customer journey case study pdf

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Competing on Customer Journeys

• David C. Edelman
• Marc Singer

As digital technology has enabled shoppers to easily research and buy products online, sellers have been scrambling after them, trying to understand and satisfy their wants. Savvy companies, however, are using new tools, processes, and organizational structures to proactively lead digital customers from consideration to purchase and beyond. They are creating compelling customer journeys and managing them like any other product—and gaining a source of competitive advantage.

Building successful journeys requires four key capabilities: automation, to smoothly carry customers through each step of their online path; personalization, to create a customized experience for each individual; contextual interaction, to engage customers and appropriately sequence the steps they take; and journey innovation, to add improvements that enhance and extend the journey and foster customer loyalty.

In addition, the most successful companies have a particular organizational structure, with a chief experience officer overseeing a journey-focused strategist and a “journey product manager.” This latter role is critical—the journey product manager leads a team of designers, developers, data analysts, marketers, and others to create and sustain superior journeys, and he or she is accountable for the journey’s ROI and general business performance.

You have to create new value at every step.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

Digital tools have put shoppers in the driver’s seat, allowing them to easily research and compare products, place orders, and get doorstep delivery of their items. Sellers have largely been reactive, scrambling to position themselves where customers will find them.

The Solution

Companies can use new technologies, processes, and organizational structures to proactively lead rather than follow customers on their digital journeys. By making the journey a compelling, customized, and open-ended experience, firms can woo buyers, earn their loyalty, and gain a competitive advantage.

The Strategy

Superior journeys feature automation, personalization, context-based interaction, and ongoing innovation. To achieve all this, companies need to treat journeys like products, built and supported by a cross-functional team that’s led by a manager responsible for the journey’s business performance.

The explosion of digital technologies over the past decade has created “empowered” consumers so expert in their use of tools and information that they can call the shots, hunting down what they want when they want it and getting it delivered to their doorsteps at a rock-bottom price. In response, retailers and service providers have scrambled to develop big data and analytics capabilities in order to understand their customers and wrest back control. For much of this time, companies have been reacting to customers, trying to anticipate their next moves and position themselves in shoppers’ paths as they navigate the decision journey from consideration to purchase.

• David C. Edelman is an executive adviser and a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School.
• Marc Singer is the director of McKinsey’s global customer engagement practice.

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Learn / Guides / Customer journey mapping (CJM) guide

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How 5 businesses successfully mapped out the customer journey

Creating a customer journey map puts you in your customers’ shoes to help you understand the user experience—what your users think, feel, and do at each stage of their buying journey.

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We’ve put together a list of five brilliant customer journey mapping (CJM) examples to show you how it’s done, so you can learn how to improve the user experience (UX) for your customers. 

Want to know how customers really interact with your product?

Hotjar’s product experience insights tools let you see things through their eyes. 

5 great examples of customer journey mapping 

A good customer journey map identifies buyers’ actions, desires, and experiences at every key touchpoint—from when a customer lands on your webpage all the way to conversion, onboarding, and beyond.

Our list of customer journey examples breaks down the best B2B, B2C, ecommerce, and SaaS journey maps—and shows you how to understand your customers better to build your own.

1. Hotjar’s B2B customer journey map 

At Hotjar (👋), we make product experience (PX) insights tools to help businesses understand how their customers interact with their websites and digital products. And, of course, we’ve done some B2B customer journey mapping of our own to understand what our customers want, by tracking their interactions across key touchpoints. 

The result was the digital customer journey example shown above that maps our customers' experience when they use Hotjar tools for product testing. We visualized the key actions, questions, technical limitations, and opportunities of customers using our tools to get granular data to validate our product ideas and experiments. 

We started by identifying one specific customer journey, then used Google Analytics, Hotjar tools, and data from customer interactions with our brand to understand user actions, thoughts, and feelings. Then, we got UX, dev, engineering, and customer success teams to fill out empathy maps before mapping the journey. 

To increase empathy with our customers, we included two rows dedicated to pain points and happy moments—like the pain of finding patterns in complex customer data, and the ‘a-ha moment' when our users first realize value.  

We made our map flexible enough to be updated as customer needs change and new information becomes available, so we continually validate our assumptions against customers’ real-world experiences.

The benefits of customer journey mapping included helping us visualize customer motivations, drivers, and pain points, align cross-functional teams , eliminate silos, and clarify who owns each part of the buyer journey. 

How B2B companies selling self-serve digital products can create a similar map: 

1. Define the goal and scope of your customer journey map. We recommend starting with a narrow scope and only a few people involved. Focus on a specific problem you can break down into a few steps—like identifying where you’re losing users, and mapping out the pains, desires, and experiences of customers who exit your site.

Ask yourself: 

What do you want to achieve? 

Which customer journey touchpoints do you want to focus on? 

What KPIs do you want to measure? 

Where can you get the data you need? 

Which teams need to be involved?   

2. Use Google Analytics and Hotjar's Observe tools to collect user insights about online interactions:

Create Hotjar Heatmaps on key product pages to see where users are clicking and which parts of your page aren’t engaging users or working as intended. Then, improve UX and optimize the placement of on-page elements to boost conversions. 

Use Session Recordings to see how users scroll, click, and move around your site across an entire session. Focus on spotting bugs and blockers that cause them to bounce. 

3. Add qualitative user data from service chat logs, emails, or by asking customer support teams. 

4. Get key product and customer service teams to fill in an empathy map detailing what your buyers do, say, see, hear, think, and feel. Feel free to steal our free template below!

5. Map the journey with Post-its and pens before digitizing it and sharing it across the company. 

2. Rail Europe’s B2C journey map 

B2C ecommerce travel provider Rail Europe gives customers an easy way to book rail tickets online. Their on-site user interface (UI) is strong, but the company wanted to go deeper to understand the customer journey across all touchpoints. 

Mapping the customer journey produced a full spectrum customer experience map that illustrates the buyer's journey before, during, and after a purchase. It reminded their team that the buyer journey starts long before a customer lands on the website to book a ticket—and continues after the trip, through touchpoints like post-trip refunds, sharing recommendations, or publishing photos on social media. 

Rail Europe’s customer journey map also shows the transition between stages or channels to accurately visualize what is often a non-linear journey . For example, in the initial research, planning, and shopping phases, customers often move back and forth between comparison pages, checking timetables, and website chat and planning features.  

Mapping the journey like this helps Rail Europe understand different customers’ channel preferences, see which touchpoints aren’t working as they should, and which aspects of the user experience need more attention from design teams, marketing, and customer support. They visualized actions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences and rated the customer satisfaction of each stage, as well as the relevance and helpfulness of Rail Europe, to home in on areas for improvement.

The map doubles down on customer empathy by identifying travelers’ overall concerns and frustrations while on the trip, even those unrelated to their rail journey—the overall travel experience is still connected with the company brand in customers’ minds. 

This stand-alone map can be understood across teams without supporting materials, and there’s a focus on actionable insights—like the need to address customer frustrations over snail mail ticket delivery. 

Ecommerce website analysis like this is valuable for any company selling experiential products or services, like concert tickets, vacations, or tours. If that’s you, follow Rail Europe’s example and conduct customer journey map research by surveying current and potential customers to uncover exactly what they’re hoping for, thinking, and feeling as they engage with your brand.

Tips to map out the ecommerce customer journey:

1. Ask yourself: 

How can we access users who aren’t yet customers? 

What happens before the customer gets to our web page? How do they do research for a trip? What kinds of search keywords do they use online?  

Is the buyer journey non-linear? If not, how can we represent this? 

2. If your buyer journey has multiple touchpoints, group them into categories like 'research and planning', 'shopping', 'booking', etc. 

3. Match survey insights to touchpoints and map out the journey visually, adding qualitative insights about what the customer is thinking, feeling, and doing at each stage. 

💡 Pro tip: use Hotjar Surveys to collect real-time suggestions about your website or app from users to make data-driven decisions and validate assumptions that inform and elevate your customer journey map. 

Hotjar’s no-code UI makes it easy to create drag-and-drop surveys  

3. Rewind’s SaaS customer journey map 

Rewind makes backup & restoration software for SaaS platforms. Their team decided to map out the B2B SaaS customer journey when revenue fell short of expectations after the acquisition of a similar product. It also became clear that marketing efforts weren’t attracting the ideal customer.

Like many SaaS companies, Rewind relied on sales calls and customer relationship management (CRM) data to understand their users. But they were missing key insights about what happens before the customer lands on their website. 

To map the journey, the Rewind team defined their ideal customer profile (ICP) before conducting customer interviews to deeply understand buyer motivations and the decision-making process. They also used Google Analytics, Hubspot , and PX insights tools to understand users’ online behavior and how they were interacting with marketing materials. 

This showed them a short, high-intent, back-and-forth customer journey that happens almost exclusively online—since Rewind is installed in SaaS platforms, a lot of traffic is referred from their app marketplaces. 

The map showed event triggers and the customer’s thoughts and feelings as they moved through becoming aware of their problem (loss of important data), understanding the need for a solution, and doing online research—before arriving at Rewind.  

By mapping the full journey, the Rewind team discovered that customers often use professional forums or communities as part of solution research, and discovered a new buyer motivation and market segment: data compliance. 

According to Content Lift Founder Ryan Paul Gibson , who helped Rewind conduct customer interviews, the company also realized “potential buyers don’t want to speak with sales or ‘get a demo'. They want to research the product themselves and evaluate it. They also don’t want to enter a credit card to test it; they want to try it first and pay if it’s a good fit.” 

