customer journey project management

Customer Journey Maps: How to Create Really Good Ones [Examples + Template]

Updated: April 17, 2024

Published: May 04, 2023

Did you know 70% of online shoppers abandoned their carts in 2022? Why would someone spend time adding products to their cart just to fall off the customer journey map at the last second?

The thing is — understanding your customer base can be very challenging. Even when you think you’ve got a good read on them, the journey from awareness to purchase for each customer will always be unpredictable, at least to some level.

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While it isn’t possible to predict every experience with 100% accuracy, customer journey mapping is a convenient tool for keeping track of critical milestones that every customer hits. In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know about customer journey mapping — what it is, how to create one, and best practices.

Table of Contents

What is the customer journey?

What is a customer journey map, benefits of customer journey mapping, customer journey stages.

• What’s included in a customer journey map?

The Customer Journey Mapping Process

Steps for creating a customer journey map.

• Types of Customer Journey Maps

Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices

• Customer Journey Design
• Customer Journey Map Examples

Free Customer Journey Map Templates

Free Customer Journey Template

Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free templates.

• Buyer's Journey Template
• Future State Template
• Day-in-the-Life Template

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The customer journey is the series of interactions a customer has with a brand, product, or business as they become aware of a pain point and make a purchase decision. While the buyer’s journey refers to the general process of arriving at a purchase, the customer journey refers to a buyer's purchasing experience with a specific company or service.

Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey

Many businesses that I’ve worked with were confused about the differences between the customer’s journey and the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is the entire buying experience from pre-purchase to post-purchase. It covers the path from customer awareness to becoming a product or service user.

In other words, buyers don’t wake up and decide to buy on a whim. They go through a process of considering, evaluating, and purchasing a new product or service.

The customer journey refers to your brand’s place within the buyer’s journey. These are the customer touchpoints where you will meet your customers as they go through the stages of the buyer’s journey. When you create a customer journey map, you’re taking control of every touchpoint at every stage of the journey instead of leaving it up to chance.

For example, at HubSpot, our customer’s journey is divided into three stages — pre-purchase/sales, onboarding/migration, and normal use/renewal.

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Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free customer journey map templates.

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Customer journey mapping in 2 and 1/2 days

How to create a customer journey map that improves customer success.

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There’s a common saying that you can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes—and that’s exactly what customer journey maps do: they help you put yourself in different customers’ shoes and understand your business from their point of view.

Why should you do it? How should you do it? Find the answers in this guide, which we wrote after interviewing 10+ customer journey experts who shared methodologies, dos and don’ts, and pro tips with us. 

On this page:

What is a customer journey map?

How to create a customer journey map in 2 and ½ working days

4 benefits of customer journey mapping for your business

In later chapters, we dive deeper into customer journey analytics, workshops, and real-life examples.

Start mapping your customer journey

Hotjar lets you experience the customer journey through their eyes, so you can visualize what’s working and what needs improvement.

A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of how customers interact with and experience your website, products, or business across multiple touchpoints.

By visualizing the actions, thoughts, and emotions your customers experience, a customer journey map helps you better understand them and identify the pain points they encounter. This is essential if you want to implement informed, customer-focused optimizations on your site.

Mapping the customer journey: narrow vs. wide focus

A customer journey map can have a very narrow focus and only look at a few, specific steps of the customer experience or buyer’s journey (for example, a product-to-purchase flow on a website), or it can take into account all the touchpoints, online and offline, someone goes through before and after doing business with you. 

Each type of customer journey map has its advantages:

A CJM with a narrow focus allows you to zero in on an issue and effectively problem-solve 

A CJM with a wide focus gives you a broader, holistic understanding of how customers experience your business

Regardless of their focus, the best customer journey maps have one thing in common: they are created with real customer data that you collect and analyze . The insights are usually organized into a map (hence the name), diagram, or flowchart during a group workshop, which is later shared across the entire business so everyone gets a clear and comprehensive overview of a customer’s journey.

How to create your first customer journey map in 2 and ½ working days

The process of creating a customer journey map can be as long or short as you need. Depending on how many people and stakeholders you involve, how much data you collect and analyze, and how many touchpoints there are across the business, you could be looking at days or even weeks and months of work.

If you’re new to customer journey mapping, start from a narrower scope before moving on to mapping every single customer touchpoint . 

Here’s our beginner customer journey mapping framework to help you create your first complete map in 2 and ½ working days:

Day 1: preliminary customer journey mapping work

Day 2: prep and run your customer journey mapping workshop.

Final ½ day: wrap up and share your results

Download your free customer journey map checklist  (as seen below), to mark off your tasks as you complete them.

On your first day, you have three essential tasks:

Define the goal and scope of your CJM

Collect customer data and insights

Invite your team to a customer journey mapping workshop

Step 1: define the goal and scope of your CJM

Clarifying what part(s) of the journey you're looking at, and why, helps you stay focused throughout the mapping process.

If this is your first map,  start from a known issue or problematic area of your website. Keep the scope small, and focus on anything you can break down into four or five steps. For example:

If you have a high drop-off on a pricing page with five calls-to-action, each of which takes users to a different page, that’s enough for a mappable journey

If your purchase flow is made of five self-contained pages, each of which loses you potential customers, that’s a good candidate for mapping

✅ The output: a one- or two-sentence description of what your map will cover, and why, you can use whenever you need to explain what the process is about. For example: this map looks at the purchase flow on our website, and helps us understand how customers go through each step and the issues or obstacles they encounter. The map starts after users click ‘proceed to checkout’ and ends when they reach the 'Thank You' page .

Step 2: collect customer data and insights

Once you identify your goal and scope, the bulk of your first day should be spent collecting data and insights you’ll analyze as part of your mapping process. Because your map is narrow in focus, don’t get distracted by wide-scale demographics or data points that are interesting and nice to know, but ultimately irrelevant. 

Get your hands on as much of the following information as you can:

Metrics from traditional analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) that give you insight into what’s happening, across the pages and stages your customer journey map covers

Data from analyzing your conversion ‘funnels’ , which record how many visitors end up at each stage of the user journey, so you can optimize those steps for potential customers and increase conversions

Behavior analytics data (from platforms like Hotjar) that show you how people interact with your site. For example, heatmaps give you an aggregate view of how users click, move and scroll on specific pages, and session recordings capture a user’s entire journey as they navigate your site

Quantitative and qualitative answers to on-site surveys relevant to the pages you’re going to investigate, as customer feedback will ultimately guide your roadmap of changes to make to improve the journey

Any demographic information about existing user and customer personas that helps you map the journey from the perspective of a real type of customer, rather than that of any hypothetical visitor, ensuring the journey makes sense for your target audience

Any relevant data from customer service chat logs, emails, or even anecdotal information from support, success, and sales teams about the issues customers usually experience

✅ The output: quantitative and qualitative data about your customers' interactions and their experiences across various touchpoints. For example, you’ll know how many people drop off at each individual stage, which page elements they interact with or ignore, and what stops them from converting.

💡Pro tip: as you read this guide, you may not yet have most of this data, particularly when it comes to heatmaps, recordings, and survey results. That’s ok. 

Unless you’re running your CJM workshop in the next 12 hours, you have enough time to set up Hotjar on your website and start collecting insights right now. The platform helps you:

Learn where and why users drop off with Funnels

Visualize interactions on key pages with Heatmaps

Capture visitor sessions across your website with Recordings

Run on-site polls with Surveys

When the time comes for you to start your customer journey mapping process, this data will be invaluable.

Step 3: invite your team to a customer journey mapping workshop

In our experience, the most effective way to get buy-in is not to try and convince people after things are done—include them in the process from the start. So while you can easily create a customer journey map on your own, it won’t be nearly as powerful as one you create with team members from different areas of expertise .

For example, if you’re looking at the purchase flow, you need to work with:

Someone from the UX team, who knows about the usability of the flow and can advocate for design changes

Someone from dev or engineering, who knows how things work in the back end, and will be able to push forward any changes that result from the map

Someone from success or support, who has first-hand experience talking to customers and resolving any issues they experience

✅ The output: you’ve set a date, booked a meeting space, and invited a group of four to six participants to your customer journey mapping workshop.

💡Pro tip: for your first map, stay small. Keep it limited to four to six people, and no main stakeholders . This may be unpopular advice, especially since many guides out there mention the importance of having stakeholders present from the start.

However, when you’re not yet very familiar with the process, including too many people early on can discourage them from re-investing their time into future CJM tasks. At this stage, it’s more helpful to brainstorm with a small team, get feedback on how to improve, and iterate a few times. Once you have a firm handle on the process, then start looping in your stakeholders.

On workshop day, you’ll spend half your time prepping and the other half running the actual session.

Step 1: prepare all your materials 

To run a smooth workshop, ensure you do the following:

Bring stationery: for an interactive workshop, you’ll need basic materials such as pens, different colored Post-its, masking tape, and large sheets of paper to hang on the wall

Collect and print out the data: use the data you collected on Day 1. It’s good to have digital copies on a laptop or tablet for everybody to access, but print-outs could be the better alternative as people can take notes and scribble on them.

Print out an empathy map canvas for each participant: start the workshop with an empathy mapping exercise (more on this in Step 2). For this, hand each participant an empty empathy map canvas you can recreate from the template below.

Set up a customer journey map template on the wall: use a large sheet of paper to create a grid you'll stick to the wall and fill in as part of the workshop. On the horizontal axis, write the customer journey steps you identified during your Day 1 prep work; on the vertical axis, list the themes you want to analyze for each step. For example:

Actions your customers take

Questions they might have

Happy moments they experience

Pain points they experience

Tech limits they might encounter

Opportunities that arise

Step 2: run the workshop

This is the most interactive (and fun) part of the process. Follow the framework below to go from zero to a completed draft of a map in just under 2 hours .

Introduction [🕒 5–10 min]

Introduce yourself and your participants to one another

Using the one-two sentence description you defined on Day 1, explain the goal and scope of the workshop and the activities it will involve

Offer a quick summary of the customer persona you’ll be referring to throughout the session

Empathy mapping exercise [🕒 30 min]

Using the personas and data available, have each team member map their observations onto sticky notes and paste them on the relevant section of the empathy mapping canvas

Have all participants take turns presenting their empathy map

Facilitate group discussions where interesting points of agreement or disagreement appear

Customer journey mapping [🕒 60 min]

Using Post-its, ask each participant to fill in parts of the map grid with available information. Start by filling in the first row together, so everybody understands the process, then do each row individually (15–20 min). At the end of the process, you should have something like this:

Looking at the completed map, encourage your team to discuss and align on core observations (and take notes: they’ll come in handy on your final half day). At this point, customer pain points and opportunities should become evident for everybody involved. Having a cross-functional team means people will naturally start discussing what can, or cannot, immediately be done to address them (35–40 min).

Wrap up [🕒 5 min]

Congratulations! Your first customer journey map is complete. Finish the session by thanking your participants and letting them know the next steps.

Final half-day: wrap up and share

Once you’ve gone through the entire customer journey mapping workshop, the number one thing you want to avoid is for all this effort to go to waste. Instead of leaving the map hanging on the wall (or worse: taking it down, folding it, and forgetting about it), the final step is to wrap the process up and communicate the results to the larger team.

Digitize the map so you can easily update and share it with team members: it may be tempting to use dedicated software or invest time into a beautiful design, but for the first few iterations, it’s enough to add the map to your team’s existing workflows (for example, our team digitized our map and added it straight into Jira, where it’s easily accessible)

Offer a quick write-up or a 5-minute video introduction of the activity: re-use the description you came up with on Day 1, including who was involved and the top three outcomes

Clearly state the follow-up actions: if you’ve found obvious issues that need fixing, that’s a likely next step. If you’ve identified opportunities for change and improvement, you may want to validate these findings via customer interviews and usability testing.

4 benefits of customer journey mapping

In 2023, it’s almost a given that great customer experience (CX) provides any business or ecommerce site with a competitive advantage. But just how you’re supposed to deliver on the concept and create wow-worthy experiences is often left unsaid, implied, or glossed over.

Customer journey maps help you find answers to this ‘How?’ question, enabling you to:

Visualize customer pain points, motivations, and drivers

Create cross-team alignment around the business

Remove internal silos and clarify areas of ownership

Make improvements and convert more visitors into customers

We’ve done a lot of customer journey work here at Hotjar, so we know that the above is true—but don’t just take our word for it: all the people we interviewed for this guide confirmed the benefits of journey mapping. Let’s take a look at what they shared.

1. Visualize customer pain points, motivations, and drivers

It’s one thing to present your entire team with charts, graphs, and trends about your customers, and quite another to put the same team in front of ONE map that highlights what customers think, want, and do at each step of their journey.

I did my first customer journey map at MADE.COM within the first three months of joining the company. I was trying to map the journey to understand where the pain points were.

For example, people who want to buy a sofa from us will be coming back to the site 8+ times over several weeks before making a purchase. In that time, they may also visit a showroom. So now I look at that journey, at a customer’s motivation for going to the website versus a physical store, and I need to make sure that the experience in the showroom complements what they're doing on-site, and vice-versa, and that it all kind of comes together.

The map helps in seeing that journey progress right up to the time someone becomes a customer. And it also continues after: we see the next touchpoints and how we're looking to retain them as a customer, so that they come back and purchase again.

A customer journey map is particularly powerful when you incorporate empathy into it, bringing to light specific emotions that customers experience throughout the journey.

2. Create cross-team alignment around the business

The best, most effective customer journey maps are not the solo project of the user experience (UX) or marketing team (though they may originate there).

Customer journey maps are a quick, easy, and powerful way to help everybody in your business get a clearer understanding of how things work from a customers’ perspective and what the customers’ needs are—which is the first step in your quest towards creating a better experience for them.

Our first goal for preparing a customer journey map was to improve understanding customers across the company, so that every employee could understand the entire process our clients go through.

For example, people from the shipping department didn't know how the process works online; people from marketing didn't know how customers behave after filing a complaint. Everything seems obvious, but when we shared these details, we saw that a lot of people didn't know how the company itself works—this map made us realize that there were still gaps we needed to fill.

If we discover that customers have a pain point in a specific section of the map, different teams can look at the same section from several angles; customer support can communicate why something is not possible, and engineering can explain why it’s going to take X amount of effort to get it done. Especially in cross-functional teams where we all come from really different disciplines, I find these maps to be an incredible way for us all to speak the same language.

3. Remove internal silos and clarify areas of ownership

As a company grows in size and complexity, the lines of ownership occasionally become blurry. Without clarity, a customer might get bounced like a ping pong ball across Sales, Success, and Support departments—not great for the seamless and frictionless customer experience we all want to offer.

A central source of ‘truth’ in the form of a customer journey map that everybody can refer to helps clarify areas of ownership and handover points.

We were growing as a team, and we realized we needed to operationalize a lot of the processes that, before then, had just been manually communicated. We did it through a customer journey map. Our goal was to better understand where these hand-off points were and how to create a more seamless experience for our customers, because they were kind of being punted from team to team, from person to person—and often, it was really hard to keep tabs on exactly where the customer was in that entire journey.

4. Make improvements and convert more visitors into customers

A customer journey map will take your team from 'It appears that 30% of people leave the website at this stage' to 'Wow, people are leaving because the info is incomplete and the links are broken.' Once everyone is aligned on the roadblocks that need to be addressed, changes that have a positive impact on the customer experience and customer satisfaction will happen faster.

