How to create a customer journey map

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a visual representation that outlines the various stages a customer goes through when experiencing the brand. This can include every touchpoint, from initial awareness to long-term engagement. The map is designed to provide a holistic view of the customer experience, highlighting the emotional states, motivations, and pain points encountered along the way. There are several types of customer journey maps, each serving a specific purpose. For instance, a current-state journey map focuses on how customers interact with your brand today, whereas a future-state map envisions how you want those interactions to evolve. A day-in-the-life map provides a broader view of a customer's daily experiences, and a service blueprint adds an internal perspective detailing the systems and processes that support the customer journey. Understanding these different formats is crucial for selecting the right approach based on your objectives.

Types of customer journey maps

Customer journey maps can take various forms, each tailored to different business needs and goals. For example:

• The current-state Journey Map focuses on the present customer experience, identifying pain points and areas for improvement
• The future-state journey map envisions the desired customer journey in the future.
• The day-in-the-life journey map takes a broader view by mapping out a customer’s daily interactions.
• The service blueprint details the customer experience and maps out internal processes and systems that support it.

Each type serves a different purpose, and choosing the right one depends on specific business goals.

Steps to create a customer journey map

Now that you know the basics of customer journey maps, it is time to reveal the actual steps in creating this solution. Remember that each step is highly important to make your journey map truly beneficial for your organization. Let’s get into it.

Set clear objectives

Before diving into the creation of a customer journey map, it’s essential to define clear objectives. What do you hope to achieve with this map? Are you looking to identify pain points in the customer experience, or are you focused on improving a specific touchpoint? Setting precise goals will guide the mapping process and ensure that the final product is aligned with your business objectives. For instance, if your goal is to enhance the onboarding experience, your map should focus on the steps customers take immediately after purchase and identify where they might encounter friction. However, the most important aspect when setting your objectives is to create them based on the goals of your persona. 

To learn more about personas, visit our Digital 101 page, which has a dedicated article on this topic.

Build customer personas

Customer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on market research and real data about your existing customers. They are highly important because the customer journey is always created based on the previously created persona. They should include demographic information, behaviours, motivations, and challenges. Developing detailed personas is crucial because it allows you to map the journey for different segments of your audience rather than assuming a one-size-fits-all approach. For example, the journey of a first-time buyer may differ significantly from that of a repeat customer, and your map should reflect these differences.

Map the customer journey stages

Once you have identified the actions you can go ahead and organize them into distinct stages of the customer journey. Typically, these stages include Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Retention, and Advocacy. However, the stages can vary depending on the nature of your business and the complexity of the customer journey. For each stage, you should detail the touchpoints, the goals customers are trying to achieve, and the challenges they face. This will help you understand the progression of customer experiences and identify critical moments that can influence their decisions.

Identify customer actions

At each stage of the customer journey, it is essential to identify the specific actions customers take. These actions could include reading articles about the product, adding the product to the cart, and contacting customer support via phone call. Customer actions are the observable behaviours that indicate how engaged they are with your brand and what their next steps might be. By understanding these actions, you can better anticipate customer needs and optimize touchpoints to facilitate smoother transitions between stages. Recognizing patterns in customer actions also helps you identify moments where customers may drop off or encounter friction, allowing you to address those areas and improve the overall experience.

Identify customer touchpoints

Touchpoints are any instances where a customer interacts with your brand, whether online, in-store, or through customer service. Identifying all relevant touchpoints is a critical step in creating a comprehensive journey map. Also, remember that you can categorise the touchpoints based on various tools that the customer uses (desktop, mobile, TV) and various media mediums (e.g. website, blog, social media like Facebook or Instagram). By mapping these touchpoints, you can begin to understand the full scope of the customer experience and identify areas that may need improvement.

Identify customer pain points and emotions

Understanding your customers' emotional journeys is as important as mapping out their actions. At each stage of the journey, customers may experience a range of emotions – from frustration when they encounter obstacles to satisfaction when their needs are met. These emotional highs and lows identify the pain points where user experience is the weakest, i.e. the things we should focus on improving first. For example, if customers consistently express frustration during the checkout process, this could indicate a need for a more streamlined or user-friendly interface.

Align internal processes

A customer journey map is not just a tool for understanding customer behaviour –  it’s also a roadmap for aligning your internal processes to better meet customer needs. Once you have mapped out the customer journey and identified key touchpoints and pain points, the next step is to ensure that your internal teams such as marketing, sales, customer service, and product development, are all aligned to address these areas. This might involve refining your messaging, improving your product, or enhancing your customer service protocols.