Rewind updated their go-to-market strategy, personas, product positioning , and marketing to complete these missing steps in the customer journey map.

The result? A two-fold increase in product installations, and better internal alignment on their ICP—which has improved their efficiency and helped them maximize resources. 

To create a great SaaS customer journey map: 

Set your research objectives

Create a list of topics that align with your ideal buyer journey. For example, in Rewind’s case, they were customers’ reasons for buying, details about their company and role, and what caused them to start searching for a solution. 

Create questions to ask customers during interviews, but leave flexibility for discussion.

Run in-depth customer interviews to capture the exact order of events in the buyer journey and make sure you understand every customer action and touchpoint—from users identifying a problem to making a purchase.

Bucket interview insights into user priorities, pains, and anxieties—what happened to trigger a search; which research channels the customer uses; how they evaluate solutions.

4. Spotify’s B2C customer journey map 

When music streaming app Spotify mapped the user journey, their team focused on tracking touchpoints for one specific feature: sharing playlists via third-party apps.  

Their map zeroes in on clearly defined user personas and identifies key areas of customer engagement with a focus on users’ emotions and thoughts at each stage.

The team’s journey mapping research revealed a key customer pain point—fear of being judged for their music taste—that can hold users back from sharing music. They also identified an awareness gap to address: some users didn’t know the feature existed. 

By mapping the user journey, Spotify improved their UI and in-app flows to streamline the customer experience and make every touchpoint relevant to how real customers use the product.  

Mapping user flows is key for digital B2C brands with a product that lives and dies by good usability—and a business model that relies on customer loyalty. 

To map the user journey before improving or launching a feature:  

Conduct market research based on direct and indirect competitors to understand how people use similar features, and what they expect from yours. 

In user interviews , focus on the specific feature or stage of the journey. Why aren’t customers using it as you’d like? What are the barriers to product adoption? Dig deep into what motivates users to complete a specific action—and what blocks them.  

Using interview data, create a buyer persona and include their key needs and motivations. What can you do to bring this feature to their attention and boost adoption? 

Create a customer journey map combining stages in the user’s interaction with the feature, and break down the actions they take and the thoughts and emotions they have at each stage. 

Use these insights to remove friction and improve user flows, validating your design with real users. 

Pro tip : use Hotjar's Observe tools to study Session Recordings and Heatmaps and get insights into the product experience of real or test users at every point in the customer journey.

Heatmaps show you an intuitive aggregated view of which parts of your site are attracting attention and which aren’t to help you make changes that improve UX

5. Emirates Airline’s multi-channel customer journey map 

To reflect their customers’ multi-channel journey, flag carrier Emirates created a CJM that covers reservations, check-in, and onboarding experiences. 

As well as digital channels, the map includes call center interactions, which provide context for interactive voice response (IRV) technology and human service agents. It also sheds light on customer desires, broken down into categories like ‘comfort’, ‘safety’, ‘confidence’, and ‘freedom & control’, shown in the corners of the map.

With a global brand like Emirates, customers expect the same experience at all touchpoints, in all countries. This exercise helped the Emirates team understand customers’ main interactions and expectations to better coordinate service touchpoints and provide a consistent, high-quality experience across each one.  

For example, they set up a single, virtual contact center platform to increase efficiency and ensure consistent interactions across every channel. It’s not just the customer who benefits: the Emirates team now better understands exactly how to meet user needs across several channels and countries.

This map is ideal for businesses whose customer journey combines online and offline touchpoints, especially companies looking to differentiate themselves through the quality of their service. 

How to implement a multi-channel customer journey map: 

Define your key goals for producing the map.

Conduct thorough market research and customer interviews to reduce your assumptions and understand every single interaction and channel customers experience.

Interview customer experience and support staff members at all touchpoints and in all regions.

Use analytics tools and product experience insights software to understand how buyers interact with your digital marketing, website, and chat functions across channels and locations.  

Use AI to analyze customer call recordings for tone and sentiment.

Pro tip: use Hotjar Feedback widgets to get in-context insights about what users really think about your app or website. You can filter feedback by region or channel to better understand your global customer touchpoints.

Hotjar's non-invasive Feedback widgets allow customers to give their opinions of your website or product as they experience it.

You’ve reached your destination: a truly valuable customer journey map  

Customers interact with your brand over a variety of channels and touchpoints, and their journeys aren’t always linear. But understanding their journey is key to improving your product and boosting customer acquisition, adoption, and retention. 

Follow these customer journey mapping examples to experience key touchpoints from your users’ point of view and grasp their pains, needs, and frustrations so you can build a journey your customers will love.

Want to know how customers really interact with your brand?

Frequently asked questions about customer journey mapping, what are the stages of the customer's journey.

Buyer journeys can typically be broken down into three steps or stages: 

Awareness of a problem or pain

Consideration (researching and evaluating solutions)

Making a decision

What does a strong customer journey map look like?

A good customer journey map includes all the touchpoints where a customer interacts with your brand. It should include the various stages of the marketing and sales cycle, customer touchpoints across your product and website, and map out customers’ actions, thoughts, and feelings at each stage, as well as KPIs.

For example, Rail Europe’s customer journey map tracks all the stages of research, planning, and shopping, through to booking, travel, and post-travel. At each stage, it maps out customer questions, concerns, and feelings, as well as the helpfulness and relevance of Rail Europe.

What are the stages of customer journey mapping?

Customer journey map stages are: 

Collecting data and conducting customer interviews or surveys 

Mapping the customer journey in a workshop

Extracting insights and producing a report

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Customer Journey Mapping Both Online and Offline: an IKEA Case Study

But IKEA is known for way more than their friendly priced food. Most people seem to absolutely love the store, but it’s almost paradoxical in how they also lovingly mention their frustration at how much time and money they end up spending on their “IKEA runs”. 

This got us thinking about the customer experience in these stores. In a world where we’re told to simplify our digital customer journeys from point A to point B so that everyone can get what they want as quickly as possible, how has IKEA found so much success in their meandering store layouts?

If you haven’t yet seen one of their layouts, take a look at this map.

Source: https://m.ikea.com/au/en/stores/tempe/storemap/

Not your typical point A to point B trip, right? There’s a good reason for that.

A lay of the land

In case you haven’t yet had the pleasure to pay IKEA a visit, let’s try to paint a picture of what the experience looks like, using our imaginary friend (customer persona) named Sally.

Upon entering the store, Sally is greeted by the store staff and provided with a signature blue shopping bag. Then off she goes on her journey. 

We’re pretty sure that Sally has one or two things in mind that she needs to buy. However, before actually getting to buy anything, she has to go through multiple showrooms. These showrooms serve as a physical catalog of furniture that can later be picked up. After finding her way through the maze of showrooms, possibly a quick cafe stop (yum, meatballs), and endless buckets of “on-sale” stuff, Sally can finally get to the warehouse section to pick up the furniture she wanted. “Finally!” she thinks…with a big bag full of things she maybe doesn’t actually need in hand. An hour ago she had just wanted a desk. 

What happened to Sally is an extremely typical situation for anyone who has ever shopped in IKEA. The store has been intentionally laid out in a way to have Sally see the store in its entirety before she’s able to leave. It exposes Sally to more goods and subsequently more temptations. Just like a kid in a candy store.

So what can we, digital product lovers and founders, learn from IKEA? – Customer journeys matter. Let’s break down why that is.

Customer Journeys 101

Unlike the sales funnel analysis (which we’ve written about in our last walkthrough), customer journey mapping is not linear. Let’s imagine a scenario to illustrate what we mean. 

Sally is a well-informed customer. She did a lot of research before going to IKEA, even asking her friends and family for advice. She may have even chosen a specific desk she wanted. But Pete (another hypothetical buyer), on the other hand, is not like that. He just went to IKEA to get a desk and grabbed the first one he saw. 

In terms of funnel analysis, Pete and Sally arrive at the IKEA store at a similar point in their readiness to buy something. However, customer journey mapping digs deeper into the intricacies of the buyers’ behavior within the funnel, including the context, emotions, goals, and other aspects of their behaviors and surroundings. That’s the key reason why customer journey maps (CJMs) are valuable to lay out.

What is a customer journey map?

Here's a customer journey map we created for one of our clients. The purpose of it was to help them redesign their website. We used a tool called UXpressia to create this journey.

A customer journey map is a visualization of the series of steps a customer must take to interact with a product in relation to things like their thoughts, emotions, goals, and motives. So, for Sally with IKEA, these steps could look something like this:

• sees a big billboard advertising furniture at IKEA;
• realizes she needs a new desk;
• drives to the closest IKEA store;
• walks into the store and picks ups the shopping bag;
• leaves the store;
• uses this piece of furniture every day

These bullet points are called touchpoints, i.e. every interaction between Sally and anything that's related to IKEA's brand.

Despite the usefulness of the customer journey mapping, it is by definition a generalization. As with any generalization, there is a certain degree of inaccuracy, but this does not outweigh the value that customer journey maps bring to the table.

Why bother creating a customer journey map?

Shortlisting the touchpoints is helpful whether or not you have a digital or physical product already created, or are planning to develop one.

If you wonder what we mean by “how people actually use your product” take a look at this picture.

Source: Fred Steube’s twitter (@Steube)

See? Make sure you know your customers’ shortcuts 🙂

Before we dive into how customer journeys can be mapped, let’s take a look at what a bad customer journey might look like.