The customer journey map brings it all together: it doesn't matter who you've got in the room. If you’re doing a proper journey map, they always get enlightened in terms of ‘Oh, my word. I did not know the customer's actually experiencing this.’ And when I walk out of the session, we have often solved issues in the business. Accountability and responsibilities have been assigned, and I find that it just works well.

Shaheema (right) working on a customer journey map

Collect the right data to create an effective customer journey map

The secret of getting value from customer journey mapping is not just building the map itself: it's taking action on your findings. Having a list of changes to prioritize means you can also measure their effect once implemented, and keep improving your customers' experience. 

This all starts with collecting customer-centric data—the sooner you begin, the more information you’ll have when the time comes to make a decision.

Start mapping your customer journey today

Hotjar lets you experience your customer’s journey through their eyes, so you can visualize what’s working and what needs improvement.

FAQs about customer journey mapping

How do i create a customer journey map.

To create a useful customer journey map, you first need to define your objectives, buyer personas, and the goals of your customers (direct customer feedback and  market research will help you here). Then, identify all the distinct touchpoints the customer has with your product or service in chronological order, and visualize the completion of these steps in a map format.

What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping provides different teams in your company with a simple, easily understandable visualization that captures your customers’ perspective and needs, and the steps they’ll  take to successfully use your  product or service. 

Consider customer journey mapping if you want to accomplish a specific objective (like testing a new product’s purchase flow) or work towards a much broader goal (like increasing overall customer retention or customer loyalty).

What is the difference between a customer journey map and an experience map?

The main difference between an experience map and a customer journey map is that customer journey maps are geared specifically toward business goals and the successful use of a product or service, while experience maps visualize an individual’s journey and experience through the completion of any task or goal that may not be related to business.

Understanding Customer Journey Management: Mapping Your Way to Enhanced Customer Experiences

All Industries

Though you have probably heard the term customer journey thrown around quite a bit, do you know what it actually means and why it matters? The customer journey refers to the various stages a customer goes through before, during, and after making a purchase, while customer journey management is the process of mapping and optimizing those stages to enhance the overall customer experience.

In this blog, we will delve into the importance of customer journey management. You’ll learn more about the four elements of the customer journey, common touchpoints across those elements, and where your employees will have the most impact.

Measure + improve each step in the customer journey to maximize your XM investments

What is Customer Journey Management and Why Does it Matter?

Customer journey management involves understanding the stages of the customer journey, identifying key touchpoints, and optimizing those touchpoints to enhance the overall customer experience. By doing so, you can create a seamless experience that meets customer needs and expectations, increases customer satisfaction, and ultimately drives customer loyalty and repeat business.

With consumer behaviors constantly evolving, businesses must keep up with those changes to stay relevant and competitive. According to a report by McKinsey , COVID-19 accelerated the shift toward digital channels and transformed customer behavior in many industries. This means that businesses must be agile and adapt quickly to changing customer needs and preferences.

The 4 Elements of a Customer Journey

The customer journey typically consists of four elements: research, shop, purchase, and service. Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements and some common trends associated with them across different industries:

• Use of search engines and social media platforms to find information
• Increasing reliance on user-generated content and reviews
• Growing importance of mobile optimization for websites
• Increasing use of e-commerce platforms and marketplaces
• Growing preference for personalized recommendations and offers
• Rising demand for seamless payment and checkout experiences
• Greater adoption of mobile payments and digital wallets
• Increased focus on sustainability and ethical practices
• Growing demand for fast and reliable delivery options
• Growing preference for self-service and digital support options
• Increasing use of chatbots and other AI-powered tools
• Greater emphasis on customer feedback and reviews

Common Touchpoints Across the Journey

There are many touchpoints across the customer journey, and these can vary depending on the industry, customer preferences, and other factors. Here are some common touchpoints across the four elements of the customer journey:

• Research: Search engines, social media platforms, product reviews, blogs, and forums
• Shop: E-commerce platforms, marketplaces, product listings, personalized recommendations, and offers
• Purchase: Payment and checkout pages, confirmation pages, delivery updates, and order tracking
• Service: Self-service portals, chatbots, customer support channels (email, phone, social media), and customer feedback and reviews

To effectively manage the customer journey, you need to measure and analyze customer interactions at each stage. Some channels you can use for this purpose include:

• Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics
• Social media monitoring and listening tools
• Customer feedback surveys and ratings
• Customer journey mapping software and tools
• Contact center analytics and reporting

Employee Impact on the Customer Journey

When it comes to customer journey mapping, employees play a crucial role in delivering a positive customer experience. The Service Profit Chain, a concept developed by Harvard Business School, highlights the relationship between employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and business performance. In short, happy employees lead to happy customers, which in turn lead to increased profitability for the business.

The impact of employees is particularly significant in the “Shop to Service” element of the customer journey. This is where customers interact with employees directly, either in-person or through customer service channels, to make inquiries, seek advice, or resolve issues. The way employees handle these interactions can make or break the customer experience.

Connecting Employee and Customer Satisfaction

To ensure that employees have a positive impact on the customer journey, businesses must prioritize their employee experience (EX). This involves creating a positive work environment, providing training and development opportunities, recognizing and rewarding performance, and empowering employees to make decisions and solve problems.

How to Map the Customer Journey

Mapping the customer journey for your brand is not a one-size-fits-all process. Each customer journey is unique based on the customer’s needs, preferences, and intentions. It’s important to take a data-backed approach, starting with research to understand your customers and their behaviors. From there, you can identify touchpoints across the journey and gather feedback from customers to understand pain points and areas for improvement.

Partnering with an Experience Management Company

Partnering with a customer experience management company like SMG can be helpful in mapping the customer journey and improving the customer experience. We offer a variety of services, including customer journey mapping, feedback collection and analysis, and employee engagement surveys.

To learn more, request a demo .

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Customer Journey Mapping

Journey mapping helps you visualize how customers experience your product or service, and how they feel along the way. Scroll to step 6 for a real-life example from one of our product teams!

USE THIS PLAY TO...

Understand the customer journey from a specific persona's perspective so that you can design a better experience.

Running the play

Depending on how many touchpoints along the customer journey you're mapping, you might break the journey into stages and tackle each stage in pairs.

Sticky notes

Whiteboards.io Template

Define the map's scope (15 min)

Ideally, customer journey mapping focuses on the experience of a single persona  in a single scenario with a single goal. Else, the journey map will be too generic, and you'll miss out on opportunities for new insights and questions. You may need to pause creating a customer journey map until you have defined your customer personas . Your personas should be informed by  customer interviews , as well as data wherever possible.

Saying that, don't let perfect be the enemy of good! Sometimes a team just needs to get started, and you can agree to revisit with more rigor in  a few months' time. Once scope is agreed on, check your invite list to make sure you've got people who know the details of what customers experience when using your product or service.

Set the stage (5 min)

It's really important that your group understands the user  persona  and the goal driving their journey. Decide on or recap with your group the target persona and the scope of the journey being explored in your session. Make sure to pre-share required reading with the team at least a week ahead of your session to make sure everyone understands the persona, scope of the journey, and has a chance to delve deeper into research and data where needed. Even better- invite the team to run or attend the customer interviews to hear from customers first hand!

E.g. "We're going to focus on the Alana persona. Alana's role is project manager, and her goal is to find a scalable way for her team to share their knowledge so they spend less time explaining things over email. We're going to map out what it's like for Alana to evaluate Confluence for this purpose, from the point where she clicks that TRY button, to the point where she decides to buy it – or not."

Build a customer back-story (10 min)

Have the group use sticky notes to post up reasons why your target persona would be on this journey in the first place. Odds are, you'll get a range of responses: everything from high-level goals, to pain points, to requested features or services. Group similar ideas and groom the stickies so you can design a story from them.

These narratives should be inspired by actual customer interviews. But each team member will also bring a different perspective to the table that helps to broaden the lens.

Take a look at the example provided in the call out of this section. This back story starts with the pain points – the reasons why Alana would be wanting something like Confluence in the first place.

• E.g., "Her team's knowledge is in silos"

Then it basically has a list of requirements – what Alana is looking for in a product to solve the bottom pain points. This is essentially a mental shopping list for the group to refer to when mapping out the customer journey.

• E.g., "Provide structure"

Then it has the outcomes – goals that Alana wants to achieve by using the product

• E.g., "To keep my team focused on their work instead of distracted by unnecessary emails and shoulder-taps"

And finally the highest-level goal for her and her team.

• E.g., "Improve team efficiency"

Round off the back story by getting someone to say out loud what they think the overall story so far is, highlighting the main goals the customer has. This ensures a shared understanding that will inform the journey mapping, and improve the chances that your team will map it from the persona's point of view (not their own).

• E.g., "Alana and her team are frustrated by having to spend so much time explaining their work to each other, and to stakeholders. They want a way to share their knowledge, and organize it so it's easy for people outside their team to find, so they can focus more energy on the tasks at hand."

For example...

Here's a backstory the Confluence team created. 

Map what the customer thinks and feels (30-60 min)

With the target persona, back story, and destination in place, it's time to walk a mile in their shoes. Show participants how to get going by writing the first thing that the persona does on a sticky note. The whole group can then grab stickies and markers and continue plotting the journey one action at a time.

This can also include questions and decisions! If the journey branches based on the answers or choices, have one participant map out each path. Keep in mind that the purpose of this Play is to build empathy for, and a shared understanding of the customer for the team. In order to do this, we focus on mapping the  current state of one discrete end to end journey, and looking for opportunities for improvement.

To do a more comprehensive discovery and inform strategy, you will need to go deeper on researching and designing these journey maps, which will need to split up over multiple sessions. Take a look at the variation below for tipes on how to design a completely new customer journey.

Use different color sticky notes for actions, questions, decisions, etc. so it's easier to see each element when you look at the whole map.

For each action on the customer journey, capture which channels are used for the interactions. Depending on your context, channels might include a website, phone, email, postal mail, face-to-face, and/or social media.

It might also help to visually split the mapping area in zones, such as "frontstage" (what the customer experiences) versus "backstage" (what systems and processes are active in the background).

Journey mapping can open up rich discussion, but try to avoid delving into the wrong sort of detail. The idea is to explore the journey and mine it for opportunities to improve the experience instead of coming up with solutions on the spot. It's important not only to keep the conversation on track, but also to create an artefact that can be easily referenced in the future. Use expands or footnotes in the Confluence template to capture any additional context while keeping the overview stable.

Try to be the commentator, not the critic. And remember: you're there to call out what’s going on for the persona, not explain what’s going on with internal systems and processes.

To get more granular on the 'backstage' processes required to provide the 'frontstage' customer value, consider using Confluence Whiteboard's Service Blueprint template as a next step to follow up on this Play.

ANTI-PATTERN

Your map has heaps of branches and loops.

Your scope is probably too high-level. Map a specific journey that focuses on a specific task, rather than mapping how a customer might explore for the first time.

Map the pain points (10-30 min)

"Ok, show me where it hurts." Go back over the map and jot down pain points on sticky notes. Place them underneath the corresponding touchpoints on the journey. Where is there frustration? Errors? Bottlenecks? Things not working as expected?

For added value, talk about the impact of each pain point. Is it trivial, or is it likely to necessitate some kind of hack or work-around. Even worse: does it cause the persona to abandon their journey entirely?

Chart a sentiment line (15 min)

(Optional, but totally worth it.) Plot the persona's sentiment in an area under your journey map, so that you can see how their emotional experience changes with each touchpoint. Look for things like:

• Areas of sawtooth sentiment – going up and down a lot is pretty common, but that doesn't mean it's not exhausting for the persona.
• Rapid drops – this indicates large gaps in expectations, and frustration.
• Troughs – these indicate opportunities for lifting overall sentiments.
• Positive peaks – can you design an experience that lifts them even higher? Can you delight the persona and inspire them to recommend you?

Remember that pain points don't always cause immediate drops in customer sentiment. Sometimes some friction may even buold trust (consider requiring verification for example). A pain point early in the journey might also result in negative feelings later on, as experiences accumulate. 

Having customers in the session to help validate and challenge the journey map means you'll be more confident what comes out of this session. 

Analyse the big picture (15 min)

As a group, stand back from the journey map and discuss trends and patterns in the experience.

• Where are the areas of greatest confusion/frustration?
• Where is the journey falling short of expectations?
• Are there any new un-met needs that have come up for the user type?
• Are there areas in the process being needlessly complicated or duplicated? Are there lots of emails being sent that aren’t actually useful? 

Then, discuss areas of opportunity to improve the experience. E.g., are there areas in the process where seven steps could be reduced to three? Is that verification email actually needed?

You can use quantitative data to validate the impact of the various opportunity areas identified. A particular step may well be a customer experience that falls short, but how many of your customers are actually effected by that step? Might you be better off as a team focused on another higher impact opportunity?

Here's a user onboarding jouney map our Engaging First Impressions team created.

Be sure to run a full Health Monitor session or checkpoint with your team to see if you're improving.

MAP A FUTURE STATE

Instead of mapping the current experience, map out an experience you haven't delivered yet. You can map one that simply improves on existing pain points, or design an absolutely visionary amazeballs awesome experience!

Just make sure to always base your ideas on real customer interviews and data. When designing a totally new customer journey, it can also be interesting to map competitor or peer customer journeys to find inspiration. Working on a personalised service? How do they do it in grocery? What about fashion? Finance?

After the mapping session, create a stakeholder summary. What pain points have the highest impact to customers' evaluation, adoption and usage of our products? What opportunities are there, and which teams should know about them? What is your action plan to resolve these pain points? Keep it at a summary level for a fast share out of key takeaways.

For a broader audience, or to allow stakeholders to go deeper, you could also create a write-up of your analysis and recommendations you came up with, notes captured, photos of the group and the artefacts created on a Confluence page. A great way of sharing this information is in a video walk through of the journey map. Loom is a great tool for this as viewers can comment on specific stages of the journey. This can be a great way to inspire change in your organization and provide a model for customer-centric design practices.

KEEP IT REAL

Now that you have interviewed your customers and created your customer journey map, circle back to your customers and validate! And yes: you might learn that your entire map is invalid and have to start again from scratch. (Better to find that out now, versus after you've delivered the journey!) Major initiatives typically make multiple journey maps to capture the needs of multiple personas, and often iterate on each map. Remember not to set and forget. Journeys are rapidly disrupted, and keeping your finger on the pulse of your customer's reality will enable your team to pivot (and get results!) faster when needed.

Related Plays

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Shared understanding

Different types of teams need to share an understanding of different things.

LEADERSHIP TEAMS

The team has a  shared vision  and collective  purpose  which they support, and  confidence  they have made the right strategic bets to achieve success.

Proof of concept

Project teams.

Some sort of demonstration has been created and tested, that demonstrates why this problem needs to be solved, and demonstrates its value.

Customer centricity

Service teams.

Team members are skilled at  understanding , empathizing and  resolving  requests with an effective customer feedback loop in place that drives improvements and builds trust to improve service offerings.

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

The practice of customer-journey management.

July 18, 2021 2021-07-18

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Journey management is the ongoing practice of researching, measuring, optimizing, and orchestrating a customer journey to improve the customer experience for users and achieve business goals.

