Solve the mysteries of customer journey management

A look at common challenges in customer journey management and how HubSpot addresses them

When it comes to managing the customer journey, have you ever felt like a detective trying to piece together clues about what your customers want and need? You're not alone.

The customer journey encompasses the entire experience a customer has with a brand, starting from the moment they make a purchase and continuing through their post-purchase interactions. It's a roadmap to customer loyalty and advocacy, focusing on building long-term relationships and delivering consistent value at every stage.

Managing the customer journey can often feel like solving a complex mystery. From deciphering customer behaviours and preferences to ensuring a smooth transition from sales to support, the challenges can be quite daunting. Missteps in this journey can lead to frustrated customers, lost opportunities, and a tarnished brand reputation. But, with the right strategies and tools, you can transform these challenges into opportunities for deeper engagement and loyalty.

We'll shed light on the common challenges faced by sales, marketing, and IT. We'll also show you why HubSpot is Dr Watson to your Sherlock Holmes when it comes to cracking the customer journey case.

Let's get started.

Sales mysteries

Picture this: your sales team, armed with magnifying glasses, trying to piece together fragmented customer clues. Do any of these sound familiar?

1. Incomplete customer data - sales teams often feel like they're working with puzzle pieces that don’t fit together. Why is this such a common issue? Because it comes from fragmented data sources, where customer information is scattered across different systems and platforms. This lack of a unified view can lead to missed opportunities, as sales reps struggle to piece together a comprehensive understanding of the customer's needs, preferences and behaviours. Without a clear picture, tailoring personalised and effective sales strategies becomes a guessing game, resulting in inefficient processes and frustrated customers.
   
   
2. Inefficient lead management - tracking and managing leads can feel like chasing shadows. But why is this such a challenge? Often, it's due to the lack of streamlined processes and cohesive systems to handle leads effectively. Leads may slip through the cracks because they are not properly categorised or followed up on promptly. Inconsistent communication and a lack of automated follow-up can lead to lost opportunities, as potential customers lose interest or move on to competitors.
   
   
3. Lack of personalised engagement - delivering personalised experiences can sometimes seem like trying to solve a mystery without any clues. The root of the problem often lies in the absence of detailed customer insights and data integration. Without a unified view of customer interactions and preferences, businesses struggle to tailor their communications and offerings. Personalisation requires knowing your customers' behaviours, preferences, and history, but fragmented data and siloed systems make it difficult to gather and analyse this information.

How HubSpot helps sales teams’ sleuth 

It’s common knowledge that if a sales team can’t act quickly on a hot lead the deal is gone – arm your sales team with the means to sleuth quickly and qualify opportunities with these key HubSpot features:

Centralised data
HubSpot CRM acts like your very own detective agency, centralising all the critical information you need. Each contact, company, and deal is organised, so you always have the full picture. No more chasing down scattered pieces of evidence. And just like a detective ensures every case file is complete, HubSpot lets you set mandatory fields for your contact data. This means you'll always have the full picture on each contact record.

Sales automation
Detectives don't waste time on repetitive tasks when they could be solving the big mystery. That’s where HubSpot’s sales automation is your sidekick. It handles the mundane tasks like follow-up emails, task assignments, and lead nurturing. Now, you can focus on the best part of your job — closing deals and celebrating victories. With automated workflows, no lead is left lurking in the shadows. Plus, personalised automation means your emails are tailored to each contact.

Visitor tracking
Ever wish you had a magnifying glass to see exactly how your prospects are interacting with your website? HubSpot's visitor tracking does just that. It helps you understand every move your visitors make. You'll see which pages they visit, what content they engage with, and more. When these anonymous visitors finally fill out a form, it's like they’ve handed over their ID, and you can connect all their activities to a contact record in HubSpot.

Lead management
With HubSpot’s lead management tools, no potential customer slips through the cracks. With lead scoring to highlight hot prospects, automated workflows for personalised follow-ups, and segmentation for targeted messaging, every lead gets the attention they deserve. Real-time notifications and efficient lead routing keep your sales team on their toes, ready to engage at the right moment.

The marketing sleuths - cracking the code of customer engagement

Marketers face many challenges, but often getting buy-in from the rest of the organisation on the tactics and initiatives in play. Getting the evidence is critical to proving marketing’s return but can be so difficult when done manually. Any of these challenges sound familiar?

• Aligning marketing and sales efforts – this often feels like trying to get two cats to play fetch together. They sometimes clash over different priorities, goals, and even language. Marketing might be focused on generating leads through engaging content and campaigns, while sales is busy chasing down leads and closing deals. This disconnect can lead to frustration on both sides — sales may feel like they’re drowning in leads that aren’t ready to buy, while marketing might think sales isn’t following up on the hot prospects they’ve worked so hard to attract.
• Measuring campaign effectiveness - this is your classic needle in a haystack — where the haystack is an endless pile of metrics, and the needle is the true impact of your campaign. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of data points and vanity metrics like likes and shares, but these don’t always translate into tangible business outcomes. You might wonder if that latest campaign was a smashing success or if it just created a lot of noise without moving the needle. Was that burst of social media engagement a flash in the pan, or did it actually lead to conversions? Did the email blast generate excitement, or did it just clog up inboxes?
• Engaging and nurturing leads - this can feel like trying to keep a dozen spinning plates in the air — one slip and everything comes crashing down. It’s not just about capturing leads; it’s about keeping them interested and moving steadily toward a conversion. You might find yourself juggling various tasks — sending follow-up emails, crafting personalised messages, and making sure no lead falls through the cracks. It’s easy to lose track and end up with leads that get cold or go completely silent.