An equally poor blunder is to create a customer journey and then leave it forgotten and abandoned on your Google Drive or network folder. Just like all your business activities,  this map has a purpose . Depending on that purpose, you  should customize your CJM and then put it into action.

How do I create a customer journey?

The tools .

Literally, grab a piece of paper and a pen. If you prefer digital tools, open an Excel or Miro board. You can go as far as using designer tools like Sketch, Figma, or UXPressia. Whatever works best for you!

As you begin to create your first customer journey, it’ll be helpful to think about your Ideal Customer Persona (ICP). Having an ICP is crucial to every business for many different reasons, but when it comes to creating a customer journey map, this knowledge will help you understand a ton of things. 

A good persona profile will tell you how busy your customers are, what their goals and priorities are, what they look for in the products they use, and many other demographics and psychographics. When in doubt, the ICP should always be your guide.

Don’t have an ICP yet? Check out this article  to create one, or contact us . We’d be happy to help.

1. Write down the touchpoints

It’s usually advisable to split the touchpoints into logical sections. We can borrow the terminology from funnel analysis; feel free to modify the jargon if necessary, since some customer journeys do not entail buying something. 

Let’s write the sections horizontally.

Great! Now let’s start filling in some touchpoints for Sally and IKEA. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll minimize the number of them.

If you want to see the bigger picture here’s the link to the whole journey.

Touchpoints

Sally moves into a new appartment. She naturally needs furniture. Alongside with the new apartment Sally got an IKEA discount code.

Interest & Consideration

Sally goes online to research the options IKEA can provide her with. She also scrolls through different review sites to see what other people have to say about IKEA, and compares the prices for other furniture retailers too.

Sally drives to the closest IKEA store, enters the supermarket, gets the shopping bag, and enters the showroom.

Having gone through multiple showrooms, Sally has chosen a piece of furniture she wants. She also noticed a couple of buckets with products on sale, so she picked out a few other things she might need.

While heading to the warehouse, Sally also goes through the market hall. Again, Sally sees a lot of things she’ll probably need like lamps or curtains, so she picks up more stuff.

Having arrived at the warehouse Sally wants to collect the piece of furniture she’s chosen. But then she realizes it might be too big to fit in her car.

Sally asks a consultant whether it would be possible to have the furniture delivered to her house. Yes, it is possible. For an extra fee, the IKEA employees can even assemble it. Sally agrees.

Sally’s going home. A bit later that day she has her furniture delivered and assembled. She’s happy about the purchase.

Brand Evangelism

Wanting to share her great experience at IKEA, Sally boasts to her friends that she’s got new furniture. Then, she recommends IKEA to her other acquaintances.

2. Customer’s goals

Understanding the customer’s goals is the easiest way to tell whether your product’s functionality satisfies them. When thinking of goals, try to dig deep into the actual desires your customers have and the optimal ways to satisfy them.

Sally needs a piece of furniture. She’s looking for a store to get one. She’s looking for a balance between quality and cost.

Sally wants to compare the prices to make sure she’s getting a good deal. She also needs to make sure that the product she’s going to buy has good quality.

Sally drives to the closest IKEA store, enters the supermarket, gets the shopping bag and enters the showroom.

Having gone through multiple showrooms, Sally has chosen a piece of furniture she wants. She also noticed a couple buckets with products on sale, so she picked out a few other things she might need.

Sally asks a consultant whether it would be possible to have the furniture delivered to her house. Yes, it is possible. For an extra fee the IKEA employees can even assemble it. Sally agrees.

3. Emotions

Emotions are very often illustrated throughout the process as a squiggly line like the one below. Lines that go up symbolize people’s growing happiness, and lines that go down reflect increasing disappointment and negativity.

Understanding whether your customers are annoyed or enthusiastic is insightful when it comes to analyzing threats and opportunities in the customer journey. For example, when a customer is naturally annoyed, having an upselling pop-up might not the best idea. Conversely, if a customer is cheerful, then it would be great to capitalize on those positive emotions and attempt an upsell.

A little nervous. Sally has already moved in but hasn’t yet fully furnished her apartment. It does not feel like home yet.

Sally feels somewhat enthusiastic, feels like the solution to her problem is right in front of her. She’s still not %100 certain though.

Sally is almost sure that she’s gonna get what she needs here. She’s hopeful.

Sally’s a little overwhelmed. Her check is getting bigger and bigger.

Relieved. Sally wasn’t sure if she can load all her stuff into her car but it turns our IKEA can help her with that.

Sally wants her acquaintances to think that she’s good at giving advice and be useful to others.

4. Key performance indicators (KPIs)

KPIs are especially important if you’re looking to improve your business metrics, but methodically tracking them can be difficult. Tracking these indicators is much easier for digital products due to all the analytics software out there, and the reason is simple: you’re able to know exactly how many people clicked on your ad but there’s no way to know how many people have seen your big board. 

KPIs are great for setting internal goals related to customer engagement and sales.

Number of discount codes.

Number of google searches related to IKEA.

Number of visitors / the amount of money an average customer spends on auxilary products.

Number / percentage of customers who pay for the furniture delivery / assembling.

Customer retention.

5. Problems

View your product as a solution to your potential customers’ problems. In other words, what other problems do your customers tend to have? How can you help them solve it? Is there enough information on the web or other places about the services you provide or the goods you sell? Do your customers have concerns about the quality of your products? Having a good idea of these types of problems will help you answer these questions and drive your revenue up. 

Sally’s apartment is pretty much plain. She wants to make it feel like home. She doesn’t know where she can get good furniture.

There is a lot of information about IKEA and its competitors. It’s quite challenging to digest everything she needs to know.

IKEA store is huge. Sally’s overwhelmed with the options she has. She’s not sure whether she knows enough to make a good decision.

Sally’s getting more and more conscious about her budget. Getting a few things on discount is ok but spending too much on things she doesn’t really need is not.

Sally doesn’t know how to get the piece of furniture delivered to her house.

Sally doesn’t know if it’s worth recommending IKEA to other people cause she’s not sure if she’ll get rewarded.

6. Use your imagination

You can add as many rows as needed to make this customer journey map useful to your business, taking into account as many additional factors as needed. One could consider different demographics and psychographics of your customers, how they find out about your company, if they previously engaging with you online or offline, and what digital devices they use. It’s also worth taking a look at your own processes within the customer journey map, identifying stages that are ripe for optimization? The specifics depend on the kind of business you have, though, and you are the ultimate judge of what’s most relevant.

Your Business Idea 1

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Your Business Idea 2

Your business idea 3, your business idea 4, your business idea 5, your business idea 6, want to understand your customers better .

Bringing the physical world online, and vice versa

All the principles we discuss in this article can and should be applied to software. We used IKEA as an example since their physical journey provides much fodder for discussion. However, we can also explore some digital-first companies and see how their customer journeys also translate into roundabout ways to tempt customers with additional purchases that might satisfy their myriad needs (and whims).

Let’s take Amazon as an example. Unlike IKEA, Amazon provides its customers with an easy and intuitive way to quickly find the main thing they’re looking for, either through the search bar or the product catalog. Customers simply need to type in what they want in the search bar and pick a product. However, in order to expose the shoppers to more “temptations”, there are additional areas of the website, like “compare to similar items”, “customers also search for”, “recommended by Amazon”, and other attention grabbers. 

It’s important to note that customer journey maps don’t only apply to eCommerce or brick-and-mortar stores. They’re useful for any kind of physical or digital product or service. 

Here are a few more examples. 

If you don’t have a paid subscription, Spotify allows up to six skips while you’re listening to music playlists. If you try to skip a song for the seventh time, a “you’ve discovered a premium feature” pop-up appears, subsequently recommending the paid subscription. Allowing six skips helps you see the value in this particular feature, while the pop-up requests you to subscribe in order to have unlimited skips.

Grammarly, a proofreading and spellchecking internet browser extension, also provides a great example of utilizing the right time to upsell. Under the free plan, Grammarly only tells you if you’ve spelled everything correctly. If you also make a stylistic, word-choice, or other types of mistake, it simply alerts you and then suggests subscribing to see the details about what’s wrong. 

As you can see, customer journey maps are very helpful in laying out your customers’ overall experiences in engaging with your company. Positive experiences yield positive results and growth. Negative experiences often yield negative returns. 

Following the steps we outlined should give you a solid template for creating your own customer journey map. Since you’re the person who knows the ins and outs of your product or services and the customers you like working with, you’re the best person to map everything out. However, if you feel like you could use help from a professional, feel free to drop us a line or subscribe to our newsletter for more tips! 

PS. As a reward for you, our beloved reader, who’s made it to the end, here’s a link to our customer journey template. Feel free to copy and modify for your needs.

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How to create a customer journey map — a step-by-step guide with examples

Learning more about client experience is the best way to understand and improve it. As you are reading this article, you already know that 😉 

Here, you will find a detailed step-by-step guide on making a customer journey map (CJM), examples, expert tips, templates, and a PDF guide to download and save for later.

• 1 What is a customer journey map?
• 2 Benefits of client journey mapping
• 3.1 Step 1: Define your persona
• 3.2 Step 2: Set customer journey stages
• 3.3 Step 3: Define journey map sections
• 3.4 Step 4: Set customer goals
• 3.5 Step 5: Define touchpoints
• 3.6 Step 6: Processes and channels
• 3.7 Step 7: Problems and ideas
• 3.8 Step 8: Emotional graph
• 3.9 Step ?: Be Creative!
• 4 Customer journey map examples
• 5 A customer journey mapping checklist
• 6 The free guide to download

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is the final output of the collaborative visualization process called customer journey mapping. This process lets you reveal typical experiences the customers have over time when interacting with your organization, service, or product. A finished map provides insights into their actions, processes, goals, needs, channels, emotions, and many other aspects shaping the customer experience. 

