You’ve put in the hard work, survived the sleepless nights, launched your dream product line, and now you are ready to watch the sales fly in. Yet, a few months go by, and the sales dreams dwindle as leads go cold and abandoned carts pile up. A myriad of questions rummages through your mind.
What went wrong between the idea, the endless hours of product testing, development, iterations, and deep market research? Perhaps the solution resides in a more subtle and nuanced approach, tying all these areas together in a way you haven’t done so before.
The Landscape of Shifting Customer Expectations
According to Your eCommerce Accountant approximately 37% of all online retailers fail within the first year, and up to 70% fail in their second year- a conundrum that must be addressed effectively.
It begins with understanding the nuances of customers' needs, which often feels daunting and complex. Navigating the intricacies of developing market demands, competitive strategy, emerging marketing channels, and shifting customer expectations is, quite frankly, overwhelming. However, this process is more straightforward than it appears when approached methodically and strategically.
This is where experience mapping becomes essential, hailing as a reliable and effective method for creating a sales funnel that delivers exceptional results every time. By combining market research, insight, and an adaptive strategy, eCommerce stores can better understand their customers' challenges and provide quality solutions, addressing concerns promptly at every stage of the journey toward a purchase decision.
Definitions and Terms: Experience Mapping and RCS Messaging
To fully appreciate the value of experience mapping and RCS as a new solution to address customer engagement, it’s essential to define these two concepts in more depth.
What Is Experience Mapping?
Experience mapping is the process of visualizing every interaction a customer has with your brand across all touchpoints. It helps businesses identify pain points and pinpoint opportunities to build a reliable, holistic, and positive customer journey.
This goes deeper than market research and product development iterations. It outlines the details and intricacies of each interaction across different touchpoints that substantiate the effectiveness of your solution, offering support, guidance, and value in exchange for a buyer's attention and business.
Without a clear map of the customer journey at each stage, sales and repeat business often decline. This happens because consumers lack sufficient evidence and persuasive appeal to confidently choose one product over another.
What Is RCS Messaging and How Does It Enhance the Customer Experience?
RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging is an advanced evolution of traditional SMS. Think of RCS as SMS’s big brother, with the advanced capabilities of WhatsApp and email. It enables businesses to send rich, interactive messages that include multimedia elements like images, videos, carousels, and buttons for direct actions such as making purchases or contacting support. Unlike plain text messages, RCS messaging provides a dynamic and branded experience, offering real-time updates and, importantly, two-way interactions.
RCS technology bridges the gap between traditional messaging apps and traditional text communication, helping businesses create engaging and personalized campaigns for robust and effective customer experiences.
How To Start Mapping the Customer Experience Journey
Experience mapping has been an integral part of all eCommerce success stories worldwide. Now you may be wondering why we have stated such a strong claim. Well, we know that going to market, becoming a desirable consumer choice, and retaining business is no small feat. According to Zendesk Approximately 73% of all consumers will switch to a competitor after multiple bad interactions. Forrester estimates that a staggeringly low 3% of all companies are paying attention to customer experiences and Calabrio reported that a mega 97% of all consumers agree that customer service interactions influence customer loyalty.
There remains a gap and an earnest need for more personalized, customized, and optimized consumer experiences.
By breaking down the stages of the buyer's journey and mapping the customer experience, eCommerce retailers have a powerful market advantage as they identify key areas of access that place them front of mind and make them stronger contenders in the arena for purchase intent.
We have outlined the five core stages of the buyer's journey that you need to pay careful attention to when mapping the customer experience.
Awareness: Where the Problem Surfaces
In the awareness stage, potential customers are introduced to your brand, products, or services. This initial phase is driven by online advertisements, social media presence, and organic search visibility. RCS messaging can help create an immediate impression by delivering personalized introductions and attention-grabbing content that resonates with your audience.