I think of journey management as the natural progression beyond the conventional interaction-level UX work that has been widely established across organizations over the last few decades. As digital technology became a mainstay in modern business, UX practitioners have become more and more cognizant of the broader journey-level customer experience . However, although many UXers are aware of this larger scope of experience and have dabbled in related activities like journey mapping and service blueprinting , most organizations do not dedicate resources to the design and management of customer journeys.

In This Article:

Why journey management, journey management as a user-centered–design practice, what’s unique about journey management, three competencies of journey management, establishing journey-management roles and resources.

With smartphones and other technologies giving customers immediate and continued connection to brands, users are much more immersed in product and service experiences than ever before. The result is awareness of the broader experience among customers.

A study by McKinsey shows that a good customer-journey experience translates not only into increased customer satisfaction, but also into better business outcomes (on metrics such as like revenue, churn, and repeat purchases). Moreover, according to Pointillist, a majority of organizations with a good customer experience have invested in roles or teams dedicated to journey management.

Many sales and marketing groups practice what they call journey management. In these settings, journey management tends to be focused around getting new users through the sales funnel and retaining existing users through marketing and relationship management. In this context, journey-management activities usually include:

• using behavioral data to identify “the current state” of individual customers:  where they are in the sales journey and whether they are a risk for churn, and
• designing marketing materials or other types of actions tailored to these customers in order to encourage them to move to a desired state (e.g., complete the purchase or stay engaged with the company).

The practice of journey management is valuable beyond sales, however. We can use it to manage any type of customer experience, to predict individual customers’ current needs and proactively meet them, ultimately producing easy, enjoyable, and fulfilling brand experiences.

Journey management involves applying user-centered design principles to the journey-level experience. For that reason, the same tenets of UX that apply to the design of interaction-level product experiences also apply to the design of journey experiences. The goal should be the same; to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother, with simplicity and elegance of design.

To implement journey management, we can apply the  UX learning loop: observe and understand, test, iterate, and learn . We start by understanding the current state of individual customers, where they are in the journey, and what they are trying to achieve. We experiment with various actions that we could take to move them as smoothly and quickly as possible to a desired state that meets their goal. We then learn from the results of these actions and go back to the drawing board to refine them.

Though the goals and tenets of journey management are shared with traditional UX work at the interaction level, there are certain elements that are unique to journey management. We discuss these below:

• Crossfunctional context: A customer journey is the end-to-end process that a customer goes through to complete a task over time. For example, the experience of researching a flight, booking a ticket, receiving follow-up emails, receiving customer support, checking in for the flight, traveling on the airplane, and receiving your luggage at the arrival airport are all part of a flight journey with an airline. Users interact with various channels of the organization’s ecosystem, and each interaction may be owned by different parts of the company — for example, marketing, support, various product teams, as well as the airport staff and flight crew. For this reason, journey-management work is inherently crossfunctional, requiring collaboration and alignment across normally disparate teams.
• Technical infrastructure and integration work: Again, because of the crossfunctional nature of customer journeys, journey management depends heavily on the integration of disparate data and systems from across the customer journey to create a unified source of customer data. Such a source of data allows for design control over the journey as a whole.

In our training course Customer-Journey Management, we teach three competencies of journey management: insights, design, and orchestration.

The user-centered design of the journey experience should be informed by a multipronged research practice. Combining qualitative research data and journey metrics can help researchers identify opportunities for design and orchestration. Various journey-performance metrics should be benchmarked and monitored to inform this effort. Because journeys take place across channels, early investment in the integration of systems is important, to allow for journey analytics and tracking of behavioral data across the journey for benchmarking and analysis.

High-level activities related to this competency include:

• Ethnographic research
• Creation of a journey map and service blueprint
• Integration of disparate systems and databases
• Establishing journey-analytics capabilities
• Conducting customer-listening or voice-of-customer research
• Analysis and reporting of data and insights

Utilizing the insights from research, practitioners will direct the strategic design of the journey in conjunction with leadership.

High-level design activities include:

• Prioritization of design work and road mapping
• Design thinking and ideation
• Prototyping, testing, and iteration of solutions
• Coordination of stakeholders and resources across functional groups

Orchestration

In addition to the user-centered design of the journey experience, journey management should also focus on delivering a personalized journey for every customer through journey orchestration . Orchestration is achieved by tracking behavioral data as a means to understand customers and anticipate their needs in order to deliver the right interactions on the right channel at the right time. It’s possible to do some degree of orchestration manually via existing systems; however, large organizations and mature teams utilize specialized journey-orchestration tools and real-time interaction-management platforms. These tools have various degrees of capabilities, with the most advanced ones utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning to aid in the delivery of personalized journey experiences.

High-level orchestration activities include:

• Implementation of specialized tools for orchestration
• Analysis of behavioral data and tailored delivery of those content and interactions that are most relevant and useful to the specific customer’s journey

I’ve been asked whether it’s appropriate and feasible to have existing UX or design practitioners take on journey-management activities, in addition to product-specific design work. Though these professionals may certainly be capable of carrying out the work required, good journey management requires dedicated resources. Organizations are starting to invest in this space by establishing dedicated roles and teams of individuals to manage the journey-level experience.

Journey-Manager Role

Journey management can be likened to product ownership. Just as a product team is responsible for the strategic vision and user experience of a product, journey managers own the customer journey, continuing to learn and optimize the journey that users take across channels to achieve a goal.

Though most organizations support various top user tasks, a journey manager should own just a single customer journey — for example, the journey of buying online with pickup in-store in a retail setting or the claims experience at an insurance company. It would not be feasible for a single journey manager to effectively manage multiple user journeys well. For this reason, journeys should be prioritized and selected strategically.

The responsibilities of the journey-manager role include:

• Managing the strategic vision of the customer journey
• Working closely with product teams and other functional groups to coordinate crossfunctional optimization efforts
• Continuously evaluating the quality of the customer-journey experience

Journey-Management Teams

A single journey manager might be sufficient for organizations that are small or just getting started with journey management. However, with the variety of skills required to deliver on each competency, for many organizations it makes sense to create a journey-management team including additional specialized roles. Some high-priority specialist roles include

• Data scientists, journey analytics or insights specialists, and UX researchers to deal with the Insights  aspect of journey management
• Service designers, UX designers, content specialists to address the Design and Orchestrate aspects of journey management

Where These Resources Fit in the Organization

One of the first questions that comes up when exploring the possibility of establishing a journey-management practice is: Where would these roles be situated in the organization chart and where would they report? Because organizations are structured differently, there is no single right answer to that question. It could be appropriate for these resources to be aligned with UX, design, marketing, customer experience, or customer success (if these functions already exist). A new function could be established within the organization as well. Below, we discuss some considerations for determining the best fit in your organization.

• Journey management requires a wide scope of influence . Journey managers must connect siloed teams and functional groups. They need a line of sight into all underlying product teams and functional groups. For this reason, it’s best if these roles are situated relatively high in the organizational structure, reporting to someone in leadership with influence over the underlying teams. If existing design and UX resources do not have this scope of influence, it may make sense to establish a new journey-management team or explore alignment with other teams that may already do related work, as discussed in the next bullet.
• Do any existing functions currently conduct related work ? Customer-experience, customer-success, and marketing teams may already do some journey-level research and management. There is, likely, a foundation of technology, and research capabilities that can be leveraged for a user-centered journey-management practice. If that’s the case, you could align the new roles with these groups.

Most organizational leaders now know that good customer experience is not limited to channel and touchpoint excellence, but now involves the journey-level experience. However, many organizations have yet to dedicate resources to the design and management of customer journeys  — often, because they don’t know where to start and how to evaluate return on investment .  

There are a few bits of good news for those organizations that are hesitant:

• More and more data shows strong evidence of return on investment across industries.
• Much of what journey management entails is familiar territory for organizations that already have mature UX practices .
• In the last few years, more and more practical guidance around journey management has been developed.

We recommend that organizations start small and explore this space with just a single dedicated practitioner. Focus your early efforts around what you can do now without significant technical and resource expenses. Track improvements and gains and scale your efforts with more mature solutions over time.

For more about customer-journey management, we offer a full-day training course,  Customer-Journey Management .

Pointillist. 2021. The State of Customer Journey Management and CX Measurement in 2021. Retrieved from http://myjourney.pointillist.com/content-customer-journey-cx-measure-report.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=resources&utm_campaign=cjxm21-report .

McKinsey & Company. 2016. From Touchpoints to Journeys: Seeing the World as Customers Do. Retrieved from  https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/from-touchpoints-to-journeys-seeing-the-world-as-customers-do .

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Customer Journey Map: Definition with Examples

Improved customer service, customer loyalty, and increased ROI; 3 things that every organization wishes they could achieve overnight. It’s possible, although not overnight, but with the right tools and the effort.

One such tool is the customer journey map and it’s there at the top with the other powerful tools that help drive customer-focused change effectively.  

In this guide, we’ll explain the steps you need to take to create a customer journey map that drives the expected results while avoiding the common mistakes others make. Scroll down to learn:

• What is a Customer Journey Map?
• What Are the Benefits of Using a Customer Journey Map?

Factors to Consider Before Creating a Customer Journey Map

What are the components of a customer journey map, how to create a customer journey map in 6 steps, tips and best practices when creating a customer journey map, common mistakes to avoid when creating your customer journey map, customer journey map definition.

A customer journey map, also known as a customer experience map, is a visual representation that outlines the various steps and touchpoints a customer goes through when interacting with a company, product, or service. It chronologically represents each step of interaction the customer takes with your business. A customer journey map usually starts with the initial step of when the customer discovers your product/ service and depending on your goal it can extend as long as you want to.

Customer journey map is a tool used to understand and analyze the customer’s experience, from the initial awareness or consideration of a product or service through the purchase and post-purchase stages. It reveals customer actions, emotions, pain points and expectations along the customer journey. And it helps the business see things from the customer’s perspective which in turn helps the business gain a deep understanding of the needs of the customer.

At a glance, a customer journey map may look easy to make. But there are many details you need to pay attention to when creating one. In the following steps, we have simplified the process of creating a customer journey map.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that customer journey maps may differ from company to company based on the product/ service they offer and audience behavior.

It’s also important to have the right kind of people who know about your customer’s experience in the room when you are mapping the journey.

Here are 6 six easy steps that you can follow when creating a customer journey map.

• Build your buyer persona
• Map out the customer lifecycle stages and touchpoints
• Understand the goals of the customers
• Identify obstacles and customer pain points
• Identify the elements you want to focus on
• Fix the roadblocks

Let’s look at each step in more detail.

Step 1: Build Your Buyer Persona

Creating a customer journey map begins with defining your buyer persona, which profiles your target customer based on extensive research.

The buyer persona usually consists of demographic data such as age, gender, career, etc. in addition to other behavioral and psychographic details like customer goals, interests, lifestyle, challenges, etc.

Your business can have one or many buyer personas depending on how many audience segments you are targeting. And to avoid creating a customer journey map that is too generic, you need to create separate customer journey maps for each of the segments you identify.

You need to also be careful to rely on real data rather than assumptions to avoid creating an erroneous customer profile that won’t do much for you.

You can gather as much data as you want from online research, questionnaires, surveys, direct customer feedback, interviews and with tools like Google Analytics.

Here’s our guide on creating a buyer persona . Refer to it to create your own buyer persona in 4 simple steps. Start with a template to save time.

Creating the buyer persona will also shed light on the goals of the buyer, which is another thing you need to pay attention to when mapping your customer’s journey.

Step 2: Map Out the Customer LIfecycle Stages and Touchpoints

What are the stages your customer goes through to come into contact with your product/ service? Breaking down your customer journey map into various stages will make it easier to understand and refer to.

Now, these stages may vary depending on your business situation, sales funnel design, marketing strategies, etc. but usually, it would contain – Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Retention.

Map out the touchpoints to clarify the customer lifecycle stages even better. A touchpoint refers to any moment in their journey when a customer comes into contact with your brand (i.e. website, social media, testimonials, advertisements, point of sale, billing, etc.).

The data you collected during your buyer persona research will give you a pretty good idea about the customer touchpoints along the lifecycle stages; these include the steps they take when they first discover your brand to purchasing your product and subsequent interactions.

Identifying all potential touchpoints may sound overwhelming, but you can always rely on tools like Google Analytics which will generate behavioral reports (which show the user path throughout your website)  and goal flow reports (display the path a user takes to complete a goal conversion) for you to work with.

Or you can follow the traditional method and put yourself in the shoes of your customers and take yourself through the journey to identify the actions.

At the same time try to determine the emotional state (delighted/ frustrated) of the customer as they take each action. Knowing how they feel will help you understand whether they would go from one stage to the other in the journey.

Step 3: Understand the Goals of the Customers

This is where you need to focus your attention on understanding the goals your customers are trying to achieve at each stage. When it comes to optimizing your customer’s journey, it will help immensely if you know what your customers are trying to achieve.

Some methods you can use here include survey answers, interview transcripts, customer support emails, user testing, etc.

Once you know the goals your customers are trying to gain at each phase of the journey, you can align them with the touchpoints.

Step 4: Identify Obstacles and Customer Pain Points

By now you know what your customer is trying to achieve at each stage of the customer lifecycle, and each of the steps they take to get it done.

If your customer journey is perfect, then you won’t have your customers abandoning their purchases, leaving your landing pages without filling the forms, clicking the CTA only to close the tab, etc. If your journey didn’t have any roadblocks at all, then you wouldn’t be needing this user journey map in the first place.

But that’s not the case here, is it?

There might be many things that you are doing right to make your customer experience a smooth one, but there can still be many roadblocks that frustrate your users. In this step, you need to work on identifying what these roadblocks and pain points of customers are.

Maybe the product price is too high, or the shipping rates are unreasonable, or maybe the registration form is a few pages too long. Identifying such roadblocks will help you apply suitable solutions to improve your customer experience.

You can rely on the research data you gathered to create your buyer personas here as well.

Step 5: Identify the Elements You Want to Focus on

There are several types of customer journey maps and each focuses on a variety of elements. Based on your purpose, you can select one of them.

Current state: These maps show how your customers are interacting with your brand currently.

Future state: This type of map visualizes the actions that you assume or believe will be taken by your customers.

Day in the life: This type of map tries to capture what your current customers or prospects do in a day in their life. They will reveal more information about your customers, including pain points in real life.

Step 6: Fix the Roadblocks

Now that you know the issues/ roadblocks your customers come across as they interact with your brand, focus on prioritizing and fixing them to improve each touchpoint to retain customers at all stages of the journey.

Customers are constantly changing, and so should your customer journey maps. Test and update your customer journey maps as often as necessary to reflect the changes in your customers as well as in your products/ services.

Here are some templates you can start with right away.

What are the Benefits of Using a Customer Journey Map?