HubSpot to the rescue
HubSpot CRM helps bridge the sales and marketing gap by providing a shared platform where both teams can access the same data, track leads through every stage of their journey, and collaborate on strategy. It’s like giving both teams a common playbook and a unified goal - making it easier for marketing and sales to sync up and work together.

HubSpot CRM integrates your campaign data with your sales and customer data, offering a clear picture of how your campaigns are performing. It tracks everything from initial engagement through to actual sales and customer retention, helping you connect the dots and see how your marketing efforts contribute to your bottom line. With HubSpot, measuring campaign effectiveness becomes less of a guessing game and more of a straightforward analysis — like finding the needle in a well-organised haystack.

HubSpot’s lead nurturing tools are like having a trusty sidekick who never drops the ball. They help you automate and personalise your follow-ups, track engagement, and keep leads warm. From setting up drip campaigns that deliver timely, relevant content to using workflows that ensure no lead is left unattended, HubSpot ensures your leads stay engaged and on track, making it easier to guide them through the funnel. It’s all about keeping those plates spinning without breaking a sweat.

The IT detectives - cracking the digital dilemma

When it comes to IT, managing the customer journey can often feel like untangling a web of mysteries. Here’s how HubSpot helps IT teams crack the toughest cases.

• Integration with existing systems - ever feel like you're trying to get your tech stack to have a conversation in different languages? HubSpot’s robust APIs and integrations are like a universal translator for your systems. Whether you’re connecting your CRM with your ERP or syncing up with your marketing automation tools, HubSpot helps bridge those communication gaps, making sure all your systems work together smoothly and efficiently.
• Managing technical complexity - is your tech stack starting to resemble a tangled ball of yarn? HubSpot consolidates multiple functionalities into one easy-to-manage platform. You don't need to be juggling a dozen tools when you can have marketing, sales, and service operations unified in a single, user-friendly system. It’s like having a tech-savvy partner who keeps everything in check.
• Data security and compliance - managing data security and compliance can sometimes feel like you're on a high-stakes treasure hunt. HubSpot’s security features and compliance tools act like a shield, safeguarding your customer data and making sure you stay on the right side of regulations like GDPR. With top-notch security measures and built-in compliance checks, HubSpot helps protect your digital assets while keeping you safe from the perils of non-compliance.

HubSpot - the supersleuth of cross-functional collaboration

Gone are the days of cross-departmental confusion and disjointed efforts. HubSpot can unify sales, marketing, and IT departments with its powerful features. Let’s take a closer look at how the HubSpot platform’s, shared metrics, and streamlined processes can transform your customer journey management from a tangled mess into an efficient, collaborative effort.

Unified platform
HubSpot’s unified platform brings together sales, marketing and IT to provide a comprehensive view of customer interactions from the first website visit to the final purchase. Marketing teams can see which pages a prospect has explored, whether they came from Google Ads or social media. Sales teams are instantly notified when a lead engages with high-value content, like pricing pages or demo requests. All your teams are working from the same playbook, creating a 'single source of truth' that boosts collaboration

Shared metrics and goals
Ever had those frustrating moments when marketing and sales point fingers at each other, blaming the other for missed targets? HubSpot puts an end to that drama by establishing shared metrics and goals. With HubSpot, you can be sure that all departments are on the same page when it comes to what constitutes a 'good lead' or an ideal customer profile. The platform helps align definitions and metrics, making sure that everyone — from marketing to sales to IT —understands and works towards common objectives. This alignment encourages a collaborative environment where efforts are truly synergistic.

HubSpot’s alignment tools will help you close that gap.

Streamlined processes
Imagine trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle with pieces scattered all over the place. That’s what managing customer interactions without HubSpot can feel like. HubSpot simplifies this by streamlining processes and integrating various functionalities into one platform. For example, marketing can track a lead’s journey through HubSpot’s tracking code, while sales can use notes and tags to communicate with the team directly within the CRM. The integration with email clients like Outlook and Gmail makes sure that all interactions are captured and accessible, allowing anyone to pick up the conversation where it left off. This streamlined approach eliminates inefficiencies and keeps the customer journey smooth and uninterrupted.

HubSpot cracks the case - wrapping up the journey

From freeing sales teams from the chaos of incomplete data and security woes to helping marketers align their goals and measure their triumphs, and even simplifying ITs tech tangle, HubSpot has your customer journey management sorted.

By tackling challenges like fragmented data, misaligned metrics, and clunky processes, HubSpot makes sure that your team can focus on what really matters: engaging with customers and driving growth. If you’re tired of the customer journey being a mystery, then let’s talk.

Keen to explore HubSpot further? Let's talk.