Consideration: Deliberation Meets Action
During the consideration stage, prospective buyers evaluate their options and weigh the benefits of your offerings, price points, delivery times, and more in comparison to your competitors. This is the stage where trust-building becomes essential. RCS campaigns are able to deliver targeted information, such as product comparisons, customer reviews, and compelling success stories, which fuel positive bias and instill a much-needed edge in confident decision-making.
Purchase: Intentions Become Clear
The purchase stage marks the critical moment when a customer commits to a purchase. Here, strategic RCS messages can play a pivotal role by providing reminders for abandoned carts, secure payment options, and exclusive purchase incentives. These are more than gimmicks or tactics; they are powerful value-adds that encourage sales.
Retention: Inevitable Choices
In the retention stage, the focus shifts to keeping customers engaged and encouraging repeat purchases. Post-purchase support, product tips, technical support, and loyalty rewards delivered through RCS messaging are key strategies to enhance customer satisfaction and strengthen the likelihood of long-term customer loyalty.
Advocacy: A Success Story That Speaks for Itself
Finally, the advocacy stage is where a satisfied customer becomes an enthusiastic brand ambassador. Engaging RCS messages can prompt these loyal customers to leave reviews, share their experiences on social media, or refer your business to friends and family, organically expanding your brand's reach.
Design an Interactive RCS Campaign
Each stage of the customer journey requires unique RCS campaign strategies specific to your offer, but the guiding principles remain the same. Use our expert recommendations on how to align your RCS campaigns with customer demands and needs in 2025.
Personalization and Contextual Messaging (Awareness and Consideration)
More and more customers expect messages that resonate with their personal preferences and address their specific concerns. Leveraging customer data helps to create personalized greetings, timed product recommendations, and educational content that offers expert guidance and value.
Context-aware messaging, based on browsing behavior, previous purchases, or demographic information, adds to the relevance of each interaction. This is imperative to implement when optimizing engagement strategies during the awareness and consideration phases.
Incorporating Rich Media for Engagement (Consideration to Purchase)
Interactive and visually appealing content is the golden standard for capturing consumers' attention and demonstrating where they need to take action. Integrating images, GIFs, videos, and carousels into RCS messages helps showcase products and their benefits dynamically.
Think of incorporating features such as direct purchase links, one-click discount code payment options, and real-time inventory updates to make the buying process feel smooth, fostering an effortless transition from consideration to purchase.
Ongoing Feedback and Interactive Support (Retention and Advocacy)
Building lasting relationships requires ongoing support and a smooth delivery process. Follow-up messages after a purchase can request feedback, give estimated delivery updates, provide troubleshooting guides, or introduce complementary add-on products.
Once the delivery is complete, introducing loyalty programs, review requests, and referral incentives delivered via RCS campaigns can encourage customers to stay engaged and advocate for your brand.
Implement RCS Automations Before and After Checkout
RCS campaigns with trigger automations enhance the customer experience by delivering timely, relevant messages.
Before Checkout: Automated triggers can send coupons, first-purchase discounts, or limited-time offers to nudge undecided shoppers toward completing their purchase.
Abandoned Cart Reminders: Featuring personalized product details and direct checkout links effectively recover lost sales.
After Checkout: Thank-you messages express appreciation and build goodwill. Post-purchase surveys can collect valuable feedback and identify areas for improvement.
Feedback Loops: Supported by loyalty rewards or discounts on future purchases, these encourage repeat business and foster long-term customer relationships.
Conclusion
Mapping the customer journey is an essential investment for businesses aiming to maximize the return on their advertising and marketing efforts- and a highly effective solution to bridging the engagement gap is seen through RCS messaging.
Understanding and addressing customer concerns and needs at every stage—from awareness to advocacy- businesses can create a seamless and engaging experience driving meaningful results that last.
eCommerce retailers who leverage RCS automation amplify these efforts, enabling their brand to deliver highly personalized, interactive, and timely messages that stand out in the competitive landscape of supply and demand in 2025.
