerage Account. There are so many brokers available nowadays, and a big majority of them have an amazing welcome offer for new traders. Set it up, complete the registration, fund the account, pick a strategy and you are ready to go! We always encourage our readers to start building bankroll slowly, which means lower deposits and lower risks. Time is of the essence when it comes to being good at forex, as well as the experience.

Forex trading has many advantages in comparison to the stock market or similar activities. As already mentioned, their market is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It doesn’t matter where you are. If there is an internet connection, you can trade without any issues. Some of the other advantages we would like to mention as well are high liquidity, very low transaction costs (no clearing fees, exchange fees or legal taxes), leverage and absence of middlemen.

Important things to know about real estate value estimation

Property valuation is essential in the real estate industry. It gives an insight to the seller and the buyer about the approximate value of a house.

There are different ways to evaluate the net worth of a property. You can follow either a single method given below or combine them to find the most accurate figure.

Comparable sales method

The value of the property depends on the prices of similar apartments or houses in your neighborhood. It is also known as residential real estate valuation. How much you need to invest depends mostly on the present value of the properties. However, this is an old-school concept.

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if you could also become a citizen of a country while investing in real estate? That’s precisely what Dominica citizenship by investment is all about. You stand a chance to become a citizen if you invest in the government-approved Dominica real estate projects.

You can check the neighborhood, building regulations, location, and condition of the property before investing. Upon completing the program, you will become a citizen of Dominica.

Discounted value of rentals

Unlike the comparable sales method where the price of the property reduces in the presence of defects, the discounted value of rentals works differently. This method helps to understand the future rental appreciation of the apartments.

For example, consider the busiest place in your city. Properties in this location are more likely to have a high price, and the cost will be higher in the future. The discounted value of rental for this location is calculated after inspecting the growth in demand in the real estate of this location and also the availability of properties. It is the demand-supply relationship that determines the value of the property.

Automated valuations

This is the fastest way to evaluate the value of a property. It is a cost-effective method that uses computer-generated models. The automated valuation model considers the historical data indexed to predict and calculate the present value of the property. However, it does not consider the real comparison of the other properties in the same neighborhood. So, you may find different valuations for different apartments even though they are right beside one another.

Income approach

It is also known as the intrinsic or fundamental method of estimating real estate value. This approach focuses on the property value instead of comparing it with similar properties. Two factors determine the worth of the property you want to invest in: the projected future net income and the resale value of the apartment. This is a more realistic approach to find the real estate value estimation. When you consider how much the property value will increase, you get the approximate amount of maintaining its revenue.

Most real estate companies follow these methods to evaluate the value of properties on sale. This helps them to negotiate better with the clients. And, if you are interested in the citizenship program, it is a win-win situation for you. You get the chance to invest in an excellent property and acquire citizenship at the same time.

Why you need to know your customers journey

Few people talk about it and it’s probably due to not many people knowing what it is…the customer journey.

And despite many businesses having the best intentions when it comes to their buying process,  generally, the customer journey is not customer-friendly.

As a Business, ask yourself the following questions;

• Do you know where your customer is coming from?
• What leads them to purchase?
• What stops them from purchasing?
• Is your conversion rate low?
• Where is the bulk of your traffic coming from?

This will help you to understand the ins and outs of the customer’s journey.

If you don’t, you’re doing a disservice to your business and most importantly, your customers.

In this article, we’re going to talk about why you need to know your customer’s journey, how you can improve your customer’s journey and what it entails exactly.

What Does The Customer Journey Entail?

First of all, let’s start with the definition from surveymonkey.com:

“The customer journey is the complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with your company and brand. Instead of looking at just a part of a transaction or experience, the customer journey documents the full experience of being a customer.”

From the moment your potential customer becomes aware of your brand, they’ve started a journey with your brand.

Whether that journey lasts long is down to the customer experience you have in place.

The journey of each customer will vary but if you have automation and funnels in place, you can control the journey from start to finish.

An example of a typical customer journey:

1. Customer learns about your brand through a friend
2. Customer types in your brand on Google
3. Looks through your website and leaves without purchasing
4. You run a Facebook campaign targeting website visitors in the last 30 days
5. The customer sees your ad promoting your brand again
6. They return to the website and views a pair of shoes they like
7. They put the shoes in their basket and proceed to purchase
8. They are now a customer and they are added to your marketing list
9. Over time, they continue to make purchases from you 1-2 times a month

This journey may seem extremely complex, but with today’s digital marketing playground, this is a simple daily activity for most businesses and their customers.