Journey maps can be of different scopes. For example, a broad-scope map would include multiple customer journey stages like ‘Awareness’, ‘Decision’, ‘Purchase’, ‘Support’, and ‘Renewal’. In contrast, a map with a narrower focus would look at a few specific stages like ‘Decision’ and ‘Purchase’.

CJMs focusing on the current experience are AS-IS maps, while journey maps visualizing the future, desired, state of the experience are called TO-BE maps.

There’s also a similar technique, customer experience mapping, which is often used interchangeably with journey mapping. Experience maps are variations of CJMs, but they typically cover a wider range of interactions and contexts beyond a specific consumer-business relationship. 

Benefits of client journey mapping

Why make journey mapping your tool of choice? There are plenty of reasons, the major of which include:

• Gaining a deeper understanding of your customers 

For instance, a high-end fashion retailer may discover that its younger customers prefer online shopping, while older customers enjoy the in-store experience.

• Getting a single view of your customer within the organization

Journey mapping will help you turn a fragmented vision of the customer experience into a unified, organization-wide one. It will have a massive impact on the decision-making process, encouraging you to consider how your actions will affect your clients and become customer-focused.

• Breaking corporate and cross-department silos 

To make the way toward delivering a great customer experience, you will need to collaborate with others. Understanding why this collaboration is essential, departments and employees will be more inclined to participate in conversations and collaborate.

• Improving customer experience, retention, and loyalty

While working on a map, you will discover customer pain points at different stages of their journey with you. Fixing the most crucial one as quickly as possible will do you a good turn by eliminating the reasons for leaving you. If fixes take much time, look for quick wins first. 

For instance, adding details about your shipping policy on the website will take a developer half an hour, while it will set the right expectations among customers. They won’t be expecting the delivery the next day anymore, bombarding your customer support team with frustrated messages. Another example is a subscription-based video streaming service that can personalize content recommendations to keep subscribers engaged and less likely to cancel their subscriptions.

• Better conversion and targeting of your target customers

Sometimes, it makes sense to focus on a specific segment or, talking journey mapping terms, specific personas. Customer journey insights will help you with this endeavor by giving you a glimpse into these people’s minds and ensuring the higher effectiveness of your marketing.

How to build a customer journey map

Although there is no gold standard for creating a customer journey map, we’ll try to create a somewhat generalized map. So that you can use it as a reference when making maps of your own.

We’ll be using our CJM Online tool along the way for two reasons. Because it’s easy to use and lets you create a CJM fairly quickly without wasting time setting up the environment. Oh, and there's a Personas building tool that comes with it 😉

We’ll take a pizza restaurant as an example of business and learn how to make a customer journey map together.

Step 1: Define your persona

Creating personas is a crucial part of customer experience service and journey mapping in particular. We won’t go into details — you can find them in this post about defining personas .

Let’s just say that our persona’s name will be Eva Moline — 29, works as a journalist and loves pizza. Eva is not really tech-savvy, and she tries to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Step 2: Set customer journey stages

Stages are the steps customers take when interacting with a business. The easiest way to identify them is to think of all the actions the person has to take throughout their journey, organize them into logical groups, and name these groups. These will be your map stages. 

The number of stages varies from business to business, but we’ll take 8 for this example:

💡 Expert tips: 

• If you’re unsure about the order or names of the stages, don’t worry about that. You can change both at any time when working on the map.
• If your stages are complex, you can break them into smaller ones. Read this blog post about defining customer journey stages to learn more.

Step 3: Define journey map sections

Sections are horizontal rows with data that, together with the stages you defined, make up a customer journey map.

When picking sections for a map, your choice will depend on your journey’s type and purpose. 

As for UXPressia’s Journey Map tool, it offers a set of more or less universal sections for all kinds of maps. 

We’ll use some of the sections in the current example.

Step 4: Set customer goals

Setting customer goals at each stage is great for multiple reasons:

• It helps you understand how your business goals align with the goals of your customers.
• You can meet your customers’ needs better, gaining their loyalty by helping them achieve their goals at each stage.

Above, you can see some of the goals we set for Eva. They are self-explanatory, so there’s no need for extra details.

Step 5: Define touchpoints

Touchpoints are encounters that happen between your business and customers. In the pizza restaurant example, touchpoints happen:

• At the Awareness phase, when Eva is actively looking for a pizza place nearby. She is asking around, searching locations on Google Maps, etc.
• At the Research phase, when she is trying to find out what people say about the place by asking her friends and reading online reviews.
• At the Arrival stage, when Eva searches for a parking spot and enters the restaurant to get seated after parking the car.
• At the Order stage, when she makes an order and waits for it.
• Time to eat! At this stage, touchpoints occur when Eva is being served and when she is eating her meal.
• At the Leave stage, Eva interacts with the waiter, pays for the meal, etc.
• At the Feedback stage, she goes to the pizzeria’s website and drops a few lines on Instagram.
• At the last stage, Eva gets a promo email from the restaurant with discounts or other special offers.

Defining all the touchpoints is critical because each touchpoint leaves some impression, and your main goal is to keep it up to the mark.

You can also have a separate section to describe the actions your persona takes:

Step 6: Processes and channels

Now, you may want to add some processes and channels to the map. Just to see what channels your persona uses and what types of processes are in their journey. Luckily, our tool lets you do it in the most awesome way. Processes can be linear, non-linear & time-based, cyclic, or bi-directional. In UXPressia, you can specify up to 10 channels per process.

Step 7: Problems and ideas

It’s time to explore problems Eva might have when using our service. It could be a lack of info about the pizza house. Few reviews and ads do not show how our pizza differs from others.

Upon arriving, Eva may struggle with locating the place due to unclear information on signboards or just because of a hard-to-find location.

When making her order, Eva may look for detailed info on dish ingredients to learn whether it contains peanuts she’s allergic to. Descriptions may not be as detailed as she’d want them to be.

While waiting for the pizza, Eva may want to check out the place. Finding a restroom can turn into a nightmare if you don’t have clear signs showing what’s where in the restaurant.

Once you’re done with problems, it’s time to find solutions to these problems. Brainstorm for some ideas on how this or that problem can be solved. Here’s what we brainstormed for Eva’s case:

Step 8: Emotional graph

Never underestimate the power of visualization. And our Customer Journey tool is all about it. We added an emotional graph to see where our service example shines and where it stinks. Plus, we filled text boxes with Eva’s thoughts:

There’s also a special section ( “Think & feel” ) to put personas’ thoughts.

Step ?: Be Creative!

This is a good start, but the map is far from being complete. So, keep exploring Eva’s journey to find more insights and then add all of them to the map.

If you use our tool (which we highly recommend you to do), check out other CJM sections:

• Image section for screenshots, photos, or any other relevant imagery. You can even turn it into a storyboard , describing the journey from beginning to end with your images or those from our library.

• Charts section for communicating data in a visual and meaningful way, just like we did it in the persona:

• Video and document sections for journey-related videos and documentation (e.g., an annual marketing report).
• Personas section for visualizing different personas’ interactions within the same journey.

💡 Expert tip: The section with the persona’s questions works like a charm for marketing and content purposes. So be sure to add one 😉

Customer journey map examples

There are also a whole lot of free CJM templates for all sorts of journeys in our library. Here are three examples we picked for you.

• Example 1: a mobile user journey

This user journey map template covers the digital experience of the persona who discovers a new mobile app, installs it, and uses the app for some time before deleting it.

• Example 2: a client journey map for a corporate bank

This free template is an example of a multi-persona, B2B customer journey. The key persona is a newly opened company looking for a bank to run their business. The CJM also visualizes interactions between the personas involved. 

• Example 3: a digital customer journey

This customer journey map example shows the digital journey of three customer personas who want to buy a new pair of sneakers online. They go through the same stages, but if you look at the map, you will be able to see the differences in customer behavior, goals, and actions. It’s also a multi-persona journey map .

A customer journey mapping checklist

As a quick recap, here is a checklist with key steps to follow when creating a customer journey map:

• Do research

To represent real people, your real customers, and visualize their journeys, you must base your personas and journey maps upon actual data.

• Define your customer persona(s)

Identify your target personas. Create detailed profiles focusing on information relevant to your journey mapping initiative. Include such details as background, customer needs, motivations, channels, etc. 

• Specify journey map stages

Determine the stages you want to have on your map and come up with their names.

• Decide on the map sections

Determine which sections to include in your map (e.g., actions, touchpoints, emotions, channels).

• Set customer goals for each stage

Make sure that it is your customers’ goals, not your business goals.

• Identify touchpoints between the persona(s) and your organization, product, or service

Consider both online and offline interactions.

• Map out processes and channels

Visualize the journey-specific processes and the channels your customers use at each stage. Include both digital and physical channels.

• Highlight problems and look for opportunities

Identify any pain points and issues customers might encounter. Brainstorm potential solutions and quick wins to improve the experience.

• Add details about the emotional experience

Visualize the persona’s emotional journey. Include thoughts and feelings where it’s relevant.

• Use more sections

Include illustrations, images, and charts to make the map visually engaging and easy to understand. Enrich your journey map with more data, like KPIs related to journey stages.

Feel free to tailor this checklist to the specific context of your business and your project's needs.