There are many benefits to customer journey mapping. The customer journey map helps

• To enhance the customer experience. It helps businesses gain insights into customers' various touchpoints and interactions with the product or service.
• To reduce costs by identifying the areas the business should prioritize investing in and spending effort on. Customer journey mapping can help businesses identify and eliminate unnecessary touchpoints or processes that may not add value to the customer journey. Get valuable insight into what the customer is expecting from your brand, their internal motivations, and needs which will, in turn, help you improve your customer experience.
• To innovate and differentiate by discovering the gaps between customer expectations and current customer experience, unmet customer needs, pain points, and opportunities.
• To improve customer satisfaction by identifying severe customer experience issues and eliminating them effectively.
• To increase customer loyalty by helping to build strong customer relationships by understanding their needs, preferences, and emotions.
• To align teams by facilitating collaboration within organizations. This helps to provide a shared understanding of the customer’s journey, enabling different teams to align their efforts toward a common goal.
• Data-driven decision-making based on gathered insights from customer research, feedback, and analytics.

Before you delve into creating a customer journey map, it is important to consider several factors to ensure that the final outcome is accurate, effective and actionable.

• What is your team trying to achieve? Make sure to define your objective and purpose of creating the customer journey map, clearly.
• Identify the target customer segment as different customer segments may have different touchpoints, pain points and requirements leading to different journeys.
• Carry out a thorough research by gathering data and insights via customer research, feedback and analytics. Conduct customer interviews, surveys, feedback forms, social media and website analytics among others.
• Make the customer journey mapping a collaborative effort by involving cross-functional teams. Invite the marketing, sales, customer service, product, and design teams to work together to understand and align efforts.
• Consider including the emotional aspects of the customer journey such as feelings, motivations and perceptions at each touchpoint.

A customer journey map typically includes the following components:

• Touchpoints: All of the interactions and experiences a customer has with a company, including in-person, online, and mobile interactions.
• Customer personas: Representations of the target customer segments, including their demographics, behaviors, motivations, and pain points.
• Emotions: A visual representation of how the customer feels at different touchpoints during their journey.
• Channels: The ways in which a customer interacts with the company, such as website, phone, or in-person interactions.
• Data and insights: Customer behavior data and insights from surveys, analytics, or other sources.
• Pain points and opportunities: Identifications of areas where the customer experience can be improved, as well as opportunities for innovation and differentiation.
• Recommended actions: Specific recommendations for improving the customer experience, based on the journey map analysis.
• Alignment with company goals: A visual representation of how the customer journey aligns with the overall goals and strategy of the company.

Here are a few additional tips and best practices to ensure your customer journey map is accurate and effective.

• Use or create personas to better understand your customer and tailor your journey to specific customer segments. For example, if your business is fashion retail, you can develop personas such as ‘working professional,’ ‘fashionable mom,’ ‘teenage fashionista,’ etc.
• Use data and metrics to support your map and make it data-driven. Include data on customer satisfaction scores, conversion rates, or customer retention rates to identify areas for improvement. This can also help to prioritize actions and allocate resources effectively.
• Use multiple channels, both online and offline, to interact with customers. For example, a customer may discover your product or service on social media, then research more on your website, visit the store for a demo, and then make the final purchase.
• Go beyond existing touchpoints to include anticipated future customer needs as well. For example, if you are in the hospitality industry, you could include potential pain points and opportunities for pre-arrival, check-in, stay, check-out, and post-stay.
• Always keep the customer at the center of your customer journey map. Consider the customer’s emotions, preferences, and motivations at each touchpoint to create a more customer-centric experience. For example, a customer journey map for a subscription-based meal delivery service can include touchpoints for menu options, selecting meals, placing an order, receiving, and providing feedback.
• Customer journeys are dynamic and can evolve due to customer behavior, market trends, and business strategies. Therefore, continuously review and update by monitoring customer behavior, trends, and business strategies. Keep the customer journey map flexible and adaptable to changes.
• Create and present the journey map in a visually appealing and accessible format so stakeholders can easily understand it. Use visuals, diagrams, and infographics as required.
• A customer journey map is not a one-time exercise but a continuous process: test and iterate. Validate the map with real customers to ensure accuracy and relevance. Gather feedback, and conduct usability testing to gather additional insights to refine and make the map accurate.
• Keep it simple and accessible. Use clear and straightforward language and visual elements while avoiding jargon and cluttering. Make sure the customer journey map is easy to understand and accessible to all relevant stakeholders.

Creating a customer journey map can be a complex process. Here are a few mistakes you should be aware of and avoid at any cost.

Making assumptions without data

A common mistake is relying on assumptions without proper data or research. It would be best to put time into gathering data and insights from various sources. Make sure to carry out thorough research. Use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Focusing on one touchpoint

Another mistake is focusing only on one touchpoint or a single interaction rather than considering the entire end-to-end journey. This can result in an incomplete or biased customer journey map. To avoid this, take a comprehensive approach and consider the whole customer journey from initial awareness to post-purchase stages. Include all relevant online and offline touchpoints, channels, and interactions.

Not involving cross-functional teams

Involve cross-functional teams in customer journey mapping to get diverse insights and a holistic view. Not involving different teams can result in biased views and missing valuable insights from different perspectives. Encourage team collaboration and communication to align the customer journey map and gather input from different stakeholders. This can help uncover blind spots and identify opportunities for improvements.

Failing to validate with real customers

Not validating the customer journey map with real customers can lead to inaccurate assumptions. Also, relying on internal assumptions or team perspectives will lead to skewed views and away from the reality of customer interactions. To avoid such a dilemma, validate the map through feedback loops, usability testing, and customer interviews. Gather input from actual customer experiences, preferences, and pain points.

Ready to Map Your Customer’s Journey?

Customer journey maps are a great way to gain deeper insight into your customers and their experience with your organization. Taking the time to understand how your customers interact with you, what they feel and what they want to achieve can go a long way toward retaining them.

Follow these 6 steps to get your customer journey map right. Use a template to save time.

And don’t forget to leave your feedback in the comments section below.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

FAQs About Customer Journey Maps

Why is customer journey mapping important, how can customer journey maps improve customer experiences.

Customer journey maps can improve customer experiences by providing companies with a clear understanding of their customers' experiences with their products, and services. This information can be used to identify pain points and areas for improvement, allowing companies to better meet the needs and expectations of their customers. By using customer journey maps to optimize the customer experience, companies can:

• Align resources and efforts to meet customer needs better.
• Create a more personalized experience for customers.
• Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Reduce customer churn.
• Increase customer lifetime value.
• Enhance the overall customer experience.
• Improve operational efficiency.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration to improve the customer experience.
• Stay ahead of the competition by offering a differentiated and superior customer experience.

What tools are needed to create customer journey maps?

The tools needed to create a customer journey map vary depending on the complexity of the map and the size of the company, but some common tools include:

• Customer feedback: Surveys, customer interviews, and focus groups can be used to gather customer feedback and understand their experiences.
• Analytics tools: Data analytics tools, such as website analytics, customer behavior tracking, and customer relationship management systems, can provide insight into customer behavior and preferences.
• Customer journey map software: Tools like Creately that can be used to create visually appealing customer journey maps.
• Project management software: Tools like to manage the journey mapping process and keep track of progress.
• Collaboration tools: Tools like Creately, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Workspace can be used to collaborate with team members and stakeholders.

What are some common use cases for customer journey maps?

• Identifying and resolving pain points in the customer journey
• Improving customer onboarding and retention
• Optimizing marketing and sales efforts
• Designing a customer-centric website or app
• Aligning cross-functional teams to deliver a cohesive customer experience

Can customer journey maps be used for different types of businesses or industries?

How can i use customer journey maps to drive customer-centric strategies in my organization.

• You can use customer journey maps to drive customer-centric strategies in your organization by Identifying pain points or gaps in the customer experience and developing targeted solutions
• Aligning cross-functional teams and processes to meet customer needs
• Optimizing touchpoints to deliver a seamless and satisfying customer experience
• Utilizing insights from the customer journey map to inform marketing, sales, and customer service strategies

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Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.

Customer Journey Management

Take your CX to the max with this all-encompassing guide

Every interaction your customers have with your brand matters. Are you making the most of each touchpoint? With so many moments and journeys to juggle, it’s easy to drop the ball and miss opportunities for improvement. But with Customer Journey Management, you can optimize customer journeys—including those critical, make-or-break moments of friction—by aligning everyone on the right goals.

In this all-encompassing guide, we explain how the practice of Customer Journey Management can help you craft spectacular customer experiences, and effortlessly manage them all. We’ll cover everything you need to know—from understanding what customer Journey Management is and how to do it, to assessing where you stand on the path to achieving “journey excellence.”  

Let’s dive in.

What is Customer Journey Management?

Journey Management is the ongoing practice of researching, measuring, designing, and optimizing a customer journey to improve the customer experience and achieve business goals. While this might seem similar to “experience optimization” and “journey mapping,” CJM is much more comprehensive.

CJM is an extension of CX management and design thinking . However, unlike traditional CX management, which emphasizes improvements based on past data, Customer Journey Management puts the focus on finding the right opportunities in the right journey for the right customer (employee, client, patient, or user)—any person you intend to delight. 

True customer excellence is about how your product or service fits into your customer’s life, and designing seamless customer journeys is key to achieving this fit. However , organizational silos often threaten productivity by isolating teams and hindering communication.

A CJM practice addresses this problem by closing the value-delivery gap. It ensures that everyone—from product development to marketing to customer success—focuses time, effort, and resources on opportunities that add the most value to your customer and your bottom line. This unified approach fosters a shared “customer-obsessed mindset” across your entire organization. 

9 Reasons why you should build and optimize a Journey Management system

As a CX expert, you have a deep understanding of the intersection between business priorities and the customers’ pain points and needs. But unless you can rally the rest of the organization around these using the customer journey, those critical insights can get lost—and you miss the opportunities that matter most.

If the business leaders and key stakeholders are not aware of or, on board with, the opportunities that make the customer happier, the organization won’t be focused on the right things. Sure, you can throw spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks, but with a data-backed Journey Management system, you wouldn’t need to. Here’s why:

1. The Journey is everything

CJM transforms traditional journey maps (from mere sketches of initial ideas) into dynamic tools that reveal not just what happened but why. It integrates real-time data to provide actionable insights that are aligned with your business goals. Your teams can manage complex journeys in real time, make swift adjustments, and connect every aspect of the customer journey. 

With a routine practice in place, it elevates customer journey mapping to an art form, empowering your teams to craft engaging, seamless, optimized customer experiences—with the customer as the guiding star of the show. Instead of navigating a “sales funnel,” your customers feel like they’re dancing with you down a path that fulfills their desires—happy and deeply satisfied every step of the way.

And, since the journey is everything, your renewed focus on it—and how and where it connects—will result in these additional benefits:

2. Holistic customer insight 

CJM provides a comprehensive view of all customer journeys across segments, which prevents important data from falling through the cracks. Insights are complete and actionable, rather than fragmented and based on intuition.

3. Cross-functional alignment

By rallying the entire organization around the customer journey, you break down silos and foster collaboration. Teams can easily align their efforts and strategies, instead of getting bogged down and frustrated by unclear priorities.

4. Innovation

Since the key opportunities for innovation are easy to see with a CJM system in place, your teams’ focus can naturally shift from repetitive, incremental improvements to the big ideas that stand out in the marketplace.

5. Deeper customer insights

Regularly updated and accurate customer data provides true insights into customer behavior. This enriched understanding helps in crafting product use cases that truly resonate with customer needs and expectations.

6. Actionable feedback

A robust system ensures that customer feedback is captured, organized, and easily accessible, and valuable insights are not lost.

7. Reliable metrics

With a Journey Management system, you can establish clear, reliable metrics for measuring success and easily pinpoint where customers are making critical decisions.

8. Customer-centric decision making

A CJM system focuses everyone on the customer journey—strategies are aligned, customer expectations are met (and exceeded!), and revenue is made, not lost.

9. Sustained growth and success

Great experiences lead to happy, loyal customers—a smart return on investment.

Achieving “Journey Excellence” 

Journey Excellence is the pinnacle of Customer Journey Management, where organizations achieve a deep yet holistic understanding of their customer experiences. At this level, customer insights seamlessly integrate into every aspect of the business, allowing companies to anticipate and meet customer needs. These organizations use standardized methods and tools across all teams to create engaging, seamless, and optimized experiences that leave customers delighted.

There are many approaches to achieving Journey Excellence. However, organizations typically progress through 5 similar stages of maturity along the way: 

Stage 1: Intuition-driven : Actions are based on anecdotal evidence and hunches.

Stage 2: Fragmented : Methods for organizing journeys are introduced but not yet standardized.

Stage 3: Coordinated : Teams coordinate collaboration around customer feedback, with all information stored in one place.

Stage 4: Scalable : A company-wide strategy, methods, and tools are centered around customer journeys, which play a key role in major business decisions.

Stage 5: Excellence : The entire team has a deep understanding of customer experience and anticipates customer wants and needs ahead of time.

If you want to make the customer the guiding star of your business by implementing a CJM practice, there are the 3 common steps that successful organizations have followed. Let's explore these in detail:

Step 1: Gain deep customer insights

Gather insights at various stages of the customer lifecycle. Ensure they are actionable and linked to specific steps in the customer journey. 

Create and utilize (buyer) personas to view the journey from different customer perspectives. CX Managers, Marketers, and UX Researchers should interview customers before mapping their journeys and structure insights using standardized persona formats. 

Use a centralized system for documenting insights, such as reasons for customer churn or retention at key moments, to facilitate stakeholder buy-in and accelerate project timelines. A  journey-centric system enhances team collaboration and ensures that all insights are organized and accessible.

Step 2: Standardize the Customer Journey Management framework

Implement a framework that organizes all types of journeys and ensures consistency across the organization. Ensure all teams are aligned on the methods and tools used for Journey Management, fostering a cohesive understanding of the customer experience.

Triple Diamond Approach : At TheyDo, we use the Triple Diamond approach for problem discovery, solution discovery, and solution delivery. This framework aligns all teams on how to collect information and take action, continuously refining journeys to improve the customer experience and identify new opportunities.

Step 3: Customer-centric prioritization

Implement an objective method for scoring opportunities from the customer’s perspective. This scoring reflects customer needs and business goals, ensuring decisions are not swayed by bias or opinion.

Clarify what the business will and will not do. Balancing customer desires with business-centric values ensures strategic alignment and effective decision-making.

Use a standardized prioritization model to align teams and stakeholders on the most critical opportunities.

Simply put:

Without a prioritization model, you lack strategy despite having customer insights and a journey framework.

Without customer insights, you miss understanding customer behaviors even if you can prioritize opportunities across a journey framework.

Without a journey framework, you cannot get a comprehensive overview of the customer experience, even with deep customer insights and prioritization.

Great CX leaders ensure transparent decisions on what to do next and why are based on customer engagement and business strategy. They work towards a common vision for customer excellence, where business and customer priorities are equally important. Customer-centricity becomes a priority for everyone in the organization, not just for Customer Service or UX teams. Achieving this goal is challenging but attainable with the right approach and commitment.

Know where you stand, know where to start

Implementing a Customer Journey Management practice is a journey in itself, but it doesn’t have to be difficult or overwhelming. By breaking the process into manageable stages, using the right tools and training, and garnering buy-in and guidance from leadership, your teams can master the art of Journey Management to effortlessly create customer experiences that satisfy and delight them every step of the way.