Visualize the journey map

Finally, it's time to bring everything together in a visual format that is easy to understand and share with stakeholders. A customer journey map can take many forms, from a simple flowchart to a more detailed infographic. The key is to ensure that the map clearly conveys the stages of the journey, the touchpoints, and the associated emotions and challenges. A well-designed map will serve as a valuable tool for communicating customer insights across your organization and guiding decision-making processes.

Best practices and tips

Creating a customer journey map is an intricate process that, when done correctly, can yield substantial benefits across your organization. However, it’s important to approach this task with a few best practices in mind to ensure its effectiveness. Here are our best practices for creating the most effective customer journey map:

1. First and foremost, collaboration across teams is essential. Different departments within your organization – such as marketing, sales, product development, and customer service, interact with customers at various stages of their journey. Each of these teams brings a unique perspective that can enrich the accuracy and depth of your journey map. For example, the marketing team might have insights into the awareness and consideration phases, while the customer service team can provide valuable information about the retention and post-purchase stages.
2. Another critical best practice is to keep the customer journey map dynamic. Customer behaviours and expectations are constantly evolving, influenced by changes in technology, market trends, and socio-economic factors. As such, your journey map should not be a static document; it needs to be revisited and updated regularly to reflect these changes. This might involve incorporating new data from customer feedback, analyzing changes in customer behaviour, or adjusting your strategy in response to market shifts. By maintaining a dynamic map, you ensure that your organization remains agile and responsive to customer needs.
3. Moreover, integrating direct customer feedback into your journey map is crucial. While internal data and assumptions can provide a strong foundation, actual customer insights will ensure that your map is grounded in reality. This can be achieved through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and other methods of gathering qualitative data. Understanding the customer's voice allows you to accurately capture their emotions, frustrations, and motivations at each touchpoint, leading to a more empathetic and effective customer journey map.
4. Finally, ensure that the journey map is actionable – meaning it should not only diagnose issues but also guide your teams toward practical solutions. This involves setting clear priorities and aligning your journey map with your overall business objectives, ensuring that it drives meaningful improvements across the customer experience.

Common mistakes to avoid

While the benefits of a well-crafted customer journey map are substantial, the process is fraught with potential pitfalls that can undermine its effectiveness. Let’s talk about some of the most common mistakes to avoid:

1. Overcomplicating the journey map. It’s easy to get carried away with the details, trying to account for every possible scenario and action. However, this can result in a map that is overwhelming and difficult for stakeholders to digest. The goal should be to create a clear and concise visual that highlights the most critical moments of the customer journey. A map that is too complex may obscure key insights and hinder decision-making, reducing its overall utility.
2. Another significant mistake is neglecting the post-purchase stages of the customer journey. Many businesses focus heavily on the acquisition phase, mapping out how to attract and convert new customers, but fail to give equal attention to the retention and advocacy stages. This oversight can be costly, as the post-purchase experience plays a crucial role in building long-term customer loyalty and turning customers into brand advocates. A comprehensive journey map should include a detailed analysis of how customers interact with your brand after their initial purchase, including how they receive support, engage with content, and feel encouraged to make repeat purchases or refer others.
3. Additionally, failing to involve all relevant stakeholders in the journey-mapping process is a common misstep. A journey map that is created in isolation by a single department is likely to be incomplete and may not capture the full spectrum of the customer experience. It's vital to involve representatives from all departments that have a touchpoint with customers, ensuring that the map is comprehensive and reflects the diverse perspectives within your organization. This collaborative approach also fosters a sense of ownership across teams, increasing the likelihood that the insights from the journey map will be acted upon.
4. Finally, a major mistake to avoid is underestimating the importance of emotion in the customer journey. Emotions drive customer decisions at every stage, from initial awareness to post-purchase interactions. If your map fails to capture your customers' emotional journeys, it will lack a crucial dimension essential for understanding and improving the customer experience. Recognizing and addressing the emotional highs and lows can lead to more empathetic and effective strategies, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Summary

Creating a customer journey map is a powerful way to gain deeper insights into your customer's experiences with your brand. By following the steps outlined in this article – setting clear objectives, building customer personas, identifying actions, mapping the journey stages, understanding emotions, aligning internal processes, and visualizing the map, you can create a tool that will guide your business in enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Remember, the journey map is a living document that should evolve with your business, and its effectiveness depends on your commitment to continuously updating and refining it. Now that you have the knowledge, it's time to start mapping your customers' journeys and unlocking new opportunities for growth.