The free guide to download

As a bonus, download our free customer journey mapping guide. Fill in the form below to get a PDF file as an email.

Related posts

The post was originally written in 2017.

Rate this post

first of all, excellent example and I’m very happy to I could understand how to create user journey map, due to for a long time I can’t understand it and how, many thanks for your efforts 🙂 I have some question about ser journey map. I hope to open your chest for me,

1-no there are rules for user journey map? 2-I need another example ?(for example Uber)?further understand 3-have I create user journey map without customer?

Hello, Karim!

I am very glad that this article helped you understand customer journey mapping 🙂

In regards to your first question, I would say that journey maps differ from business to business. However, they tend to have the same structure give or take. So no matter what industry you make a CJM for, you will end up having several stages and a bunch of sections we mentioned in this post.

If you’re looking for CJM examples of Uber customers, here is one: https://www.mindomo.com/doc.htm?d=92be818b774d422bad7eab790957ebc0&m=7d286174ccf1450bbb77c921a609ff65 Plus we have a lot more on our template page: https://uxpressia.com/templates

As for your last question, yes. You may have a journey map without a customer (persona) and use target audience segments instead (or have a generic map without personas at all, though I don’t recommend the latter as in this case it will be hard to empathize with real people). So you will certainly have to introduce a customer down the road to gain a deeper understanding of the journey.

many thanks for your reply to me and again I have some questions

1-why you don’t use in your example? user experience, empathy maps such as use goal touch point, and how to create it 2-As for the previous example (Uber) very confuse for me not as your example

Could you please rephrase your first question? And as for the Uber map, well, that’s all I managed to find. 🙂 But again, here you can find a hundred of map examples of all stripes and colors: https://uxpressia.com/templates

welcome again, my question is? what’s different between Aware and Research

The differences come from the names.

At the aware stage your client realizes that there’s a need for a service/product. Or they find out that your company exists and offer a desired service.

While at the research stage they either do research on your business (e.g. visit your website or ask their friends if they used your service) or they research what is out there on the market that can help them.

Makes sense? 🙂

Thank you for this,

I am wondering , Have you done examples on B2B services. I work in Accreditation & Certification, this seems to be the least visited topic in marketing platforms and blog sites.

We have some B2B templates in our Template Library . Type B2B tag in the search placeholder and you will see all categories with the fitting templates. You can also explore the B2B mapping guide here .

Good luck and happy customers!

Great article, well articulated and detailed. I am starting off with service design and was wondering if I could get some advice mapping out a customer journey for a specific project. I was mapping out how do one approach to repair services?

Hi Shreya, glad you liked the article!

If you’re dealing with home repair, I might suggest our pre-filled template for an interior design agency customer journey: https://uxpressia.com/templates/real-estate . Templates can be a great starting point even if they’re not a 100% match to your use case.

Other than that, you will need to create a persona. If you don’t have any research data yet, do it based on your assumptions. Then, try to visualize what their experience across all stages and interactions with the repair service might be. Once you have the first draft, you can proceed with validating it and adding more data as it comes in.

If you have more context on the project, I can look into it and come up with specific tips 🙂

I very delighted to find this internet site on bing, just what I was searching for as well saved to fav

Thank you for sharing, it was something I researched.

Hi Rok! Happy mapping 🙂

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The complete guide to customer journey stages.

12 min read If you want to turn a potential customer into a lifetime one, you’ll need to get to know every step of the entire customer journey. Here’s why the secret to customer retention lies in knowing how to fine-tune your sales funnel…

What is the customer journey?

What do we actually mean when we talk about the customer journey? Well, the simplest way to think about it is by comparing it to any other journey: a destination in mind, a starting point, and steps to take along the way.

In this case, the destination is not only to make a purchase but to have a great experience with your product or service – sometimes by interacting with aftersale customer support channels – and become a loyal customer who buys again.

And, just like how you can’t arrive at your vacation resort before you’ve done you’ve found out about it, the customer journey starts with steps to do with discovery, research, understanding, and comparison, before moving on to the buying process.

“Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20% but also lift revenue up by 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%”

– McKinsey, The Three Cs of Customer Satisfaction

In short, the customer journey is the path taken by your target audience toward becoming loyal customers. So it’s really important to understand – both in terms of what each step entails and how you can improve each one to provide a maximally impressive and enjoyable experience.

Every customer journey will be different, after all, so getting to grips with the nuances of each customer journey stage is key to removing obstacles from in front of your potential and existing customers’ feet.

Free Course: Customer Journey Management & Improvement

What are the essential customer journey stages?

While many companies will put their own spin on the exact naming of the customer journey stages, the most widely-recognized naming convention is as follows:

• Consideration

These steps are often then sub-categorized into three parts:

• Sale/Purchase

It’s important to understand every part of the puzzle, so let’s look at each sub-category and stage in turn, from the awareness and consideration stage, right through to advocacy:

Customer journey: Pre-sale

In the pre-sale phase, potential customers learn about products, evaluate their needs, make comparisons, and soak up information.

Awareness stage

In the awareness stage, your potential customer becomes aware of a company, product, or service. This might be passive – in that they’re served an ad online, on TV, or when out and about – or active in that they have a need and are searching for a solution. For example, if a customer needs car insurance, they’ll begin searching for providers.

Consideration stage

In the consideration stage, the customer has been made aware of several possible solutions for their particular need and starts doing research to compare them. That might mean looking at reviews or what others are saying on social media, as well as absorbing info on product specs and features on companies’ own channels. They’re receptive to information that can help them make the best decision.

Customer journey: Sale

The sale phase is short but pivotal: it’s when the crucial decision on which option to go with has been made.

Decision stage

The customer has all the information they need on the various options available to them, and they make a purchase. This can be something that’s taken a long time to decide upon, like buying a new computer, or it can be as quick as quickly scouring the different kinds of bread available in the supermarket before picking the one they want.

Customer journey: Post-sale

Post-sale is a really important part of the puzzle because it’s where loyal customers , who come back time and again, are won or lost.

Retention stage

The retention stage of the customer journey is where you do whatever you can to help leave a lasting, positive impression on the customer, and entice them to purchase more. That means offering best-in-class customer support if they have any issues, but it also means being proactive with follow-up communications that offer personalized offers, information on new products, and rewards for loyalty.

Advocacy stage

If you nail the retention phase, you’ll have yourself a customer who not only wants to keep buying from you but will also advocate on your behalf. Here, the customer will become one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal, in that they’ll actively recommend you to their friends, family, followers, and colleagues.

What’s the difference between the customer journey and the buyer’s journey?

Great question; the two are similar, but not exactly the same. The buyer’s journey is a shorter, three-step process that describes the steps taken to make a purchase. So that’s awareness , consideration, and decision . That’s where things stop, however. The buyer’s journey doesn’t take into account the strategies you’ll use to keep the customer after a purchase has been made.

Why are the customer journey stages important?

The short answer? The customer journey is what shapes your entire business. It’s the method by which you attract and inform customers, how you convince them to purchase from you, and what you do to ensure they’re left feeling positive about every interaction.

Why this matters is that the journey is, in a way, cyclical. Customers who’ve had a smooth ride all the way through their individual journeys are more likely to stay with you, and that can have a massive effect on your operational metrics.

It’s up to five times more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing customer, but even besides that: satisfied customers become loyal customers , and customer loyalty reduces churn at the same time as increasing profits .

So companies looking to really make an impact on the market need to think beyond simply attracting potential customers with impressive marketing, and more about the journey as a whole – where the retention and advocacy stages are equally important.

After all, 81% of US and UK consumers trust product advice from friends and family over brand messaging, and 59% of American consumers say that once they’re loyal to a brand, they’re loyal to it for life.

Importantly, to understand the customer journey as a whole is to understand its individual stages, recognize what works, and find things that could be improved to make it a more seamless experience. Because when you do that, you’ll be improving every part of your business proposition that matters.

How can you improve each customer journey stage?

Ok, so this whole customer journey thing is pretty important. Understanding the customer journey phases and how they relate to the overall customer experience is how you encourage customers to stick around and spread the news via word of mouth.

But how do you ensure every part of the journey is performing as it should? Here are some practical strategies to help each customer journey stage sing…

1. Perform customer journey mapping

A customer journey map takes all of the established customer journey stages and attempts to plot how actual target audience personas might travel along them. That means using a mix of data and intuition to map out a range of journeys that utilize a range of touch points along the way.

One customer journey map, for example, might start with a TV ad, then utilize social media and third-party review sites during the consideration stage, before purchasing online and then contacting customer support about you your delivery service. And then, finally, that customer may be served a discount code for a future purchase. That’s just one example.

Customer journey mapping is really about building a myriad of those journeys that are informed by everything you know about how customers interact with you – and then using those maps to discover weaker areas of the journey.

2. Listen like you mean it

The key to building better customer journeys is listening to what customers are saying. Getting feedbac k from every stage of the journey allows you to build a strong, all-encompassing view of what’s happening from those that are experiencing it.

Maybe there’s an issue with the customer sign-up experience, for example. Or maybe the number advertised to contact for a demo doesn’t work. Or maybe you have a customer service agent in need of coaching, who only makes the issue worse. By listening, you’ll understand your customers’ issues and be able to fix them at the source. That customer service agent, for example, may just feel disempowered and unsupported, and in need of the right tools to help them perform better. Fixing that will help to optimize a key stage in the customer journey.

The key is to listen at every stage, and we can do that by employing the right technology at the right customer journey stages.

