My son likes the Harry Potter Wii game (hang in there, I’ll make this relevant in just a few sentences). In the game, you have to complete tasks in a particular sequence in order to solve a challenge. Get the sequence wrong and you’ll end up stuck in the game. The game has a flow and it expects to be played according to this flow. Getting customers to your business has a flow as well. Get this customer flow right and you’ll find your own challenges being solved.

What is Customer Flow?

The path a customer takes to a business turns out to be pretty similar no matter what the business type. If a business illuminates this path with its own guideposts, customers seem to naturally flow in its direction. However, if a business fails to have a guidepost at each step, the customer often heads in a competitor’s direction.

Here’s how the flow works:

Here’s the guideposts a business needs for each of the above steps:

1. Advertising & content can short-circuit several steps. When a business is identified with an issue, product or service it gets the call first.
2. Generate neighborhood awareness to drive word-of-mouth and make it easy for people to share your information with others.
3. Getting your information in Google’s search results or in paid advertising is critical in reaching buyers when they actively search for your business.
4. Next to your front door, your website is the most important part of your customer efforts. Information needs to be customer friendly and easy to understand.
5. An easy to find phone number, email address or contact form are critical. For retail businesses, store locations and hours should be easy to find.
6. Once a business has received a phone call, email address or visitor, there needs to be a defined flow that gains the customer’s current business, repeat business and referrals.

Flow is one of the easiest things to understand because, as consumers, we follow a flow with each and every purchase. Flow isn’t hard for business to implement, but it does take time.