Before you begin, it’s a good idea to know where you stand, so you can realistically plot a course. How mature is your organization’s Journey Management practice? Are you lost in a maze of unlinked journeys and missing out on opportunities?  What are your goals, and how will you get there?  Do you need help keeping the balls in the air? Our Journey Management Maturity Scan is the ideal tool to help you identify your strengths and improvement areas. 

Do the maturity scan now

Take a 3-minute scan to evaluate your Journey Management Maturity and identify opportunities for growth and development.

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Customer journey mapping: The path to loyalty

A version of this tutorial originally appeared in the free Primer app .

In an ideal world, the journey people take to become loyal customers would be a straight shot down a highway: See your product. Buy your product. Use your product. Repeat.

In reality, this journey is often more like a sightseeing tour with stops, exploration, and discussion along the way—all moments when you need to convince people to pick your brand and stick with it instead of switching to a competitor.

Staying on top of all of these moments might seem overwhelming, but mapping your customer’s journey can help. It can give you and your team a greater understanding of how your customers are currently interacting and engaging with your brand, and also help illustrate how your products and services fit into their lives, schedules, goals, and aspirations.

Let’s take a look at five steps your team can take to start journey mapping.

1. Find the sweet spot where your customers’ goals and your own align

Before you start journey mapping, nail down your business goals. Any marketing and communication you deliver during the customer journey should be focused on helping your brand reach those goals.

However, it’s important to acknowledge that your customers’ goals might be different from yours. For example, let’s say your goal is to sell more sunglasses with new, improved lenses that have a better profit margin. Meanwhile, your customers’ top concern might be getting sunglasses that match their personal style. Lens protection could be their second or even third priority.

Consider how your marketing and communication strategies can help your customers reach their goals while also getting you closer to yours.

2. Identify all of the communication touchpoints in your customer’s journey

When do you traditionally communicate or engage with customers? Make a list of these moments and group them based on when they happen during the journey: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase.

Now find communication touchpoints you may have missed. Track what actions and interactions between your brand and your customers happen just before and after each of the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages.

For example, you might decide that a major moment in your purchase stage is when your customers are guided through your website to buy an item in their shopping cart. But you might notice other communication touchpoints right before that purchase moment, like your website confirming to customers that an item has been added to their shopping cart, then suggesting related products.

Looking for all these touchpoints can quickly bog your team down in a lot of details and micro-interactions. To avoid that, prioritize the moments that get you closer to achieving your business goals.

3. Recognize pain points and moments of delight

How might your customers feel at the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages as they attempt to achieve their goals? For example, could your customers be happy that your website makes browsing easy, but frustrated at how confusing it is to purchase a product?

Find the moments where your customers might have negative experiences. Who on your team is involved in those touchpoints? Your web designers? Your marketing team? Your copywriters? Are there other team members who could collaborate and improve the situation?

Say a customer likes how your online ad describes your product. But when they go to your store, salespeople present the product differently. That’s an opportunity for your copywriters and salespeople to better align their language and sales pitches.

4. Experience the customer journey yourself

Imagining how your customers might feel during their journey is valuable, but actually experiencing it for yourself can uncover much-needed insights.

If your business is run online, open a browser and experience what it’s like to be your customer. Similarly, if you have a brick-and-mortar store, go into a location that sells your product. Afterwards, ask yourself about the main communication touchpoints you encountered. Did they work well? Did they help you complete your journey? What was missing?

And don’t forget about the competition. Become one of their customers and experience the journey they’ve created. Then ask yourself all of the same questions.

5. Visualize your customer journey map

Go beyond just writing down your customer journey and communication touchpoints, and actually create a visual map of them. This doesn’t need to be a polished, heavily-designed visualization. Simply write each of your touchpoints down on individual sticky notes or papers, then pin them in order to a wall.

By doing this exercise, you’re helping your team take a bird’s eye view of the entire customer journey. You can organize your thoughts and collaboratively brainstorm new ideas for changing or adding to your communication at these touchpoints.

Make sure to create hypotheses around why new communication touchpoints will improve the customer journey, then implement and test them. If your hypotheses are wrong, go back to your journey map, reassess, tweak, and improve.

Yes, the journey mapping process can be fairly intensive, but it can have a big impact on your business. That’s why it shouldn’t be just a one-time event. Customer tastes can shift, new technology can become available, and your brand itself might evolve. So it’s important to do journey mapping at least once a year and evaluate what communication touchpoints are still working and what needs to be revisited.

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Stuart Hogg is a marketing consultant who has worked with a number of Fortune 500 brands. He created “Journey Mapping: Connect the Customer Dots” for the Primer app.

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How to get started with Customer Journey Management

Effective customer journey management is vital for businesses to remain competitive and relevant in today's market. It helps to optimize every step of the customer journey and thus ensuring customer satisfaction, building brand loyalty, and driving revenue growth. In this article, you learn the basics of customer journey management: What is customer journey management? Why is it so important? What are the tasks and skills of a customer journey manager? And what are essential tools for customer journey management?

What is customer journey management?

• What is the difference between journey mapping and management?
• Why it is important?
• The job of a journey manager
• Journey management teams
• What is journey governance?
• Stages of journey management
• The difference of CJ management in b2c vs. b2b
• Getting started: How to manage a customer journey
• Tools and methods
• Software for CJ management

Let's start with a definition:

Customer journey management is the process of understanding, mapping, and optimizing the experience a customer has with a brand, across all touchpoints and channels. The goal is to create a seamless and consistent customer journey at every stage and touchpoint of the customer lifecycle. It involves understanding the customer's needs, preferences, and behaviors, and using this information to improve the customer experience and drive customer loyalty and satisfaction.  

The goal of customer journey management is customer excellence: the authentic fulfillment or exceeding of customers' concrete and emotional key expectations, wherever and whenever they come into contact with the company. This requires to continuously improve the customer experience, remove pain points, understand potential moments of service recovery, and allow for a satisfying customer experience along the entire service. 

What is the difference between customer journey mapping and customer journey management?

Customer journey mapping is a key tool used in the customer journey management process. A customer journey map is a visual representation of the customer journey, illustrating the different touchpoints, channels, and interactions a customer has with a company or brand throughout their journey. It helps businesses to understand customer behavior, identify pain points, and areas of improvement to enhance the customer experience and build stronger customer relationships.

More often than not, people don't only want to visualize journey maps, but take actions from the maps they create. This is where customer journey management comes into the game.

Customer journey management is a broader process that encompasses customer journey mapping as a key component. It involves not only mapping the customer journey, but also taking action and continuously optimizing the entire customer experience. Customer journey mapping is just one of the many tools and techniques used in the broader journey management process.

Sometimes people refer to journey management also as customer journey orchestration . The terms are actually describing the same idea.

Also, people talk about journey map operations; customer journey map management has a more strategic connotation, whereas journey map operations is rather about day-to-day business – more on the difference further down the article .

Why is customer journey management important?

Only if organizations focus on their customers’ needs, people will become and stay customers. To achieve this, organizations need to build their products and service around their intended customer journey.

Customer journey management is important because it can positively impact a company's long-term success and help to meet strategic goals, e.g. through:

• Positive customer experience at every step of the customer journey and overall experience
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Higher customer loyalty and engagement
• Better relationships with customers
• Improved brand reputation
• Optimized processes through journey analytics
• Increased customer's lifetime value
• Increased revenue
• It empowers you to ensure that your products provide real value to your customers and turn them into your ambassadors.
• Journey management can also serve as an information system connecting organizational silos: It helps to align different stakeholders around a common vision for customer experience.

Furthermore, customer journey management is important because it implies a range of operational benefits:

• You get an overview of ongoing and planned CX projects
• You can coordinate all projects in your organization that have impact on CX/EX
• It results in a repository of previous CX projects and research data hub which is enormously useful when you want to start new projects based on existing data
• Keep a hierarchy of journey maps maps and keep them up-to-date
• It forces you to define clear ownership of CX initiatives, allowing for synergies and preventing redundancies
• Organizations that consciously do journey management actively build bridges between organizational silos/departments; the customers' experience can become anorganization-wide information and communication system
• It allows you to find overlaps and contradictions between projects early on, thus saving time and money.

Customer satisfaction does not come from single wow-moments. It needs to be built in a coherent, long-term and cross-silo way. Thus, having an eye on all moments and facets of the customer journey is essential for sustainable customer satisfaction. ‍

What is a customer journey manager?

The customer journey manager is responsible for coordination of the current-state journey, as well as developing it towards the future-state journey. The person is an evangelist for journey mapping as part of strategic business planning : what’s the status of the product or service, what’s the vision and how to align customer goals with business goals?.

The job of the customer journey managers comes in all forms, with many different titles and skill sets. You might also read about customer journey coordinators, customer experience managers, journey owners, and many more.

The tasks a customer journey manager takes care of are multitude:

• Helping to shape the product vision along future-state journey maps
• Researching customer needs and adapting the current-state journeys accordingly
• Managing stakeholders 
• Managing the current-state journey, keeping in mind and approaching the future state
• Managing and facilitating interactive sessions, like co-creative workshops, or research and prototyping sessions

Common customer journey manager skills to be found in job descriptions are:

• A strong understanding of service design, including the methods and techniques like journey mapping and systems thinking
• Customer-focused 
• Strong analytical skills
• Strong social competences that help with collaboration
• Strong presentation skills
• An academic background, or specific education appears to be a nice-to-have, more than a strict requirement

Looking at job portals , you will see that the described skill set of the customer journey manager’s job is everything but streamlined.

How to build a team for customer journey management?

In the best case, there is not only one single person who has to take responsibility on the customer journey. For larger organizations / enterprises it's recommended to build a council: a group of people who collaborate on the customer journey, who share opinions and discuss different perspectives.

The most important roles in a journey managment council are the following:

The lead : Responsible for strategic implementation and organizational support

The manager : Responsible for operations: scheduling meetings, follow-through decisions, bridging silos

The coordinator : Responsible for regularly updating one specific sub-journey with the most recent data and decisions

The supporter : Supporting Coordinators in collecting information, in many cases representing different departments

What is customer journey governance?

Journey governance involves establishing a basic guideline on how an organization wants to collaborate, including a journey framework and decision-making processes, to ensure the effective management and execution of business strategies. This includes defining objectives, setting milestones, allocating resources, monitoring progress, and making strategic decisions to steer the journey towards its desired outcome.

What's the difference between customer journey governance vs. management vs. operations?

Journey governance, journey management and journey operations are strongly interconnected, however have distinct roles in an organization:

Customer journey governance focuses on setting a guideline how an organization is run, providing direction, leadership and control. It's ensuring accountability and compliance, respresenting stakeholder interests, prioritizing long-term sustainability, and making high-level decisions. Governance has a broad, long-term perspective and provides oversight. It als implies agreeing on a customer journey framework – a set of tools and methods that are used along the process.

Customer journey management is responsible for implementing strategies, overseeing day-to-day activities, achieving operational objectives, and making operational decisions. Journey management is more focused on operational efficiency and achieving specific goals, allocating resources and overseeing high-level processes.

Customer journey operations refer to the day-to-day activities and processes that enable an organization to deliver its products or services, trying to optimize these processes and deliver products and services in a timely and cost-effective manner.

What are the stages of customer journey management?

Customer journey management is not set up in a day or two; it’s a process that takes weeks, months, sometimes years. It depends very much on the organizational conditions like size or industry, but also team conditions like mindset and skills, as well as the maturity of journey mapping in the organization and how many maps in which quality and format already exist.

In general we can distinguish between two main phases of customer journey management:

• ‍ Embedding journey management: in this phase, you create a customer-centered mindset. Applying customer-centered tools and methods to certain tasks and projects, the team starts to understand the importance and value of CJ management. Usually at this stage, journey management is done within one or two teams, but not used across various teams, departments, or organizational silos.
• ‍ Scaling journey management: this stage is about changing perspective, moving from a task- and project-focused mindset to a long-term strategy. This is when you start breaking up organizational silos and have to deal with organizational bureaucracy politics. At this stage, journey management starts serving as an information system connecting different teams across the organization.

Is there a difference between customer journey management in B2C vs B2B?

Customer journey management in business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) environments does differ significantly from one another. The setting, level of complexity, and particular tactics used can change even though the fundamental concepts of journey management stay the same.

Here are some common differences:

• B2B purchases typically involve more stakeholders, B2C has faster decision making processes .
• B2B customer journeys focus on building long-term relationships, B2C immediate satisfaction.
• B2B transactions are often more complex, B2C journeys tend to be more straightforward.
• B2B often relies on sharply targeted marketing efforts, B2C journeys often leverage mass marketing.
• B2B primary goals are often performance metrics like a higher return on investment (ROI), B2C may focus on factors like price, brand loyalty, or customer satisfaction.

How to manage customer journeys, step by step

So how to manage an effective customer journey mapping process?

For this chapter, we assume that you have created one or more journey maps and now would like to take your work to the next level by transferring it to a customer-centered management tool.

1. Gather the relevant journey maps in a repository

First, conduct a customer journey audit. A customer journey audit is the process of gathering and reviewing all journey maps that you created in the past.

In a customer journey audit, you ask yourself questions like:

• What do you already know about the customer journey?
• How many maps do you have?
• What is their focus?
• In what different formats do they appear today (PowerPoint, spreadsheets, printed, digital tools, etc.)?
• Are they still up to date?
• Are they credible, i.e. based on research?
• Which zoom level do they show?
• Which data do they include?

Once you have decided which of these customer journey maps you want to keep, add them to a journey map repository .

For this you need to decide about a customer journey management tool – we'll discuss this in detail in the next chapter.

2. Organize your journey maps in hierarchies

Now start structuring your customer journey maps.

First, take (or create) a high-level map (usually, the customer life cycle) that describes your entire customer journey in 10-20 steps.

Then connect/link the high-level map with more detailed maps that further describe a specific step in more detail.

Obviously, the customer journey is not always a linear process, but might be perceived as looping and nonlinear . Therefore recommend to also put special attention to recurring events.

3. Define a journey management taxonomy for your organization

Define how many zoom levels you’ll need; at which step from the high-level map do you want to maintain sub-level maps and in how many levels of detail. Which data do you want to represent in these maps: customer pain points, employee pain points, projects, KPIs, insights, research data, opportunities, alternative journeys, scenarios, CX vision, links to project maps, etc.? What do you want to call everything? Don’t use any given approach from a textbook or agency, but build on what you already have in your organization.

You can also use this service design glossary as a starting point for these decisions.

4. Assign responsibilities

Responsibilities are important in journey management because they help ensure that each aspect of the customer journey is given the attention and resources it needs to be successful. Assigning responsibilities can help ensure that no crucial elements of the customer journey are overlooked, and can also help to streamline processes and improve communication within the team.

Therefor, each customer journey (or stage, or sub-journey) should be clearly assigned to one person, eventually supported by a dedicated team. These folks take care that the data on their customer journeys is accurate and up-to-date.

If possible, they also have a team and budget to focus on iteratively improving their part of the journey and all linked alternative scenarios as well as coordinating potential sub-level journeys. Also plan for cross-level work sessions: give the customer journey managers the chance to align their journeys to another. 

5. Consciously prioritize your CX projects

Probably it turns out that there’s quite some work to do.

Starting with research gaps – moments where you just lack knowledge about the current experience – but also knowing about certain pain points and flaws of higher or lower seriousness as well as opportunities.