Customer surveys, for instance, can help you understand what went wrong from the people who’re willing to provide that feedback, but conversational analytics and AI solutions can automatically build insights out of all the structured and unstructured conversational data your customers are creating every time they reach out, or tweet, or leave a review on a third party website.

3. Get personal

The other side of the ‘listening’ equation is that it’s worth remembering that each and every customer’s journey is different – so treating them with a blanket approach won’t necessarily make anything better for them.

The trick instead is to use the tools available to you to build out a personalized view of every customer journey, customer journey stage, and customer engagemen t, and find common solutions.

Qualtrics Experience iD , for example, is an intelligent system that builds customer profiles that are unique to them and can identify through AI, natural language processing , and past interactions what’s not working – and what needs fixing.

On an individual basis, that will help turn each customer into an advocate. But as a whole, you’ll learn about experience gaps that are common to many journeys.

Listening to and understanding the customer experience at each customer journey stage is key to ensuring customers are satisfied and remain loyal on a huge scale.

It’s how you create 1:1 experiences, because, while an issue for one person might be an issue for many others, by fixing it quickly you can minimize the impact it might have on future customers who’re right at the start of their journey.

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Related resources

Customer Journey

Buyer's Journey 16 min read

Customer journey analytics 13 min read, how to create a customer journey map 21 min read, b2b customer journey 13 min read, customer interactions 11 min read, consumer decision journey 14 min read, customer journey orchestration 12 min read, request demo.

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What is a Customer Journey Map? [Free Templates]

Learn what the customer journey mapping process is and download a free template that you can use to create your own customer journey map.

Table of Contents

Mapping the customer journey can give you a way to better understand your customers and their needs. As a tool, it allows you to visualize the different stages that a customer goes through when interacting with your business; their thoughts, feelings, and pain points.

And, it’s shown that the friction from those pain points costs big: in 2019, ecommerce friction totaled an estimated 213 billion in lost US revenue .

Customer journey maps can help you to identify any problems or areas where you could improve your customer experience . In this article, we’ll explain what the customer journey mapping process is and provide a free template that you can use to create your own map. Let’s get started!

Bonus: Get our free, fully customizable Customer Experience Strategy Template that will help you understand your customers and reach your business goals.

What is a customer journey map?

So, what is customer journey mapping? Essentially, customer journey maps are a tool that you can use to understand the customer experience. Customer journey maps are often visual representations showing you the customer’s journey from beginning to end. They include all the touchpoints along the way.

There are often four main stages in your sales funnel, and knowing these can help you create your customer journey maps:

• Inquiry or awareness
• Interest, comparison, or decision-making
• Purchase or preparation
• Installation, activation, or feedback

Customer journey maps are used to track customer behavior and pinpoint areas where the customer experiences pain points. With this information uncovered, you can improve the customer experience, giving your customers a positive experience with your company.

You can use customer journey mapping software like Excel or Google sheets, Google Decks, infographics, illustrations, or diagrams to create your maps. But you don’t actually need customer journey mapping tools. You can create these maps with a blank wall and a pack of sticky notes.

Though they can be scribbled on a sticky note, it’s often easier to create these journeys digitally. That way, you have a record of your journey map, and you can share it with colleagues. We’ve provided free customer journey mapping templates at the end of this article to make your life a little easier.

The benefits of using customer journey maps

The main benefit of customer journey mapping is a better understanding of how your customers feel and interact with your business touchpoints. With this knowledge, you can create strategies that better serve your customer at each touchpoint.

Give them what they want and make it easy to use, and they’ll keep coming back. But, there are a couple of other great knock-on benefits too.

Improved customer support

Your customer journey map will highlight moments where you can add some fun to a customer’s day. And it will also highlight the pain points of your customer’s experience. Knowing where these moments are will let you address them before your customer gets there. Then, watch your customer service metrics spike!

Effective marketing tactics

A greater understanding of who your customers are and what motivates them will help you to advertise to them.

Let’s say you sell a sleep aid product or service. A potential target market for your customer base is young, working mothers who are strapped for time.

The tone of your marketing material can empathize with their struggles, saying, “The last thing you need is someone asking if you’re tired. But we know that over half of working moms get less than 6 hours of sleep at night. While we can’t give you more time, we know how you can make the most of those 6 hours. Try our Sleep Aid today and sleep better tonight.”

Building out customer personas will show potential target audiences and their motivation, like working moms who want to make the most of their hours asleep.

Product advancements or service improvements

By mapping your customer’s journey, you’ll gain insights into what motivates them to make a purchase or prevents them from doing so. You’ll have clarity on when or why they return items and which items they buy next. With this information and more, you’ll be able to identify opportunities to upsell or cross-sell products.

A more enjoyable and efficient user experience

Customer journey mapping will show you where customers get stuck and bounce off your site. You can work your way through the map, fixing any friction points as you go. The end result will be a smoothly-running, logical website or app.

A customer-focused mindset

Instead of operating with the motivation of business success, a customer journey map can shift your focus to the customer. Instead of asking yourself, “how can I increase profits?” ask yourself, “what would better serve my customer?” The profits will come when you put your customer first.

At the end of the day, customer journey maps help you to improve your customer experience and boost sales. They’re a useful tool in your customer experience strategy .

How to create a customer journey map

There are many different ways to create a customer journey map. But, there are a few steps you’ll want to take regardless of how you go about mapping your customer’s journey.

Step 1. Set your focus

Are you looking to drive the adoption of a new product? Or perhaps you’ve noticed issues with your customer experience. Maybe you’re looking for new areas of opportunity for your business. Whatever it is, be sure to set your goals before you begin mapping the customer journey.

Step 2. Choose your buyer personas

To create a customer journey map, you’ll first need to identify your customers and understand their needs. To do this, you will want to access your buyer personas.

Buyer personas are caricatures or representations of someone who represents your target audience. These personas are created from real-world data and strategic goals.

If you don’t already have them, create your own buyer personas with our easy step-by-step guide and free template.

Choose one or two of your personas to be the focus of your customer journey map. You can always go back and create maps for your remaining personas.

Step 3. Perform user research

Interview prospective or past customers in your target market. You do not want to gamble your entire customer journey on assumptions you’ve made. Find out directly from the source what their pathways are like, where their pain points are, and what they love about your brand.

You can do this by sending out surveys, setting up interviews, and examining data from your business chatbot . Be sure to look at what the most frequently asked questions are. If you don’t have a FAQ chatbot like Heyday , that automates customer service and pulls data for you, you’re missing out!

Get a free Heyday demo

You will also want to speak with your sales team, your customer service team, and any other team member who may have insight into interacting with your customers.

Step 4. List customer touchpoints

Your next step is to track and list the customer’s interactions with the company, both online and offline.

A customer touchpoint means anywhere your customer interacts with your brand. This could be your social media posts , anywhere they might find themselves on your website, your brick-and-mortar store, ratings and reviews, or out-of-home advertising.

Write as many as you can down, then put on your customer shoes and go through the process yourself. Track the touchpoints, of course, but also write down how you felt at each juncture and why. This data will eventually serve as a guide for your map.

Step 5. Build your customer journey map

You’ve done your research and gathered as much information as possible, now it’s time for the fun stuff. Compile all of the information you’ve collected into one place. Then, start mapping out your customer journey! You can use the templates we’ve created below for an easy plug-and-play execution.

Step 6. Analyze your customer journey map

Once the customer journey has been mapped out, you will want to go through it yourself. You need to experience first-hand what your customers do to fully understand their experience.

As you journey through your sales funnel, look for ways to improve your customer experience. By analyzing your customer’s needs and pain points, you can see areas where they might bounce off your site or get frustrated with your app. Then, you can take action to improve it. List these out in your customer journey map as “Opportunities” and “Action plan items”.

Types of customer journey maps

There are many different types of customer journey maps. We’ll take you through four to get started: current state, future state, a day in the life, and empathy maps. We’ll break down each of them and explain what they can do for your business.

Current state

This customer journey map focuses on your business as it is today. With it, you will visualize the experience a customer has when attempting to accomplish their goal with your business or product. A current state customer journey uncovers and offers solutions for pain points.

Future state

This customer journey map focuses on how you want your business to be. This is an ideal future state. With it, you will visualize a customer’s best-case experience when attempting to accomplish their goal with your business or product.

Once you have your future state customer journey mapped out, you’ll be able to see where you want to go and how to get there.

Day-in-the-life

A day-in-the-life customer journey is a lot like the current state customer journey, but it aims to highlight aspects of a customer’s daily life outside of how they interact with your brand.

Day-in-the-life mapping looks at everything that the consumer does during their day. It shows what they think and feel within an area of focus with or without your company.

When you know how a consumer spends their day, you can more accurately strategize where your brand communication can meet them. Are they checking Instagram on their lunch break, feeling open and optimistic about finding new products? If so, you’ll want to target ads on that platform to them at that time.

Day-in-the-life customer journey examples can look vastly different depending on your target demographic.

Empathy maps

Empathy maps don’t follow a particular sequence of events along the user journey. Instead, these are divided into four sections and track what someone says about their experience with your product when it’s in use.

You should create empathy maps after user research and testing. You can think of them as an account of all that was observed during research or testing when you asked questions directly regarding how people feel while using products. Empathy maps can give you unexpected insights into your users’ needs and wants.

Customer journey map templates

Use these templates to inspire your own customer journey map creation.

