The consumer decision journey

Court, Elzinga, Mulder & Vetvik · 2009

Also known as The loyalty loop

Buying is a loop, not a funnel: people add options as they go, and the loyalty loop after purchase is where the next sale is decided.

Its place in the frameworkMarket Core›Customer Journey

What it does

Based on a study of thousands of purchase decisions, it found the consideration set widening during evaluation rather than narrowing, and a substantial share of subsequent purchases bypassing consideration entirely. The consequence for spending is direct: the period after the sale earns more than the period before it, and receives a fraction of the budget.

Reach for it when: When a funnel model no longer matches what customers actually do, and when post-purchase experience has no owner.
Where it stops: It generalises across categories that behave very differently, and the shape it replaces the funnel with is still a simplification.

David Court, Dave Elzinga, Susan Mulder & Ole Jørgen Vetvik, “The Consumer Decision Journey”, McKinsey Quarterly, 2009.

Why it sits at Customer Journey

The path from unaware to bought: what the stages actually are, where people stop, what moves them on, and how much of that can honestly be attributed.

A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:

The buying stagesResearch on non-linear buying behaviour and the messy middle of consideration, against the classical linear funnel.
Drop-offConversion analysis and the constraint logic of improving the largest loss rather than the most visible one.
What moves people forwardBuyer-interview practice, and the trigger and switching research on what actually starts and completes a purchase.
AttributionAttribution modelling and the incrementality critique: correlation with conversion is not evidence of contribution.

All of Customer Journey

What it touches elsewhere

Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Customer Journey lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.

Omni CoreThis object ends at the purchase; the experience afterwards is designed in the Omni Core.
Marketing ChannelsAttribution findings are what channel budget decisions should rest on.
Business CoreThe pains and gains behind a stage transition are analysed in the value proposition.
Data CoreJourney measurement requires instrumentation designed for it rather than assembled afterwards.

Filed at the same place

These answer questions that arise at Customer Journey too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.

AIDAAttention, interest, desire, action — the oldest description of the path from stranger to buyer.
See, think, do, careGroup audiences by how close they are to intent, and judge each stage by a measure that belongs to it.

Elsewhere in Market Core

These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.

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