It’s time to be an orchestra conductor. Why? Because customer journey orchestration will set you in such a role (more or less). But it might be hard when you can’t tell the difference between viola and cello.

See what it exactly is, how it impacts customer experience, and what makes customer journey orchestration important.

What is customer journey orchestration?

Managing a customer’s journey across various channels is called customer journey orchestration. The purpose is to predict the client’s next move, make it more convenient for them, and drive conversions. 

Every step a customer takes with a business is key in customer orchestration – browsing online, making a purchase, and even signing up for a newsletter. 

Differences between customer journey mapping and orchestration

Those two terms might seem similar, but they differ. Let’s get into the differences.

01 Purpose

  • Customer journey mapping is visualizing and understanding the paths customers take.
  • Customer journey orchestration focuses on coordinating and influencing those paths.

02 Action

  • Mapping refers to illustrating the customer’s experience.
  • Orchestration actively shapes and guides the customer’s journey through interactions and experiences.

03 Analysis and use of data

  • Customer journey mapping uses data to create a guide of the customer’s path.
  • Orchestration uses real-time data and analytics to make instant decisions and guide the customer.

04 Interaction

  • Mapping identifies points where customers interact with the service or company.
  • Orchestration manages those interactions in real time. The aim is a positive customer experience.

05 Outcome

  • The outcome of mapping is a clearer understanding of customer behavior and experiences.
  • The outcome of orchestration is improved performance, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

06 Tools and platforms

  • Mapping might use digital tools for visualization and analysis.
  • Orchestration often involves platforms that coordinate multiple teams and deliver consistent experiences.

An Example of effective customer journey orchestration

It’s a case of an e-commerce store selling clothing and accessories. See what action steps they took:

Browsing history analysis ➡️ The team tracks what items customers are looking at on their site and how long they spend on each item.

Personalized recommendations ➡️ Based on browsing history, the site suggests personalized product recommendations during the customer’s next visit.

Cart abandonment emails ➡️  If a customer adds items to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, the team sends an email reminding them of the items left in their cart.

Loyalty rewards ➡️  Customers get points for every purchase they make, which they can redeem for discounts on future purchases.

Benefits of customer journey orchestration in business

Journey orchestration brings a lot of insights into customer’s unique behavior and also your business performance. And they entail many benefits, such as:

#1 Creating personalized experiences

It makes the shopping more personal. It starts with learning who the customers are and what they like. This info helps put customers into segments, so companies know what each person might want. And based on that data, create effective campaigns.

#2 Building stronger ties with customers

If you want to manage a customer journey, it’s very probable that you need to enhance communication with your customers. And better communication often equals stronger ties with customers. 

#3 Finding and fixing customer journey issues fast

When coordinating customer journeys, you may find problems that customers face throughout the process. And then solve the hiccups that occur before they escalate.

#4 Making marketing strategies work better

Understanding how customers interact and react lets businesses adjust their strategies for better results. Messages reach the right people at the right time and make prospects buy the products or take another action.

#5 Collecting data for informed decisions

Customer journey orchestration means collecting lots of useful information about how people use a brand. You may use this info for smarter business choices. For example, if a lot of customers leave a website when they get to the payment page, the company might discover that the page takes too long to load or isn’t user-friendly and can work to solve this issue.

#6 Getting insights through customer journey analytics

If analytics show that customers often ask about a specific product feature, the company might decide to give more information on this feature in their marketing materials or work on improving it.

How to start customer journey orchestration?

Here’s your action plan 📝

✔️ Make a list of your goals

Think about what you’re aiming for with customer journey orchestration. Set clear goals to shape a better customer experience.

✔️ Create customer profiles

Make detailed profiles for different types of customers. You’ll get to know the unique behavior and needs of each customer segment.

✔️ Map out the customer journey

Figure out and draw all the steps customers take when interacting with your brand. This gives you a full picture of the customer’s entire experience.

✔️ Compile data and put it together

Gather information from different places and put it together to understand your customer better. Customer data may help you determine what to do to make more conversions, for instance.

✔️ Find key interaction points

Look for the main moments and steps that affect a customer’s decisions. Spotting these critical moments is a big step.

✔️ Segment your customers

Put customers into groups based on similar characteristics or needs. And then make communication strategies more personalized.