This aligns with and is pushed by the general movement of evidence-based management : to make decisions within an organization based on empirical evidence and data rather than solely relying on intuition, tradition, or gut feelings.

The task will be to evaluate and prioritize all the project ideas that are likely to come up. How much work will it be to improve a certain experience? How much effect will it have on the overall satisfaction? Who is in charge of which issues and opportunities?

6. Agree on important KPIs

To prove the value of your work, it’s useful to define sets of KPIs per journey. When thinking of KPIs, people usually come up with business-related numbers, like:

• Return on investment (ROI)
• Number of support tickets
• Sales / registrations / bookings
• Church / retention / revenue

However, if you really want to align the needs of your business with customer needs, you should add customer-centered analytics to your analysis. Your customers do not care about your ROI, they have other priorities.

• Customer satisfaction score
• Time to value 
• Brand trust rating
• Ease of use feedback

For sustainable journey management, you will need both.

What are customer journey management tools and methods?

In customer journey management you need a broad range of tools and methods, for example:

• Customer experience research : qualitative data like interviews, observations, or service safaris, as well als quantitative data like satisfaction scoring and surveys
• Customer journey visualization: no matter if sketches created with pen and paper, pictures, exported journey maps – visualizations help with the understanding of customer journeys
• Prototypes : prototyping is of great benefit along the development phase. Prototypes can be made in digital, analogue ways.
• Techniques from stakeholder mapping or system mapping: these are used to understand the bigger picture in which a service or product is embedded
• Business-centered disciplines, like budget planning or leadership techniques: these help with change management and other internal challenges of CX management

What is the best software for customer journey management?

You can easily visualize a journey map with pen and paper. However, once you start using journey maps as a visual journey management tool, dedicated software will be indispensable for a structured approach to analysis and journey optimization.

Types of customer journey management software

Nowadays people working in the field use customer journey management software from different categories, for example:

• Dedicated CJ management software, for example Smaply
• Classic project & product management tools, for example Monday.com
• Specified CX tools for each phase of the project, for example Miro for prototyping
• Customer journey automation software, for example Mailchimp

How to choose the best customer journey management software for your use case

To help you pick the best software for your use case, consider the software's capabilities in the following areas:

1. Standardizing customer experience documentations

Flexibility is great, however it does not always lead you to structure insights finding, documenting and sharing. Imagine you would draw your journey map on a simple blackboard where you have full flexibility – how easy do you think it is to understand for others? Especially after you have created dozens of sub-journeys, each of them with their own focus? Standardizing the software you’re using allows you to establish a common taxonomy around customer journey mapping. You can link maps into each other and progress your repository into a hierarchy of maps that helps you to navigate customer experience across organizational silos.

2. Discussing and commenting

Customer journey maps should never be static. Thus, you need to keep talking about them, work on them, and update your most-used maps regularly. Your journey mapping software should allow you to work asynchronously on a map by inviting others to comment on the map. Think about including a panel of users commenting on the future customer experience you’re planning, a group of experts having asynchronous discussions on future trends and technical feasibility of your ideas, think about researchers adding insights and data as comments to your map, or your colleagues estimating the development time of various features or user stories you’ve included on your map.

3. Presenting professional journey maps

It does not matter if in front of your own team or in front of a client, you will run into moments when you need to present a journey map. Customer journey presentations help you bring everybody on the same page and thus foster buy-in – however only if the format and content of your presentation is adapted to the audience. 

Being able to present the journey map in different ways – without first manually recreating it with another software like InDesign or Figma – will help you get the point across. Think about hiding certain lanes and data that would overwhelm an audience, or being able to export the same journey map in different formats, like PDF, Excel, PPT, HTML, for different occasions.

4. Scaling customer journey management across organizational silos

Customer journey management should always aim at finding its way into every department of your company, every team, every silo. Thus we recommend you to pay special attention to scalable solutions. Part of this is for example user roles: The more stakeholders (team members, clients, customers, …) you expect to participate and the more varied their backgrounds (techie or not, service design background or not), the more you should check for access rights and restrictive sharing modes.

5. Data security and safety

There are uncountable customer journey tools out there; some of them top-nodge solutions that really bring value; some however might not be maintained well, are outdated or just hosted in countries with loose data security policies. Make sure you go for a solution that comes with a data security framework that you trust and that matches your own organizational policy. Otherwise, you’ll have a hard time during procurement and risk assessment. 

Customer journey management helps to build a customer-centric mindset and thus is crucial for a company's success in a customer-driven market. Skilled managers who know how to use tools to map and optimize the journey are essential and will provide actionable insights on how to meet important business goals. Choosing the right tools, and customer journey management software & framework is vital and should consider a good balance between journey mapping and journey management.

Feeling ready for the next step?

Start managing your own customer journey with Smaply! The tool will guide you through the process of journey map creation and assist you in making them manageable.

Katharina Rainer

Katharina is a marketer with a background in business and psychology. She loves both logical as well as empathic thinking and always strives to align the goals of organizations and their customers. Besides SaaS marketing, her heart also beats for social engagement, for which reason she supports several NGOs with their communication matters.

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Customer journey management

Quick definition: Customer journey management is the process of figuring out the best way to interact with customers at each stage of a customers at each stage of a customer’s journey in order to continue moving them through the sales funnel.

Key takeaways:

• Customer journey mapping allows companies to understand customer behavior to inform the customer experience.
• Companies need a way to process and analyze data as a part of a solid marketing platform overall to successfully manage customer journeys.
• Customer journey management follows customers through all the stages of the customer journey all gives companies the insights they need to interact with high-level customers at the most important touchpoints.

The following information was provided during an interview with Chaewon Hwang, product marketing manager for Adobe Campaign.

What is a customer journey? What is customer journey management? What are the stages of customer journey management? What tools are needed for customer journey management? How do brands determine which tools to use? How do companies get started with customer journey management? What are customer journey management best practices? What are some common mistakes companies make with customer journey management? How will customer journey management continue to improve?

What is a customer journey?

The customer journey is the entire process of a customer’s interactions with the brand, from the first moment of contact until the customer leaves. It starts with the awareness phase, where the customer learns about the brand and starts engaging. The customer will then further investigate the brand and make purchases. The customer journey only ends if the customer stops engaging with the brand completely.

What is customer journey management?

Companies need to create strategies to keep customers interested and coming back. Customer journey management (CJM) is the process of determining what information customers need it in each phase of their journey to move them to the next step.

For example, if a customer is investigating a brand, the company needs to know how to convince them to make a purchase. And after the customer makes a purchase, CJM includes steps to make that individual a repeat customer.

Customer journey management involves defining what types of messages to deliver to the customers and when in order to engage them in each phase of the buying process.

One of the benefits of customer journey management is that companies can figure out which customers have the highest lifetime value and use marketing tools and practices to keep those customers engaged and moving through the conversion funnel. Success in CJM is defined by the level of engagement within the funnel itself or by the ability of the brand to move customers to the next phase of the conversion process.

What are the stages of customer journey management?

It starts with data consolidation. Ideally, companies will have all the data gathered from the different touchpoints in one place so they can get a holistic view of their customers.

Next, they would want to be able to segment customers into different customer journey “buckets” to identify which customers are in which phase.

Then with their marketing platform, they would deliver messages through email , SMS, push, in-app messages, direct mail, call centers, and social media to reach their audience, depending on the customer’s preferences.

To close the loop, the company would analyze which customers react to what types of messages in which phase of the journey, and whether their marketing campaigns were successful or not. To do that, they would need everything from the data piece to the analytics piece .

What tools are needed for customer journey management?

Companies need tools for data management segmentation, marketing, and analytics. When it comes to deciding which tools and platforms to use, ideally a brand would use multiple solutions from one company to maintain consistency.

For the data piece , there are customer data platforms (CDPs) that offer data consolidation and segmentation at the same time. Marketing platforms tend to be slightly more focused on the marketing piece itself. They do offer data consolidation, but it isn't as robust as the CDP itself. The analytics piece is generally similar to a CDP, but it gives more of an insight on which actions the brands can take next versus just doing segmentation.

In an ideal world, all the platforms and teams would work together seamlessly, but in reality, there are many different teams within bigger companies using different tools, which can cause disruptions in the process. For instance, Team A might not know what team B is using. So if team A t starts using Oracle, for example, but team B signs up for another mobile push service, like Braze, you get a disruption. The best-case scenario is for a company to use a single solution that offers everything from data consolidation to marketing to analytics, but in most cases, it doesn't really work that way.

How do brands determine which tools to use?

They need to figure out which tools will work best with their company’s strategy. If it's a start-up, for example, they would generally use the cheapest tool that can help them bring the data together. They may even build their own platform to take a look at all of their customer activities.

Then, from there, they would start doing basic segmentation. Once they have enough data to be able to define the customer journey and what that is, then they would start launching marketing campaigns to make sure they reach all the customers in a certain segment and encourage them to move to the next stage of the journey .

How do companies get started with customer journey management?

Brands usually start with basic segmentation — simple things like customers who have purchased product A in the past 30 days. Then once they gather enough data to be able to understand which customers are in the awareness phase and which customers are in the purchase or retention phase, they are able to launch even more segmented marketing campaigns to target different customer brackets.

What are customer journey management best practices?

It's important to have all the data in one place so companies can get a holistic view of the customers and define the phases that are important to the brand. So being able to pull all the data from the different touchpoints would be the first thing the brands need to do.

Brands should also pay attention to increasing the conversion rates between phases and even within the phase by doing A/B tests across the different marketing campaigns to figure out what messaging improves customer engagement.

What are some common mistakes with customer journey management?

A lot of companies still have problems with data silos. They have trouble bringing all their data to one place. And even if they do, they don't think in real-time, so it's difficult to capture real-time information at once across their multiple touchpoints. Even when companies do have all of their data in one place, it's still difficult to draw insights out.

A lot of companies don't know what to do with the data, so they end up doing basic segmentation, but beyond that, they don't know which customers typically fall under which phase. That makes it harder to understand the next steps to increase the conversion for each funnel.

To overcome these challenges, companies first need to start by implementing a data consolidation piece. For bigger companies, it's a heavier lift because they need to talk to the different teams who are using the different databases. So, it requires a lot of effort for companies who have their data scattered in different places. It requires talking across different teams and then selecting one tool that can actually bring all the data together.

Some companies don't feel the need to start using customer journey management tools — they might not know these things exist, they might not feel they're at that level yet, or they might not think these tools will help them do the things that they want to do.

Companies might say, "Oh, I want to do targeted marketing. When customer A finishes action A, I want to recommend action B right after that." This is more easily done when the company has finished their customer journey management analysis. But sometimes they might not think it's a required action before launching their targeted marketing campaigns.

How will customer journey management continue to improve?

Data processing is currently done in near real-time, but future advancements could allow it to happen in actual real-time, so it syncs right away instead of waiting 24 to 48 hours. Another layer will be artificial intelligence and machine learning. Most platforms aren't quite where they need to be with AI, and so the continued development of the technology will provide more actionable insights.

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10 Best Customer Journey Mapping Software Tools in 2024

Senior Content Marketing Manager

May 13, 2024

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Understanding your team’s needs and customer expectations is critical to running a successful business. One way to achieve this understanding is by mapping out their journey, from their first interaction to their final purchase, and yes, there are tools to automate this process and make it way easier!

This article will explore customer journey mapping tools and outline our top 10 of the crop, each with unique features and benefits. Keep reading to find the perfect software to enhance your customer engagement efforts.

What are Customer Journey Mapping Tools?

2. custellence, 4. lucidchart, 5. visual paradigm, 6. uxpressia, 9. flowmapp, 10. microsoft visio, what to look for in customer journey mapping tools.

A customer journey mapping tool is a software application or platform that helps businesses create visual representations of customer touchpoints and experiences. Customer journey mapping involves understanding and documenting a customer’s various interactions with a business, from their initial awareness and engagement to the final purchase or onboarding and post-purchase experience.

The best customer journey mapping tool typically provides user-friendly interfaces that let businesses create visual diagrams on digital Whiteboards or Mind Maps of the customer journey. These journey maps often include different stages or phases of the customer’s experience and other aspects such as awareness, consideration, decision-making, purchase, and post-purchase.

Within each stage, the user journey map tool allows the user to define and outline specific touchpoints, interactions, channels, and emotions the customer may experience.

Mastering the customer journey mapping process helps you make sense of customer data, gain insights and identify areas for improving your average customer’s experience.

10 Best Customer Journey Mapping Software to Use in 2024

Are you tired of hearing about the essence of mapping your customer journey but unsure where to start? Fear not, as we are about to give you “the tea” on the best customer journey mapping software for you to get started.

Our top 10 picks for customer journey mapping tools include the following:

ClickUp is an excellent customer journey mapping tool that lets you create the best visual workflow representations with its whiteboard feature and mind map maker. These features help you outline and view the various touchpoints of your customer lifecycle, from awareness to conversion, repeat purchases, churn, and more.

ClickUp also offers multiple customer journey map templates , so you don’t have to create yours from scratch. Create detailed workflows and approval processes with Mind Maps so you can easily create dependencies for each step.

ClickUp key features

• ClickUp’s Whiteboard : ClickUp has a whiteboard feature that allows individuals and teams to visualize ideas, improve communication and create unique CRM workflows to improve customer journeys
• Mind Map Maker : ClickUp’s Mind Mapping feature helps create dynamic visual outlines and flowcharts for ideas, projects, or existing tasks
• Customizable templates : ClickUp provides templates for multiple use cases, including creating project roadmaps and customer journey maps – so you have a base to start from
• Custom views : Choose between 15+ different views for task management, journey mapping, diagramming, or through custom Gantt charts

ClickUp limitations

• ClickUp has a ton of customizations, so it can be a little difficult to learn it all right away

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever
• Unlimited: $7/month per user 
• Business: $12/month per user
• Enterprise: Custom pricing available–if you need software to handle your business, contact Sales to help set you up when you are ready

ClickUp customer ratings

• G2 : 4.7/5 (6,700+ reviews)
• Capterra : 4.7/5 (3,600+ reviews)

Custellence is a customer journey mapping tool that helps teams and organizations understand and improve customer experiences. With its simple drag-and-drop functionality and real-time collaboration features, Custellance lets users create customer journey maps in minutes, get buy-in from stakeholders, increase customer engagement, and drive customer-centered change.

Custellence best features

• Unique image collection
• Flexible journey map structure
• Curated icons
• Broad color palette
• Multiple templates for a quick start
• Enables export to PNG, CSV, or PDF versions
• Commenting feature for seamless collaboration
• Ability to choose your preferred code system

Custellence limitations

• Text updates sometimes take a while
• No free offer to create customer journey maps from templates

Custellence pricing

• Standard : $0 
• Professional : $30/month per user
• Enterprise : Custom pricing

Custellence ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (5+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (10+ reviews)

Smaply is one of this list’s top customer journey mapping tools because it helps create visually appealing journey maps and facilitates customer feedback tools for real-time online collaboration.

On Smaply, teams can collaborate on different maps, exchange customer feedback and visualize customer experience insights.