Customer journey map template for the current state:

The future state customer journey mapping template:

A day-in-the-life customer journey map template:

An empathy map template:

A customer journey map example

It can be helpful to see customer journey mapping examples. To give you some perspective on what these look like executed, we’ve created a customer journey mapping example of the current state.

Buyer Persona:

Curious Colleen, a 32-year-old female, is in a double-income no-kids marriage. Colleen and her partner work for themselves; while they have research skills, they lack time. She is motivated by quality products and frustrated by having to sift through content to get the information she needs.

What are their key goals and needs? Colleen needs a new vacuum. Her key goal is to find one that will not break again.

What are their struggles?

She is frustrated that her old vacuum broke and that she has to spend time finding a new one. Colleen feels as though this problem occurred because the vacuum she bought previously was of poor quality.

What tasks do they have?

Colleen must research vacuums to find one that will not break. She must then purchase a vacuum and have it delivered to her house.

Opportunities:

Colleen wants to understand quickly and immediately the benefits our product offers; how can we make this easier? Colleen upholds social proof as a decision-making factor. How can we better show our happy customers? There is an opportunity here to restructure our website information hierarchy or implement customer service tools to give Colleen the information she needs faster. We can create comparison charts with competitors, have benefits immediately and clearly stated, and create social campaigns.

Action Plan:

• Implement a chatbot so customers like Colleen can get the answers they want quickly and easily.
• Create a comparison tool for competitors and us, showing benefits and costs.
• Implement benefit-forward statements on all landing pages.
• Create a social campaign dedicated to UGC to foster social proof.
• Send out surveys dedicated to gathering customer feedback. Pull out testimonial quotes from here when possible.

Now that you know what the customer journey mapping process is, you can take these tactics and apply them to your own business strategy. By tracking customer behavior and pinpointing areas where your customers experience pain points, you’ll be able to alleviate stress for customers and your team in no time.

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Colleen Christison is a freelance copywriter, copy editor, and brand communications specialist. She spent the first six years of her career in award-winning agencies like Major Tom, writing for social media and websites and developing branding campaigns. Following her agency career, Colleen built her own writing practice, working with brands like Mission Hill Winery, The Prevail Project, and AntiSocial Media.

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Customer journey mapping: case study

Table of Contents (Click to show/hide)

Monthly Active User Rate

Daily Campaign Budget

Increase Click-through Rate

Growth Return on Investment

Customer Segmentation

Prioritisation of Limited Resources

Competitive Responses

Consumer Change

Developing Business and Social Innovation through Creativity and Foresight Methods

CustomerJourney Mapping (CJM) is designed to create a deeper understanding ofcustomer’s behaviour by seeking impactful solutions to enhance the customerexperience. Although CJM requires the analysis of both online and offlineinteractions, digital technology plays a primary tracking role in customerjourney mapping. This innovative approachis widely used to serve marketing purposes thus providing valid insights forelevating touchpoints by innovation and creativity (Rosenbaum,Otalora & Ramírez 2017). This essay argues thate-commerce CJM benefits further optimisation in e-commerce by serviceinnovation. This essay also narrates the background and history of CJM will be revealedand provide a compelling example of how CJM innovatesand elevates the customer’s journey in e-commerce. As such, the essay focuseson the e-commerce customer shopping journey and the provisionof critical insights.

The Background of Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping is a visual approach for gaininga profound customer experience insight while an expected action gets performed(Marquez, Downey & Clement 2015). According to Kalbach (2020), JanCarlzon’s concept of ‘moments of truth’ firstly reveals the fundamentalidea of touchpoints – an advocate of ecological view on customer experience(Westley & Mintzberg 1989). In 1994, the concept ofexperience blueprint was explained as “a graphic illustration of experiencetrace to be customised, along with the attachment of personal characters” (Carbone & Haeckel 1994). With that in mind, theconcept of “moment mapping” was introduced in 2002 to form the phases of thecustomer experience (Kalbach 2020; Bernard & Andritsos 2017). The customerjourney mapping has further evolved and made an influential impact from 2012 –businesses now combine with design thinking with customer journey mapping tobring the experience to life (Bernard & Andritsos 2017) (Refer to Figure 1). ‍

A customer journey map illustrates the sequence ofevents which customers may interact with or have conducted during the purchaseprocess (Rosenbaum, Otalora & Ramírez 2017). It uses arrows, text and graphicelements to map the steps of the journey (Kalbach 2020). Every customerinteraction is considered as a touchpoint  that represents an opportunity for theorganisation to take the initiative to optimise the interaction (Marquez,Downey & Clement 2015). The sequence of touchpoints horizontally connectstogether with a process timeline. Thus, the formation of a customer journey mapis accomplished (Refer to Figure 2).

Customer satisfaction and experience are vital tobusiness growth, as 80% of business decisions are based on customer needs(Temkin, McInnes & Zinser 2010). With the development of digitaltechnology, a customer is able to express their thoughts, wants and needs withthe without restriction in time, devices and location (Anderl et al. 2020). Assuch, the utilisation of CJM benefits the business in the following ways:

·            The visualisation of thecustomer journey highlights the various stages and touchpoints on a given task togain a better understanding (Marquez, Downey & Clement 2015).  

·            The understanding isproven to be beneficial for process innovations to better match userexpectations (Willott 2020).

·            User engagement can be improved by identifyingthe “moment of truth” to increase user engagement (Lucidchart 2017).

·            Save cost by eliminatingineffective touchpoints and enhance the future return of investment (Lucidchart2017).

Although CJM enables businesses to access and address any misalignment with delivery,there are some drawbacks in relying on journey maps that may result in thefailure to understand and analyse the quality of customer expectations (Anderl etal. 2020):

·            Despite the benefit of a comprehensiveunderstanding of customer journey, value is always assumedly attributed to thelast action before the conversion. Nevertheless, the credit attributionreceived increased concerns in terms of the importance of channel and thecomplexity of the user journey (Berman 2015).

·            The fixed journey map is unable to cope with thecomplexity of the user journey. It is also not giving any weightage to externalcriteria such as implementation, time-to-market, cost and context (Klaidman 2016; Regalix2019).

·            Journey biases and the inconsistency between “themoment of truth” and the pain points (Klaidman 2016) (Refer to Appendix A).

Customer journey mapping follows the AIDA model（awareness, interests, desires and action）(Willot 2020) (Refer to Figure 3) and provides a useful starting pointto understand the cognitive, affective,and physical responsesof customers (Følstad & Kvale 2018). Therefore, businessescan identify each step and apply analysis to evaluate touchpoints (Figure 4). Digitaltracking tools such as AppsFlyer, Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics arethe primary means to pixel-tracking customer movement from the beginning to theend (Temkin, McInnes & Zinser 2010) (Refer to Appendix B).

Using<<Customer Journey Mapping>> for Innovation

(Note: theCJM example listed below is an e-commerce workshop in the author’s companywhich will be referred to in this essay as “CompB”)

Personalisation is proven to be themost popular trend in user experience optimisation (Berridge 2019). Subjectivespeculation does not truly reflect the authentic experience. Customer journeyrequires advanced analytics technology to conclude an effective result (Google 2020). An innovativeoptimisation process is demonstrated by CompB- an e-commerce retail business’s CJMworkshop that the author supervised (Refer to Figure 5). By analysing thebehaviour funnels, CompB is able to differentiate valuable traffic sources andidentify the funnel that has the highest abandon rate. Furthermore,the HotJar andGoogle Analytic enable the company to investigate the user browsing behaviourindividually. Analysis of company “B”’s success story revealed two key behaviours:

1.      Missing-click area was foundon the category page’s landing strip banner

2.      A “call-to-action” mightincrease click to more in-depth pages

As such, CompB ran two rounds of A/B testing to counter themissing clicks (Refer to Figure 5 and 6):

1.      Remove the landing stripbanner on major categories

2.      Add “call-to-action” tohomepage banner

The company was able todetect a climb in clicks in homepage banners. However, no significant userexperience changes were detected after removing the category landing stripbanner (Refer to Appendix C).

Conclusions

Customerjourney mapping offers opportunities to understand and optimise user experienceamong interactions. The map enables CompB to learn about its traffic status andidentify the pain points in “homepage– category page – product page” funnel touchpoints. The optimisation applieddid not entirely improve the website experience; however, the certainimprovement in user clicks and bounce rate metrics can be traced. As such, thewebsite navigation function is enhanced. In this example, two key insights arerevealed:

A comprehensive, integrated journey map is difficult to make

Each user has a unique journey (Rosenbaum, Otalora & Ramírez 2017). They can interact indifferent channels in different time frames. It is therefore impossible to map allcustomer journeys but measuring the major traffic sources will help theorganisation to become more effective in focusing on optimisation of primary channels.

Optimisation requires designthinking and testing

Utilisingdesign thinking to handle optimisation challenges is proven to be useful inmatching user expectations (Liedtka 2014). CompB did this by creating auser-oriented strategic journey map and utilised different designs to enhancethe website navigation, communication and engagement. Customers were then ableto experience a smooth purchase process in a more aligned and story-tellingway.

In conclusion, customer journey mapping is a comprehensiveand detail-oriented marketing tool that connects the organisation and its usersin terms of interaction. Despite its disadvantage in credit attribution,organisations and businesses will be greatly benefited by creating aclient-focused journey study. With that in mind, user experience should be theultimate principle in strategic business development.

Anderl, E, Becker, I, von Wangenheim, F & Schumann, J 2020,"Mapping the customer journey: Lessons learned from graph-based onlineattribution modeling".