✔️ Make communication personalized

Come up with special interactions and content for different groups of customers. It will make customers take another action and engage with your business. 

✔️ Use automation for marketing

Use tools to automatically send personalized content and experiences. This step means better results in your marketing efforts. Luckily, there are some journey orchestration platforms to help you out. Use Xtremepush to send targeted messages.

✔️ Use real-time marketing tools

Adjust and personalize customer interactions as they happen, using up-to-date data. Every interaction counts. 

✔️ Check how well things are going

Regularly see if the customer journeys are working well using the right measures. Keep your strategies in line with your business goals.

✔️ Keep getting better

Always look for ways to do better based on what you learn and how well things are going. Adapt and learn for the best outcomes.

 The most important customer orchestration metrics

Now it’s time for customer journey analytics. You can measure the process of customer journey orchestration with a few metrics.

01 Customer lifetime value (CLV)

What does it measure?
CLV measures the total amount a customer is likely to spend on a business throughout their entire relationship. It gives an overview of how valuable a customer is to a company over time.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
You know who to focus on and how to create targeted offers to keep them coming back

02 Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

What does it measure?
CSAT is a simple way for businesses to find out how satisfied customers are with their products or services. A typical method is to ask customers one question – “How satisfied were you with your experience?” – and then customers give a score, often from 1 to 5.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
This metric guides companies in improving areas like customer service, personalization, and delivering what customers expect. If the score is low, it’s your time to tweak your strategy a bit.

03 Net promoter score (NPS)

What does it measure? 

If you want to see how loyal customers are, you can use NPS. It tells a company how likely customers are to recommend their services or products to others. Calculating NPS is simple. customers answer one question about their likelihood to recommend the company, and based on the responses, customers are classified as promoters, passives, or detractors. 

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
The NPS feedback informs marketing teams and customer-facing employees about the quality of customer experiences. So they can detect areas for growth. 

04 Customer retention rate

What does it measure? 

It gives insight into the number of customers who continue to engage with a company over a specific period. It calculates the percentage of customers a business retains and doesn’t lose to churn.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
Customer retention rate reflects how well a company is meeting customer expectations and delivering value across channels. This rate guides internal teams (and not only) in optimizing every interaction along the customer’s journey.

05 Churn rate

What does it measure?
You can calculate the proportion of customers who leave or give up using a company’s product or service over a specified period. It is an indicator of customer loss.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
Because sales and marketing teams can start doing something before the situation gets worse. But remember to check on this metric regularly.

06 Conversion rate

What does it measure?
It measures the number of visitors to a company’s website or users of a service who take a desired action. It may be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or any other goal a company has set. 

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
It helps to assess how well a company is at turning potential customers into actual customers. A higher conversion rate means more visitors are doing what the company hopes they will do.

07 Average order value (AOV)

What does it measure?
AOV calculates the average amount of money that customers spend when they place an order with a company. It’s found by dividing the total revenue by the number of orders.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration? 

It tells a company how much money customers are spending on average, giving insights into customer behavior and buying patterns. If the marketing team knows the AOV, they can create targeted offers and incentives to encourage customers to spend more.

08 Customer engagement rate

What does it measure?
Customer engagement rate gives us an idea of how actively customers are interacting with a brand, product, or service. It may be actions like clicking on a link, sharing a post, or making a purchase.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration?
This metric lets businesses see how well they’re connecting with their audience. Also, they can adjust their strategies to create more engaging content and improve interactions. 

09 Click-through rate (CTR)

What does it measure?
CTR measures how often people click on a link, ad, or email that they see. It’s calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of times the item is viewed (impressions), showing the percentage of viewers who clicked.

Why is it important in customer journey orchestration? 

It’s a signal of audience interest and engagement. With click-through rates, businesses can fine-tune their content, targeting, and messaging to better catch attention and encourage action. 

Customer journey management – over to you

The recipe for effective journey orchestration might sound easy – set the goal, take the actions, and implement the changes. 

But it won’t be that straightforward without handy tools like Xtremepush. 

It segments customers, provides insights into users’ behavior, supports multichannel communication, and helps with automating marketing campaigns. 

There’s more! Book the demo to see all the possibilities of Xtremepush.

Click to download our guide to increasing eCommerce conversions and retention.