Find what gets in the way of buying.
Find where customers hesitate, understand why, and give your team clear priorities for what to improve.
Where this helps
Four ways a journey can become difficult.
Friction is not always a broken button. It can be a question left unanswered, a choice that feels difficult, or an extra step at the wrong moment. We look at the whole buying journey to understand what gets in the way.
The buying journey
An illustrative point of friction
Discover
Evaluate
Buy
“Is this the right one for me?”
The next step can be obvious. The reason to take it might not be.
Find the question behind the hesitation.
- Behavioural
- Too many similar products, an unfamiliar step, or repeated requests for information can make a decision harder than it needs to be.
- Technical
- Slow pages, awkward mobile interactions, or a checkout error can interrupt an otherwise straightforward purchase.
- Journey
- An offer that changes between ad and landing page, confusing navigation, or unnecessary steps can leave customers unsure where to go next.
- Cognitive
- Unclear product information, unfamiliar terms, and hidden delivery details leave customers doing the work of figuring things out.
Find. Focus. Fix.
From understanding the problem to knowing what to do about it. Three connected steps, with something useful to take away from each.
- 01
Find
Connect analytics, customer behaviour, and research to map where people hesitate or get stuck. Separate observations from assumptions.
Journey map
Friction points connected to evidence.
- 02
Focus
Assess the likely impact, confidence in the evidence, and effort involved. Agree which friction points deserve attention first.
Clear priorities
Impact, confidence, and effort made explicit.
- 03
Fix
Translate the priorities into practical recommendations and test ideas, with a clear path for your team to implement them.
Solution map & roadmap
Recommendations ready for your team.
A clear path through the audit.
We agree the scope, research methods, and timing around your store and the data available. Evidence collection and analysis can overlap; each stage informs the next.
Set the context
Agree the questions, review existing research, and arrange access to the relevant analytics and tools.
Collect the evidence
Review the journey and available behavioural data. Add customer research where it will help explain what is happening.
Connect and prioritise
Identify patterns, map the friction, and weigh the opportunities. Develop recommendations against the strongest evidence.
Plan the next steps
Walk your team through the findings, solution map, and implementation roadmap. Make the decisions and open questions clear.
After the audit
Your team can take the roadmap forward. If you need support with implementation or a continuous improvement process, we can scope that together.
After the audit, at Foodji
A plan the team could put to work.
A useful audit makes the next steps clear. Here’s how Elisabeth Reiter described the handover to her team.
Thanks to the structured approach and clear action plan, it was easy for us to implement the CRO measures after the audit.
Elisabeth Reiter
Performance Marketing, Foodji
A few practical questions.
What do we receive at the end?
A map of the buying journey and its friction points, a prioritised set of opportunities, and a solution map with an implementation roadmap. We walk through the evidence and recommendations with your team so they understand what to do next and why.
What data or access do you need?
We start with what you already have: analytics, existing customer research, feedback, and any behaviour or session-recording tools. We agree the required access and any additional research during setup. If measurement is incomplete, we make those gaps explicit and adjust the work accordingly.
How long does a friction audit take?
Timing depends on the size of the journey, the evidence already available, and whether we need to collect new data or run research. We agree the scope, milestones, and delivery schedule before starting, rather than applying the same timeline to every store.
Do you implement the recommendations?
The audit gives your team the evidence, priorities, and plan. Implementation is scoped separately. Your team can deliver the changes, we can support them through CRO consulting, or we can take on research, design, development, and testing through full-service CRO. A/B testing is recommended where the traffic and measurement make it useful.
Let’s find your points of friction.
Tell us about your store and the questions your team is trying to answer. We’ll work out where an audit would be most useful.