As a rev ops professional, you know that every customer journey is unique. Each customer has their own set of needs, preferences, and behaviors that influence their decision to engage with your company and make a purchase.
And when you’re a growth-stage company, you’re no longer burdened by the same priorities as an early-stage startup. You’ve already proven your product in the market. Now, your focus lies on growing and scaling by improving upon what’s already working for the business.
This is why it's so important to measure the full customer journey – it allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your customers and how they interact with your business.
Measuring the Full Customer Journey
Measuring the full customer journey ultimately provides valuable insights that can improve your marketing, sales, and customer service strategies. By collecting data on each touchpoint along the customer journey, you can identify areas for improvement and develop targeted solutions that address your customers' specific needs.
How do you collect data on each touchpoint?
For my clients, we use HubSpot to measure the conversion rates and other data points on each milepoint in the customer journey. These milepoints are captured by a Lead Status property and often include Lead, Engagement, Meeting Booked, Meeting Completed, Qualified, Commit, Won/Lost. Conversion rates are then calculated by finding the percentage of contacts/deals that advance down the pipeline from one milestone to the next.
Calculating Conversion Rates
Follow the visual and math below to gain an understanding of how we calculate conversion rates for the following stages: Active in Lead Gen, Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL), Sales Accepted Lead (SAL), Sales Qualified Lead (SQL), and Wins.
Active in Lead Gen → MQL = MQLs / Total Active in Lead Gen
299/6,968 = 4%
MQL → SAL = SAL / MQLs
74 / 299 = 24%
SAL → SQL = SQL / SAL
64/74 = 86%
SQL → Wins = Wins / Opportunities
13/64 = 20%
After you calculate your current conversion rates, you should set target rates that will allow you to hit your revenue goals. We use goal conversion rates that we’ve discovered and tested over time for a healthy revenue engine. Then, depending on the client’s conversion points we have data on, we can work backwards through the customer journey and calculate our goals for different stages so each goal feeds into the next one. Even if the client’s prospects skip through certain stages, that’s okay. We always have workflows to account for skipped stages and track the dates on key movements.
Using Data To Drive Strategy
Measuring the full customer journey allows you to highlight areas for improvement and can help you optimize your marketing and sales efforts. By analyzing the data you collect, you gain a better understanding of what motivates your customers to engage with your brand and make a purchase. This can help you develop more effective marketing and sales strategies, such as personalized messaging and targeted promotions.
Let's say you're a SaaS company that offers a subscription-based service. By measuring the full customer journey, you might discover that many of your potential customers are dropping off after moving the opportunity to stage “Qualified” - after the initial first call.
This could indicate that there's an issue with your discovery process, storytelling, or rep follow-up. Maybe there’s an opportunity to disqualify those who are inevitably tire-kickers with no urgency. Or, you dig in with your sales reps to set expectations before ending the call to align on timing and needs. Again, these little milestones are meaningful base-hits in the sales process—they’re not to be overlooked, they’re meant to be measured!
Closing Thoughts
Overall, measuring the full customer journey is an essential part of the rev ops process. It allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your customers and their needs, identify areas for improvement, and optimize your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. By taking the time to measure the full customer journey, you can take meaningful steps that drive revenue for your business.
Need help measuring the full customer journey? Get in touch with our team.