Smaply best features

• Online and offline collaboration features with an intuitive interface
• Drag and drop editor for detailed journey maps
• GDPR compliant
• High data security
• No credit card required

Smaply limitations

• Not enough persona templates
• No rewind button

Smaply pricing

• Free: 0 eur/month per user
• Basic: 19 eur/month per user
• Pro: 29 eur/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact Smaply for pricing

Smaply ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (10+ reviews)
• Capterra : 4.4/5 (15+ reviews)

Lucidchart is an intelligent diagramming software that can create customer journey and stakeholder maps. It allows teams to efficiently and collaboratively build visual presentations of complex processes , systems, and ideas.

With Lucidchart, you can easily create journey maps to understand how customers find, buy and use your products – and improve them to capture more revenue.

Lucidchart best features

• Data linking
• Auto-visualization
• Integration options like Google Workspace, Atlassian, Slack, and more.
• Visualization filters to highlight specific customer journeys
• Automatic cloud documentation to save and share customer personas

Lucidchart limitations

• Sometimes lags when working on large, complex diagrams with multiple elements
• Steep learning curve, unlike many alternatives
• Low-resolution exports
• Some users’ pain points are with the limited brand icons, images, and shapes to illustrate user journey maps
• Importing external graphics is complicated and sometimes impossible

Lucidchart pricing

• Individual: $7.95/ month per user
• Team: $9/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact Lucidchart for pricing

Lucidchart ratings & reviews

• G2 : 4.6/5 (2300+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (1900+ reviews)

Check out these Lucidchart alternatives!

Visual Paradigm is a suite of agile project tools for boosting productivity. The platform offers visual modeling and diagramming features that can be used to build journey maps and gain insight into customer emotions as they interact with your brand.

Visual Paradigm has several diagram types for conducting user research and building more precise visual representations of customer behaviors and journey maps.

Visual Paradigm best features

• Customer experience design tool
• Process map designer to highlight customer touchpoints
• Online diagram tool for detailed customer and stakeholder maps
• Report generation for customer journeys
• Textual analysis
• Mind mapping tool for customer journey maps
• Project publisher
• Infographics and diagram maker
• Drag-and-drop diagram editor for simple journey mapping

Visual Paradigm limitations

• Diagram connections can be complicated for some when building customer journey maps
• Some users found the app’s shortcuts sometimes don’t work
• Lacks some of the collaborative features users are looking for

Visual Paradigm pricing

• Modeler: $6/month per user
• Standard: $19/month per user
• Professional: $35/month per user
• Enterprise: $89/month per user

Visual Paradigm ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (2+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 (15+ reviews

UXPressia is a visual collaboration software for creating not just customer journey maps but user personas and impact maps as well. The software enables real-time collaboration and offers customer experience courses to help individuals and teams perform better.

UXPressia best features

• High-quality exports with custom branding
• 70+ customer journey maps, personas, and impact map templates
• Interactive online courses
• Online persona creator to highlight pain points
• Experience graph
• Integrated web analytics to detail the customer experience
• File attachments
• Presentation mode to display journey maps online

UXPressia limitations

• Some users felt constrained by limited features and unintuitive workflow
• No Jira or Confluence integration can make it difficult for users with that software in their workflow
• Steep learning curve for some users creating customer journey maps

UXPressia pricing

• Starter : $16/month per user
• Pro : $36/month per user
• Enterprise : Contact UXPressia for pricing

UXPressia ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (10+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (70+ reviews)

Sketch enables users to create different designs for their projects. With its robust features, like copy and paste, image editing and adjustments, library management, and more, Sketch can build journey maps across customer touchpoints.

Recently, the journey map company introduced an experimental feature menu for users to try unreleased features and share feedback before launch.

Sketch best features

• Available on multiple platforms – MacOS and web
• Advanced vector editing with its mapping tool
• Reusable design templates
• Intuitive prototyping
• Shared libraries
• Solo design or real-time collaboration
• Customizable toolbars

Sketch limitations

• Mapping tool is not available on iPad, which makes it tough for on-the-go Mac users
• It takes time to learn the full of the journey mapping capabilities
• Doesn’t work on Windows devices

Sketch pricing

• Standard: $12/month per editor
• Business: $20/month per editor

Sketch ratings & reviews

• G2 : 4.5/5 (1,100+ reviews)
• Capterra : 4.6/5 (750+ reviews)

Figma is a collaborative interface design software famous for its prototyping capabilities. With Figma, individuals and teams can create designs from scratch, including customer journey maps that can be used to visualize and improve customer satisfaction.

This customer experience and journey mapping tool stands out in this list because it offers a whiteboarding function for freehand wireframing and designing. Figma is targeted at user interface/experience (UI/UX) design rather than customer journey mapping, unlike many other tools on this list.

Figma best features

• Modern pen tool
• Plugins for automating tasks and improving workflows
• Flexible styles
• Accessible libraries
• Unlimited viewers
• Easy export to share the customer experience with your team

Figma limitations

• Not available offline, which can be difficult if you’re traveling where there’s spotty wifi
• It can be difficult to find resources in the community section
• Some users felt there weren’t enough image manipulation options—especially when creating customer journey maps

Figma pricing

• Figma professional : $12/month per editor
• Figma organization : $45/month per editor

Figma ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (800+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (600+ reviews)

One of the leading UX tools for web design workflows , FlowMapp allows individuals and teams to create and iterate sitemaps. It also offers features that track the status and comments/ongoing conversations about each design.

FlowMapp’s design functionalities come in handy for customer experience management, journey mapping, and the creation of customer personas.

FlowMapp best features

• Intuitive sitemaps for visualizing team workflows
• Flowchart diagrams for user journey and website planning
• User flow diagrams for planning a better customer journey and improved user experiences
• Ability to share, transfer, or archive projects or customer experience logs
• Drag and drop interface

FlowMapp limitations

• Inflexible nodes and templates compared to alternatives
• No separate input field specifically for search engine results page (SERP) information
• Some users struggled to navigate between projects
• Not enough integrations for some journey mapping tool users

FlowMapp pricing

• Pro : $18/month per user
• Team : $54/month for up to five team members
• Agency : $180/month for an unlimited number of team members

FlowMapp ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (80+ reviews)
• Capterra: Unavailable

Microsoft Visio uses stencils, premade templates, starter diagrams, and flowcharts to help customer journey managers and individuals looking to create easy-to-understand visuals.

With Visio, you can create, edit, and collaborate in Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft products.

Microsoft Visio best features

• Built-in templates for flowchart creation
• Organization chart
• Export and import functionality
• Highly customizable diagrams and graphics

Microsoft Visio limitation

• Difficulty with linking elements and sharing large files
• Limited collaboration options
• Does not integrate well with various wireframe programs
• Incompatible with tools outside the Microsoft Suite

Microsoft Visio pricing

• Visio plan 1: $5/month per user
• Visio plan 2: $15/month per user

Microsoft Visio ratings & reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (600+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (3000+ reviews)

Customer journey mapping software is indispensable for businesses that want to enhance their customer experiences. When selecting a customer journey mapping software, it is crucial to consider the following:

• Multi-channel journey mapping : Your customer journey mapping software should support multi-channel mapping, allowing you to capture and analyze interactions across different channels, including websites, mobile apps, social media, physical stores, call centers, and more.
• Data integration and automation : Look for software that seamlessly integrates with other data sources, such as CRM and project management systems, marketing automation platforms, or analytics tools. This integration lets you gather real-time data and automate the mapping process, saving time and improving the accuracy of the information.
• Collaboration and sharing features : The software should facilitate collaboration among team members, allowing them to work simultaneously, leave comments, and track changes.
• Analytics and metrics tracking : Look for customer journey maps with built-in analytics and metrics tracking capabilities to measure the effectiveness of your customer journey initiatives. It should allow you to set and track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to customer experience and other relevant metrics.
• Scalability and flexibility : You want journey mapping tools that can manage large datasets, support complex customer journeys, and adapt to changing business needs. Look for customizable features that allow you to tailor the software to match your specific requirements, ensuring flexibility and long-term usability.
• Customer support and training : Evaluate the level of customer support and training the software vendor provides. That includes assets like comprehensive documentation , tutorials, and training resources to assist users in maximizing the software’s potential. 

A customer journey mapping tool with the right blend of these features will help you gain valuable customer insights, improve user satisfaction, and drive sustainable business growth.

ClickUp—Your Best Customer Journey Mapping Software

ClickUp is the best customer experience management and journey mapping software out there. It’s like having a super-smart assistant who knows your customer’s ins and outs.

Say goodbye to the headache of manually organizing customer data, and hello to a tool that makes your customer analytics process so much easier.

Try ClickUp’s customer journey map template today .

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Customer Journey Map

What is a customer journey map.

A customer journey map is a visual depiction of all steps a customer or prospect takes when interacting with your company with a specific goal in mind. This could include, for example, the path a visitor to your website takes to reach your trial-signup page. You might also develop a customer journey map to document the entire process a customer goes through to buy your product — from their first visit to your website, through signing an agreement with a sales rep.

Why Are Customer Journey Maps Important?

Customer journey mapping is an important process because it can help various teams across a company gain a better understanding of the experience that prospective and existing customers have when dealing with their organization.

Sales teams, for example, can develop customer journey maps to get a holistic, objective view of every step a prospect must take as they move through the sales funnel. When stepping back and viewing this entire process, for example, the team might discover there are too many steps — some of which are unnecessary or could at least be shortened — and that as a result, they are losing prospects.

Similarly, when they can see and review their entire sales funnel, the team might realize there are missing steps in their customer’s journey, meaning they are asking their prospects to take too big a leap at some point to the next stage in the sales funnel.

What Can Product Managers Learn from a Customer Journey Map?

Product managers can benefit in several ways from creating customer journey maps. For example, by mapping out the entire first-time-user experience, from landing on your product’s website to actually purchasing it, you and your product team can take a more objective look at the process from a potential user’s point of view.

This can help you better understand where a prospect might become confused or frustrated along their journey — as well as where your cross-functional team has created a compelling message or painless transition that will carry the prospect along to the next stage of the buying process.

You can then share this journey map with marketing, sales, design, and other teams across the company so you can work together to improve the customer experience where it’s needed.

As an example, here is a ProductPlan customer journey map that UX Raw founder Jeremy Rawson created to depict his experience with our company, from the first website visit through creating his company’s first product roadmap with our app.

Other things product managers can learn from customer journey roadmaps include:

• Whether some area of your product itself does not allow your users to complete the desired action in a logical or streamlined way.

For a deeper discussion, read our blog on how journey maps can help product managers build better products .

How Can I Create a Customer Journey Map?

Marketing expert Aaron Agius offers the following six-step process as a customer journey map template.

Step 1: Decide what you want from this journey map.

Before you can start creating a journey map, you need to determine what your objectives are for it. Do you want to know how customers go through your sales funnel, for example, or how they interact with your support team, or how they use some aspect of your product to achieve a goal?

You can create several customer journey maps, each addressing specific interactions your customers have when interacting with your company. But you’ll want to keep each map focused on a single aspect of the customer’s journey, to avoid confusion and to give your team a clearer picture of that journey.

Step 2: Figure out your personas’ goals.

This step will help you better understand where your prospects and customers are coming from, what they need and value, and how they view themselves. When you have all of this persona data to check against your journey map, you’ll have a clearer picture of where your current customer journey conflicts with the process you’re asking them to go through.

For example, let’s assume your primary personas are executives who describe themselves as “extremely busy” in your surveys or the market research you’ve reviewed. Knowing this, when you view your journey map, you will want to make sure your current buying process does not include too many steps or take any longer than necessary.

Step 3: Identify all touchpoints.

Now you will want to identify all of the channels a prospect could possibly take as their first step with your company. This could include online ads, social media posts, organic search leading to various pages on your website, or your company’s outbound marketing emails.

Next, you’ll want to assign to each of these touchpoints the likely emotional triggers that compel users to take action and seek to engage more deeply with your company or product.

At the same time, look for any obstacles that could be stopping users from taking further action on any of these channels. When they see a social ad, for example, perhaps your product’s cost is a turnoff. Or perhaps the next-step action — filling out a lengthy form, for example — might turn prospects away.

Step 4: Determine what you want your journey map to show.

Here Agius lists the four types of customer journey maps you can use:

Current state: A detailed walkthrough of how customers currently engage with your business.

Day in the life: Also a detailed walkthrough of your customer’s journey with your company today, but put into the broader context of everything else your customer does in the day.

Future state: Your vision of how you’d like customers to interact with your product, company, etc. in the future.

Blueprint: A map of either your current-state or future-state customer’s journey, but with roles, responsibilities, and possibly timelines added for implementing your desired improvements.

Step 5: Take the customer journey yourself.

Now you’re ready to act as your customer and take the path your company has put in place to achieve whatever objective you’re trying to measure.

If you want to learn exactly what steps your prospects must go through to download your free trial, or speak with a sales rep, or complete an action using your mobile app, take that journey now.

Important: You will also want to document every step of your journey, and make notes at each stage as well about insights you’ve had, pain points you’ve identified, and any gaps or unnecessary steps in the process.

Step 6: Adjust your journey map as needed.

After you’ve completed the journey and reviewed your notes, you will want to make all necessary changes to the map.

Then you can begin translating those changes into action across your company — which could mean updating your sales process, streamlining your free trial funnel, etc.

Here are a couple of other examples, taken from Agius’s Hubspot post on customer journey maps . You can use these as templates to start your own journey map.

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Restoring Box Elder Creek: A Journey Through Time and Land

Brenda Brady ranches in central Montana on the land that has been in her family for three generations. Her sister, Laura Nowlin, and her parents live on the same property which supports two separate cattle operations–one managed by each of the sisters. Box Elder Creek flows through the property and right past the place where Brenda and Laura’s parents live. The family shares a strong connection to the creek. “My parents house looks out right over the creek, we watch and really enjoy the birds, and the deer, and the smaller critters,” said Brady. 

Over the years, due to homesteading practices such as heavy tilling, historic overgrazing, and the removal of beaver; Box Elder Creek has become degraded. Brady, Nowlin, and multiple partners are now on a mission to restore the creek to better health.  

Drawn by the Water 

The water in Box Elder Creek drew early homesteaders to settle this part of central Montana. The creek sits in the middle of sage grouse habitat and a migratory corridor for large game such as mule deer, elk, and antelope. As one of the main stream drainages in Petroleum County, Box Elder Creek has been used in the past, and still today, by many agriculturalists for irrigation and livestock watering. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages land that is interspersed with the private ranches in the area and the agency leases some of this land for private grazing. In the middle of the last century, Box Elder Creek flowed through land leased and managed by a communal group of ranchers, including Brady and Nowlin’s grandfather. Box Elder Creek, and small reservoirs were the only sources of water on the allotment. Because of this, the vegetation along the creek was overgrazed.  

When Brady’s parents secured the Box Elder Creek allotment in the 1990s, they worked with BLM to break that land up into several pastures, two of which included the creek. At that point, they implemented a rest rotation grazing system where only one of the creek pastures was grazed each year, and only in the late fall when the plants were dormant. This grazing approach gave the riparian pastures time to recover and take advantage of ideal growing conditions during the spring and summer months.  

Revitalizing Box Elder Creek 

Rotational grazing is still practiced on the Box Elder Creek pastures, and as a result, positive changes have been observed, including new cottonwood growth along the stream’s banks. Brady and Nowlin have also returned the dryland farming of the ranch to native grasses. The sisters continue to look for ways to improve the health of the ranch and their grazing practices. “That has been a big part of our grazing management plan for as long as I can remember,” said Brady, “taking care of the stream.”  