If anything, the above is over-simplified.

Your customer goes through a range of emotions when they interact with your brand and ultimately, buy from you.

Common emotions in the customer journey include curiosity, trust, disappointment and maybe (hopefully), pure joy!

Of course, you would want to avoid all the negative emotions as much as you can and keep the journey as smooth and silky as possible without interrupting the journey of your customer.

One bad slip and you’ll pay the price with either a lost customer, an unsatisfied customer and something that can be detrimental for any business nowadays – a bad review.

Why You Need To Know Your Customer’s Journey

There are a number of reasons why you want to know your customer’s journey.

Here are a few to mention:

• Getting a bird’s eye view of your sales process
• Gaining knowledge about how your customers interact with your business
• Determining whether you have designed the customer journey in a logical order
• Differences between the desired customer experience and the actual customer journey
• Ability to put your focus on a customer’s particular needs at different stages of the funnel

Too many businesses get into the mindset and perspective of viewing the business from their own perspective rather than putting themselves in the shoes of what the customer is actually experiencing.

The move from businesses focusing on purely on profits without any regard for the customer has been flipped on its head with the introduction of the internet and social media.

Look at some of the most successful businesses today and you’ll see a pattern of businesses that are now customer-centric.

Just look at Amazon for example, they’ve paved the way for how business should be done and how they’ve raised the bar for what is expected by customers in today’s market.

How Can You Improve The Customer Journey

When thinking about the customer journey, businesses will tend to focus on the typical funnel of:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Conversion

This is not even half of what the funnel you should be focusing on because there are many more stages a customer goes through in their journey with you.

If we were to go more in depth, we’d find the funnel may look more like this:

1. Awareness
2. Interest
3. Consideration/Evaluation
4. Conversion/Purchase
5. Repeat
6. Loyalty
7. Advocacy

Despite the customer journey involving all departments of the business, we are going to focus predominantly on the marketing aspect of the customer’s journey.

Stage 1 – Awareness

Example 1: a potential customer finds out about your business through a family member who had a great experience buying from your business.

Improvement: this actually starts with the family member becoming aware of your brand, but ultimately, it comes down to you creating a great customer journey.

Example 2: Customer sees your Business from Google advertising.

Improvement: Create some intrigue and make your offering clear in your copy, headline and image.

Stage 2 & 3 – Interest + Consideration/Evaluation

At stages 2 & 3 you need to keep nurturing your customer by adding more value and keeping them engaged.

• Educate your customer about the product/service + overall business
• Showing how your solution can relieve their problem
• Show the customer how the value you provide justifies the price of your product/service

An informative blog that provides actionable advice is perfect for this stage and can help get customers to trust you and see you as a brand that knows more than anyone about the industry.

Stage 4 – Conversion/Purchase

Stage 4 is where all the work you’ve done pays off and the customer pays you for your product/service.

You can improve this part of the process by:

• Making it easy for the customer to buy from you. This is especially relevant for ecommerce stores – reduce the friction in the buying process
• A clear buy button – make it obvious for the customer where they have to click to buy. Such a simple improvement that not many businesses do.

Stage 5 – Repeat

At stage 5 you are looking to repeat stage 4 and get your customers to buy from you again.

• Upsell and cross-sell at the checkout stage or via email
• Run seasonal promotions that are directly related to the product the customer has purchased from you in the past

Make sure that if you do implement a up-sell or cross-sell that it is relevant so that you don’t annoy your customer and make them regret buying from you in the first place.

Stage 6 & 7 – Loyalty + Advocacy

At stage 6 & 7, you are now in a position where (hopefully) you have created an incredible customer experience that your customer is now telling everyone about you.

• Invite your customer to a loyalty program that offer discounts
• Sending a personalised email to thank the customer for their business

Website Improvements To Improve Your Customer Journey

Most of the customer journey is online and happens on your website.

Ask yourself the following questions to make sure your doing everything you can to improve the customer journey on your website:

• Is your main page attractive?
• Is it easy to navigate?
• Does it have a strong CTA?
• Do you have a blog that provides informative information?
• What is the bounce rate on your website?
• Do you have a fast website loading speed?

Conclusion

Take the time today to go through your customer journey by yourself or with your team and work through the various stages, from the awareness stage to the advocacy stage.

It’s important you include all departments with this stage because they all play a part in the overall customer experience.

At the end of the day, it’s all about putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and looking at your business from their viewpoint. Do this and you will gain a greater understanding of how to improve your customer journey.