Bernard, G & Andritsos, P 2017, "A Process Mining Based Modelfor Customer Journey Mapping",  Forum and Doctoral ConsortiumPapers Presented at the 29th International Conference on Advanced InformationSystems Engineering (CAiSE 2017) , vol. 1848, pp. 49-56.

Berridge, R 2019, "eStar Chief Client Officer Gets Personal: TheRise of Product Personalisation - Power Retail",  Power Retail ,viewed February 1 2020,<https://powerretail.com.au/editorial-2/estar-chief-client-officer-gets-personal-the-rise-of-product-personalisation/>.

Carbone, L & Haeckel, S 1994, "Engineering CustomerExperiences",  Marketing Management , vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 8-19.

CompB 2019, Customer Journey Mapping Project, (October-December), Sydney:CompB

De Graaf, J 2020, "Ask a researcher:How do needs drive intent?",  Think with Google , viewed January19 2020, <https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-needs-research>.

Følstad, A & Kvale, K 2018, "Customer journeys: a systematicliterature review",  Journal of Service Theory and Practice ,vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 196-227.

Google 2020, "User Explorer - Analytics Help",  Support.google.com ,viewed February 1 2020,<https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6339208?hl=en>.

Kalbach, J 2020, "Mapping Experiences",  O’ReillyOnline Learning , viewed January 26 2020,<https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mapping-experiences/9781491923528/maex_ch10.xhtml>.

Klaidman, S 2016, "The Trouble With Customer Journey Maps -Middlesex Consulting",  Middlesex Consulting , viewed January 292020,<https://middlesexconsulting.com/the-trouble-with-customer-journey-maps/>.

Liedtka, J 2014, "Innovative ways companies are using designthinking",  Strategy & Leadership , vol. 42, no. 2, pp.40-45.

Lucidchart 2017, "How to Create a Customer Journey Map |Lucidchart",  Lucidchart.com , viewed January 29 2020,<https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/how-to-build-customer-journey-maps>.

Marquez, J, Downey, A & Clement, R 2015, "Walking a Mile in theUser's Shoes: Customer Journey Mapping as a Method to Understanding the UserExperience",  Internet Reference Services Quarterly , vol. 20,no. 3-4, pp. 135-150.

Regalix 2019, "Customer journey maps: the good, the bad and theugly – Regalix",  Regalix.com , viewed January 29 2020,<https://www.regalix.com/insights/customer-journey-maps-good-bad-ugly>.

Rosenbaum, M, Otalora, M & Ramírez, G 2017, "How to create arealistic customer journey map",  Business Horizons , vol. 60,no. 1, pp. 143-150.

Temkin, B, McInnes, A & Zinser, R 2010,  Mapping The CustomerJourney , Forrester Research, viewed January 26 2020,<http://crowdsynergy.wdfiles.com/local--files/customer-journey-mapping/mapping_customer_journey.pdf>.

Westley, F & Mintzberg, H 1989, "Visionary leadership andstrategic management",  Strategic Management Journal , vol. 10,no. S1, pp. 17-32.

Willott, L 2020, "How to Create Your Customer Journey Map -Customer Thermometer",  Customer Thermometer , viewed January 292020,<https://www.customerthermometer.com/customer-feedback/how-to-create-your-customer-journey-map/>.

<<Appendix A: “A moment oftruth” and pain point>>

A moment oftruth occurs any time a customer interacts with the organisation (Klaidman2016). Examples can be like performing a search looking for an answer, orderinga takeaway in the menulog app, or even switching on the home appliance. However,the said actions only represent a list of events that customers perform. Theydo not explain the pain point that triggers the bounce. The inconsistencybehind is varied and complicated; it might due to the page layout brings anunpleasant feeling to customers, or the graphic is not navigational and makescustomers feel confused. The customer journey mapping is capable of drawing asequence of  “moments of truth”, but itis challenging to identify the pain point that is resulting in an exit. It isrecommended to use design thinking and A/B testing to develop the keycapability for revolutionary innovators and a potential source of sustainablecompetitive advantage (Bernard & Andritsos 2017).

<<Appendix B: How to create acustomer journey map>>

Productionof a customer journey map requires the following step (Bernard & Andritsos2017):

1)         Collect internal insights;

2)         develop initial hypotheses;

3)         research customer processes, needs, andperceptions;

4)         analyse customer research; and

5)         map the customer journey.

Identifying customer journey stages and defining the customerpersonas are the essential starting point in the mapping setting. It requiresthe organisation to gather the insights and build up profile blocks based ondemographics, background, responses and behaviours. With integratedinformation, the organisation will be able to understand and define customer goals.Once the journey channels are set, the initial journey map can be created fortesting and experiment(Willott 2020).                            

<<Appendix C: CompB’s user journey mapping and optimisation>>

(Note: CompB in the example is a disguise for the businessthat the author works for, which is reffered to in this essay as “CompB”)

Funnel mapis one of the common userjourney maps that demonstrates the user journey by showing traffic amount. By using Google Analytics and HotJar (Figure 7 and Figure8), CompB (2019) found that there is a significantdrop from two funnels: a) Homepage to any deeper pages. b) Category page toproduct page. The lost traffic resulted in low “add-to-cart” action. In orderto understand the real scenario, CompB pulled out the recording and examed theuser experience cases by cases(Refer to Figure 8 and Figure 9).

After analysing the recordings and heatmap, CompB (2019)found that people tend to use the search bar on the homepage instead ofclicking banners. Furthermore, some missing clicks are gathering in the landingstrip banner area. The findings lead to a conclusion that the user might findthe banners confusing, and they are potential pain points. Therefore, an A/Btesting was held to validate the theory.

Dean Long is a Sydney-based performance marketing and communication professional with expertise in paid search, paid social, affiliate, and digital advertising. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Information Systems and Management and is also a distinguished MBA graduate from Western Sydney University.

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Journey Mapping the Customer Experience: A USA.gov Case Study

Journey maps are a visual representation of a customer’s end to end journey with your product or service. They are a powerful tool for exploring key interactions and experiences with your organization, programs, and/or services.

Journey maps describe a customer’s entire journey, even the parts that occur before and after contact with your organization. They typically contain elements such as the customer’s attitudes, emotions, and needs.

We recently updated USA.gov’s personas and used them as the backbone for our journey maps. We updated our personas to help inform our Web design, content, and contact center services.

We have a lot of data that we regularly analyze, and it tells us a lot about our customers’ journeys within a channel, but we knew we needed to better understand our customers’ journeys across channels. This is a best practice to better understand what a customer experiences, where there are disconnects in information, and where improvements can be made to your website, contact center interactive voice response recordings, or service delivery on any channel.

Preparation is Key

We used information in the CX Journey Mapping Toolkit to plan the sessions and our approach. We invited subject matter experts, managers, and other stakeholders to participate in the mapping sessions and designated facilitators to lead the sessions and keep us on track.

One of the most important preparation activities is creating the behavior line. This is the path your customer takes and the journey you’re going to map.

One of USA.gov’s personas, Linda, wants to browse information or learn more on a general topic. We selected “searching for financial assistance from the government” as the topic of Linda’s journey because it’s consistently one of the top reasons customers visit USA.gov or call 1-844-USA-GOV1 , and it falls within the persona category.

To create Linda’s behavior line, we looked at:

• USA.gov Web analytics, including demographics, devices, common paths, popular pages, outbound links, and onsite searches
• Web analytics specifically for our Government Benefits, Grants, and Loans content
• USA.gov customer satisfaction survey data
• Searches on Google that led customers to USA.gov
• Contact center content usage
• Web analytics for other government websites available through the Digital Analytics Program
• General search trends on Google

Once the behavior line was created, we printed each step on one piece of paper. We taped the steps to the wall, with accompanying images, and the facilitators walked the participants through a series of exercises to explore the journey, which includes:

• Employees and systems the customer interacts with personally
• Behind-the-scenes employees and systems that support the direct interactions
• Customer’s attitudes, emotions, and needs
• The highs and lows of the journey

After adding multiple rounds of sticky notes and stickers to mark these different factors, we picked the greatest pain points in the journey and brainstormed ways to improve them.

The four journey mapping sessions generated a total of 110 ideas. Of those ideas, 58 were broad, and many were repeated in each session. Clear themes emerged around areas such as:

• Partnerships
• Contact center operations

The journey mapping process and results helped us clearly see the pain points and gaps in the customer’s experience, including channel, content, and device gaps. It also helped to build empathy and increase understanding with our employees.

Next Steps and Key Takeaways

While the process of journey mapping is enlightening, it doesn’t end with a map. Follow-up and planning for improvement are key. We’ve incorporated many outcomes from our journey maps into our customer experience (CX) improvement queue. We’ve prioritized several projects into our fourth quarter objectives and key results across our content, user experience, performance measurement, and contact center teams.

Some specific priorities in our CX improvement queue:

• Improve our contact center interactive voice response (IVR) menu
• Engage partner agency customers in journey mapping exercises that cross our programs
• Share our data; make better linkages in results that impact our programs (e.g., search results impact on user experience, content usage on Web and in contact center)
• Improve reporting of key results throughout our organization and to senior leadership
• Improve customer understanding by using personas and journey maps as a standard process that we incorporate into the beginning of any new project or product
• Establish a Customer Advisory Council that includes our agency customers; engage them in our USA.gov transformation efforts and problem solving

Journey mapping isn’t a one-and-done project. We are continuing to analyze our results and prioritize areas for improvement, and we’ll continue to map future state journeys to help define desired experiences, keeping the customer at the center of our efforts.

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