Although grazing practices have increased the growth of trees and other riparian vegetation over the last couple of decades, Brady knows the creek still has room to improve. Through time, the creek has become deeply cut into the ground, and the waters now rush through the channel quickly in the spring when the snow melts. Based on elevation modeling and now abandoned side channels found in historic aerial imagery, the active floodplain area historically expanded across approximately 60% of the valley bottom. Currently, the active floodplain consists of only about 15% of the valley bottom. Non-riparian plants such as sagebrush grow right up to the stream bed in places, indicating that the soils are dry and not able to support plants that require more moisture. “We have a bird’s eye view because of some buttes up above the creek. We can look out and see the pattern of thick sagebrush close to the creek. That was recognized fifty years ago, and we’ve started making improvements, which began with my grandpa drilling a well and developing water infrastructure so we are no longer dependent on the creek for stock watering,” said Brady.  

Beavers used to inhabit the area as well, but the loss of woody materials and water makes it difficult for them to return. While Box Elder is now considered an intermittent stream, it may have flowed year-round before homesteading and historical livestock use.  

Brady has been teaming up with a group of partners, including the BLM, World Wildlife Fund , Montana Conservation Corps (MCC), Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP), Winnet Aces , and Anabranch Solutions to increase the health of the creek by utilizing low-tech, process-based restoration techniques, which are meant to initially mimic, quickly promote, and eventually sustain natural stream processes. These structures mimic the functions of natural beaver dams and log jams and are used to slow and spread the flow of water to help the stream heal. In the right places they can create the conditions beavers need to return to historic habitat. In 2023, MCC crews visited Box Elder Creek, and completed a restoration project that led to beavers moving into the creek.  

This fall, thanks in part to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, partners are returning once again to restore additional stretches of Box Elder Creek with a focus on the BLM managed portions of the system. Woody materials for the structures will be collected from a nearby fuel reduction project, and Anabranch Solutions, a small riverscape restoration business, will lead the implementation.  

“The Box Elder Creek project is taking place on private land as well as land managed by the state of Montana and the Bureau of Land Management. When combined, we have the potential to restore up to 23 miles of continuous stream in a major system in the area,” said Bonny Richard, hydrologist for the BLM’s Lewistown Field Office. The goals of the project are to raise the water table, encourage a more continuous flow, increase fish habitat, and create a safe environment for beavers that are moving through, in hopes that they will be tempted to expand their presence in Box Elder Creek.  

The Revival of Prairie Fish 

Clint Smith, fisheries biologist for FWP, was first introduced to low-tech restoration in 2019 when professors from Utah State University hosted a workshop in Lewistown, Montana. After the workshop, Smith sat down at his computer and looked at aerial imagery of central Montana. Box Elder Creek immediately popped up as a prime candidate for this type of restoration due to its scale, and its history as a beaver inhabited creek. Richard shared an interest in the restoration potential of Box Elder Creek.  

Smith is now using the restoration work to study how prairie fish respond to the restoration techniques used on Box Elder. Much of the research to date has occurred in areas that support cold water species such as trout and salmon, and much less research has been done on prairie fish. BLM and FWP want to increase the understanding of impacts and benefits of these types of interventions in prairie streams.  

Smith has identified several monitoring sites within the restoration area where he plans to monitor small bodied fish to see if they are able to move upstream through the structures designed to mimic beaver dams. He is also curious to know if a more abundant and diverse fishery can be supported by keeping water in the stream for a longer amount of time.  

“In other perennial or less degraded streams in the area, we have seen goldeyes, channel catfish, river carpsuckers, spiny softshell turtles, and other nongame species. There is hope that if we keep [the Box Elder] system connected and flowing, these species that were here historically will be able to recolonize and reestablish in the drainage,” said Smith. 

One of those native fish species is the Northern Redbelly x Finescale Dace hybrid, a small-bodied state species of concern with a unique life history in Montana as the species reproduces as all female clones. Higher up in the Box Elder Creek drainage, a correlation between beaver dams and the presence of dace has been noted, and Smith is interested in discovering if this hybrid dace may return to the Box Elder Creek drainage over time.  

Part of revitalizing the drainage involves increasing the length of time the stream flows and increasing groundwater, but that isn’t the only aspect of a healthy system. Prior to European settlement, streams were often multi-threaded and meandering. Beaver dams, log jams, and deciduous trees and shrubs would slow the flow of water and cause new side channels to form. The streams were able to wander around their wide floodplains without constraint. 

While the restoration project aims to further improve the health of the creek, the project is only possible as a result of the hard work that Brady and Nowlin, and their parents and grandparents before them, have already put into stewarding their land by improving the vegetation diversity and woody species along the channel. 

“The land management side of this project is critical. We are already seeing the system move towards recovery on its own because of the way the landscape is being managed, and that started more than twenty years ago. Because the landowners are on board and doing really great work already, the project has massive potential to return the area to a functioning ecosystem,” said Smith.  

About the Author 

Rose Vejvoda is a graduate student at Northern Arizona University, where she is a candidate for a Professional Master of Science in Climate Science and Solutions, and a graduate certificate in Greenhouse Gas Accounting. Rose received her undergraduate degree from Montana State University where she studied English Writing, and Sustainability Studies. She has a passion for using effective storytelling to build relationships, uplift local communities, and help people feel connected to the natural world. Rose wrote this story while she was a Freshwater Ecosystems Intern at Natural Resources Defense Council in partnership with BLM.  

Rose Vejvoda, Intern

Montana/Dakotas State Office

5001 Southgate Drive Billings , MT 59101 United States

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How to create a customer experience (cx) strategy.

14 min read In this post, we’ll explain the process for creating a customer experience (CX) strategy. Help your people step into your customer’s shoes and take an outside-in customer-centric approach to customer experience management (CEM or CXM).

According to a recent report by the customer experience consulting firm Walker , customer experience is set to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. While more and more companies understand the importance of customer experience, many don’t know how to make improvements. That’s where we come in.

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What is a customer experience strategy?

A customer experience strategy is your company’s approach to creating the best possible customer experience in your unique case.

Customer experience is the sum total of a customer’s perception of your business. It’s the result of every interaction they have, from seeing your latest TV ad to contacting your customer support team to stepping into one of your stores.

While customer experience will vary from customer to customer, depending on the extent of their interaction, who they speak to and what their general expectations are from businesses in your sector, there’s a lot you can do to make it consistently high in quality. That’s where customer experience strategy comes in.

Customer experience vs. customer service

It’s easy to confuse customer experience and customer service. After all, they both revolve around treating customers well when they interact with your brand. But whereas customer service is focused on a specific set of scenarios, and often owned by a single department within your business, customer experience is holistic and crosses all silos and departmental borders – it’s everyone’s job.

Customer service can be seen as a key part of the overall customer experience. Through dedicated job roles such as customer service assistant or contact center agent, customer service is an investment your business makes in keeping customers happy and maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction .

Customer experience deals with all of that, plus the additional customer touchpoints that may not previously have been considered for optimization – things like the UI in your credit card payment flow, or the training you give your delivery drivers. Customer experience also includes all the things customers perceive without you necessarily being aware of it – your TV ads, social media posts, branded vehicles on the highway, and the feedback of friends and family who have used your products.

Why is customer experience so important?

Customer experience is increasingly recognized as a powerful means of differentiating your business from its competitors. Unlike variables such as price or product range, which win you customers only as long as you can keep ahead of your competition , customer experience creates strong, resilient relationships with customers that stand the test of time.

Research indicates that not only do customers make purchase decisions on the basis of customer experience, they’re also willing to pay more for a good experience, and even forgive mistakes from companies they’ve become loyal to.

XM Institute figures from 2020 showed that:

• About three-quarters of consumers who give a company a “very good” CX rating are likely to forgive a company for a bad experience, but only 15% of those who gave a company a “very poor” CX rating say the same.
• Nearly 90% of consumers who give a company a “very good” CX rating are likely to trust a company to take care of their needs. In comparison, 16% of consumers who gave a company a “very poor” CX rating say the same
• 94% of consumers who give a company a “very good” CX rating are likely to purchase more products or services from that company in the future. In comparison, only one in five of those who gave a company a “very poor” CX rating say the same

How to build a customer experience strategy

With something as holistic and high-level as customer experience, how do you begin to get a handle on a strategy?

We’ve set out a three-phase approach to customer experience strategy that helps you plan and prepare, break down your approach into actionable tasks, and set the scene for ongoing improvement.

1. Preparing for customer experience design

Customer experience research is the first thing you should focus on when designing your customer experience strategy. After all, how can you create a customer experience if you don’t know who your customers are?

Customer personas

Developing a persona is the first step in the research process . A persona is a fictional character developed through research. It represents the common traits of a group of customers, either the ones you currently have or those you’d like to acquire.

By developing 1-5 personas of your customer base, you can better understand the psyche of your customers and build experiences for your most valuable segments . If you start with building empathy and understanding the profile of your key customer segments, you have a way to connect with them so that everyone has a shared understanding of their demographic profile , behaviors , and pain points.

Each persona should include an image of the imaginary customer, demographic profile, attributes and motivations, needs, pain points, and actual customer quotes. To create the personas you should conduct customer interviews and analyze and theme your data to draw meaningful insights that relate to various customer types.

Empathy mapping

An empathy map is a tool used to better understand the needs of customers. It allows teams to provide a complete picture of the customer and what actions they might take as a result of their beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. Empathy mapping uses 4 quadrants labeled as ‘think’, ‘feel’, ‘say’, ‘do’ to help make sense of different aspects of the customer’s experience and preferences.

Stakeholder mapping and management

Stakeholder management is the process of understanding the attitudes of stakeholders before making a change in how you do things. Its goal is to develop alignment and collaboration between the various groups. Stakeholder planning helps to identify stakeholders’ needs and interests, mechanisms to influence stakeholders, potential risks, key people to keep informed about changes, and stakeholders who might have an adverse effect on the change you’re planning.

Where does stakeholder management come into customer experience strategy? The customer experience is created by the entire company, which means you’ll need buy-in and support from many different stakeholders to do it successfully.

One tool that can help you organize this process is stakeholder mapping. Include all departments that interact with the customer. The list might include marketing, sales, support, product management and billing. Think about cross-departmental leaders to include too. Once you have your stakeholders identified, map them into these 4 quadrants to determine the best engagement strategy:

• Supporters (high support, low influence) Involve supporters with the project team to leverage their enthusiasm
• Champions (high support, high influence) Keep champions close as project partners who can help to influence other stakeholders
• Gatekeepers: major risks (low support, high influence) Investigate concerns from this group and leverage champions to improve their support
• Bystanders (low support, low influence) Keep this group well informed via mass communications

2. Mapping the customer experience

Once you fully understand your customer and stakeholders, you’re ready to start mapping out the customer journey . This is when you step into the customer’s shoes as they’re interacting with your product or service.

Focusing challenge

Before you set up a customer experience strategy project, you need to align your stakeholders on the primary intent, so you can clearly define the set boundaries to explore. Part of this involves spending time understanding and defining your customer challenge.

A focusing challenge will help you to clearly define your future state vision or challenge and communicate the intent across the business. Use this formula: (Who) can (do what) so that (why: the outcome).

This enables you to focus your team’s thinking to drive the right action, and removes any assumptions within a project statement so that you can agree on a clear direction.

Customer journey mapping

A customer journey map is a design tool that provides a view of the end-to-end experience of your customers. It visually illustrates customers’ actions, needs and decisions throughout every stage of their relationship with your organization.

The customer journey map outlines all the opportunities, pain points, and interactions which you can use to guide your CX improvements.

To create a customer journey map, pick a persona and map out the key steps across the journey using our guide to customer journey mapping , or the 5 A’s method below. Once you fully map the customer experience, identify pain points and use the 5 Why’s model below to determine the root cause.

5 A’s customer journey mapping framework

The 5 A’s customer journey framework covers all the major interactions throughout the end-to-end customer lifecycle . It’s used to organize the key stages a customer goes through, from becoming aware of your organization right through to exiting or extending the relationship.

This alternate approach to customer journey mapping helps organize the themes for analysis through both the eyes of the customer (above the line) and your organization (below the line) – exploring key touchpoints , systems, processes, pain points and opportunities.

The 5 A’s are:

• Attract – How are customers attracted to and informed of the service or product?
• Accept – How does the customer enter into dealings with your organization?
• Adopt – How does the customer interact throughout the entire experience?
• Amplify – How do you leave the customer feeling at the end of the interaction?
• Advance – How do you follow up with customers and extend the current relationship?

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3. Building the future state experience

The future state experience is crucial because it allows you to envision what you want your customers to think and feel when they’re experiencing your product.

The 5 Whys is a simple, yet powerful problem-solving tool that works to engage teams in understanding the root cause of simple issues.

Once you have identified your root cause, you need to prove or disprove it using data. When you investigate you might find that the situation isn’t what you thought. Start by writing down a specific problem statement or pain point your team is trying to solve, ask the question of ‘why’ the problem occurs, and write down the answer below the problem, referring to your CX data dashboard and analysis tools . Then keep using the why question to the previous answer, until you get to the ultimate cause of the problem.

Brainstorming new strategies

Brainstorming is a structured technique used to apply a different way of thinking to generate and explore new ideas. Brainstorming is typically done as a collaborative effort, by bringing together the right people with the right knowledge to help solve your problem. To get the most out of the session and the people involved, brainstorming works best when you first apply divergent thinking without limitations, then converge on appropriate ideas to explore in more detail. This means considering all angles, before narrowing on designing a solution that best meets the needs of your customers.

The four main brainstorm techniques are:

• Classic – Generate as many ideas as possible and score all
• What if? – Ask “what if” three times. For example, for a problem of high customer turnover ask “what if we halved the price?”
• Wrong way – Deliberately try to generate bad ideas. For example, if you were trying to improve customer engagement and retention , ask “what could we do to drive our customers away?”
• Risky options – Concentrate on the issues that matter most in order to generate better ideas. People are often discouraged from suggesting seemingly wild or risky ideas which might lead to the best solution because they fear failure or group criticism.

Customer experience design development

The customer experience design process is a method to further develop initiatives after you’ve run customer journey mapping and opportunities brainstorming sessions. This agile process ensures unproven ideas are stopped and retired, and new, viable ideas are further developed into a business case to incite action.

The methodology is: we believe (describe the new experience), will solve ( customer’s needs and organizations issue/opportunity), enabled by (full solution), resulting in (new attitude/behavior/result).

Run each opportunity through the design tool to further develop each opportunity and then rank each opportunity in terms of its customer and business value.

Applying measurement to your new CX strategy

Now you understand what touchpoints and interactions you want to measure and improve, creating a system to do this is the next step. This is where most companies turn to customer experience software. Customer experience software is the system of record and action for experience data. Customer experience platforms are tools for companies to measure, report, analyze and take action on the human feedback from customers .

Related resources

Ai & customer experience 13 min read, customer experience transformation 15 min read, customer lifecycle management 18 min read, customer experience automation 11 min read, customer centricity 16 min read, customer data platforms 14 min read, customer experience insights 12 min read, request demo.

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