8 Customer Journey Map Examples [+ Templates]

10 min read

8 Customer Journey Map Examples [+ Templates] cover

According to Gartner , companies that properly use customer journey maps are twice as likely to outperform their competitors that don’t. But to unlock such effective results, first, you need to know how to create impactful maps—which is what these 8 customer journey map examples are for.

From Uber to Starbucks, all these examples share the same aim: to understand customer interactions, emotions, and pain points throughout their journey.

To enhance the customer experience and ultimately drive product engagement , let’s explore these 8 examples to help you achieve that goal!

  • Customer or user journey maps come in many types, with the most beneficial formats being the current state, days in the life, future state map, and service blueprint.
  • While there’s a lot to learn from successful customer journey map examples, here are 8 key insights from each map:
  • Spotify : Effective journey maps help integrate features seamlessly by tracking user engagement and identifying areas for enhancement.
  • Uber : Optimizing the first-time user experience requires focusing on critical touchpoints and user emotions to ensure a smooth onboarding process .
  • Chatmate : Identifying and addressing user issues throughout their journey helps refine overall satisfaction and improve product usability .
  • Starbucks : Enhancing repeat customer experiences involves analyzing interactions and emotions to build loyalty and manage ongoing engagement effectively.
  • Rail Europe : Improving multi-channel interactions requires refining each touchpoint in the booking process and understanding customer sentiments to enhance overall service.
  • Etsy : Detailed service blueprints are essential for perfecting complex actions and ensuring that touchpoints and processes align with customer needs .
  • Amazon : Comprehensive journey maps are crucial for optimizing each stage of the e-commerce experience by tracking product metrics and addressing customer concerns.
  • HubSpot : Detecting and resolving friction points across different user interactions can significantly improve engagement and satisfaction.
  • The basic steps for designing comprehensive customer journey maps include:
  • Defining your objectives.
  • Creating user personas .
  • Picking an appropriate template.
  • Gathering relevant data and populating your map.
  • Miro, Figma, and Canva each offer customizable customer journey map templates with unique collaboration features.
  • To build insightful journey maps, you can also leverage data from behavioral analytics tools. Schedule a Userpilot demo to see how you can get started.

examples of customer journey maps

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examples of customer journey maps

Types of customer journey maps

Every customer’s journey is unique. So there’s no universal customer journey mapping template for all companies to adopt. To help you pick the right type, here’s a look at the most commonly used map formats.

  • Current state : Visualize the current customer experience based on actual interactions as of today. Useful for identifying customer pain points and setting the stage for future state mapping based on how you’d like the customer experience to be.
  • Day in the life : Maps a customer’s entire daily routine chronologically to provide context and insights into when and where your product or service might be most valuable.
  • Future state : Envisions how the customer journey should look in the future. It focuses on potential improvements, customer desires, and wants while aligning the changes with future goals.
  • Service blueprint : Details behind-the-scenes processes and interactions performed by the company to support the customer journey. The service blueprint is the counterpart of a journey map since it focuses on the company’s view instead of the customer’s perspective.

Customer journey map examples

Customer journey mapping also helps reduce costs since you’re no longer making improvements on hunches alone. However, you only enjoy these benefits once you know how to create a solid journey map . Let’s learn how to do that with these successful customer journey map examples.

Spotify’s premium customer journey map

Spotify created a customer journey map to understand potential changes in user behavior and emotions once they became paid customers. You should use such a map when you need to learn how to boost conversion while keeping customers engaged for retention.

Let’s delve into the various elements tracked with this customer journey map:

  • Customer journey stages and potential user interactions in each stage, from opening the mobile app until they engage with shared music from friends.
  • Highlights various user touchpoints, such as app usage and music discovery.
  • Includes multiple channels like Spotify’s mobile and desktop platforms.
  • The map also captures users’ thoughts and emotions, from excitement to potential frustration, along different journey stages.

Spotify's customer journey map

Uber’s first-time experience journey map

Uber’s experience map was created to understand and optimize the first-time user experience , starting from the initial moment they interacted with the app. So, use this map to improve the onboarding experience and refine the user experience for new customers.

Moving on to the elements, here’s everything the user journey map tracks:

  • Details key user interactions from signing up and setting up payment information to requesting a ride and experiencing their first trip.
  • Highlights multiple channels for potential touchpoints, including the mobile app and customer support interactions.
  • Captures user emotions throughout the journey, ranging from anticipation to potential confusion.
  • Breaks the experience into stages to highlight critical moments where users might need additional guidance.

Uber's customer journey map example

Chatmate’s customer journey mapping example

Chatmate’s customer journey map pinpoints where users encounter problems , identifying customer pain points and opportunities throughout their interactions. This map is particularly valuable when launching new features .

Here are the various elements tracked with this experience map:

  • Divides the user’s experience into customer journey stages.
  • Highlights key user interactions for each stage, from initial discovery to ongoing engagement.
  • Lists important touchpoints to drive engagement at each stage, such as digital ads during awareness or tutorials for onboarding.
  • Includes various channels, such as mobile apps and web interfaces.
  • Captures users’ emotions, ranging from initial curiosity and excitement to potential confusion or irritation at specific stages.

Chatmate's journey map examples

Starbuck’s repeat customer experience map example

Any list of the best customer journey mapping examples needs to include Starbucks. Starbucks developed a customer journey map to understand how repeat customers interact with the brand. Build this map when you want to manage repeat customer experiences to drive retention .

Here’s a detailed look at the elements tracked using this journey map example:

  • Customer journey stages and potential interactions from the initial visit to ongoing use.
  • Highlights journey touchpoints , such as mobile orders, in-store visits, and customer loyalty rewards.
  • Includes multiple channels, like the app, physical store, and digital communications.
  • Captures customers’ emotions through each stage of the experience, ranging from satisfaction to potential frustration.
  • Differentiates between different customer experience types, i.e. poached, baseline, or enriched.

Starbucks experience map

Rail Europe’s journey map with customer touchpoints by channels

Rail Europe created a journey map to enhance the travel booking experience. The purpose was to optimize how customers engage with Rail Europe’s services by refining customer journey touchpoints and their multiple channels throughout the booking process.

Let’s explore all the elements tracked with this customer journey map example:

  • Customer journey stages and potential user interactions, from searching for train options to finalizing a booking.
  • Highlights multiple channels for possible touchpoints, such as the website, mobile app, customer service , email communications, and beyond.
  • Tracks customer sentiments at different stages, ranging from enthusiasm about trip planning to potential dissatisfaction if challenges arise during booking or travel.

Do note that due to the multi-channel approach, this customer journey map template is quite dense. So, only use it if you are comfortable undertaking such complexity.

Rail Europe's journey map

Etsy’s service blueprint map

Etsy developed the service blueprint map with the main aim of perfecting its customer service and shopping experience. The purpose was to build up various touchpoints and processes that could enhance customer satisfaction and streamline complex support processes.

Etsy's service blueprint map

Let’s deep dive into the elements tracked with this blueprint map:

  • Customer journey stages are divided into time stamps.
  • Potential customer interactions , from browsing and purchasing items to post-purchase support and feedback.
  • Highlights important touchpoints at the back end, such as the website interface, customer service activity, and order fulfillment.
  • Includes multiple channels like online chat, email, and in-app notifications .
  • Tracks user sentiments , ranging from enthusiasm during the discovery process to annoyance with order issues or support delays.

Etsy's detailed service blueprint

Amazon’s customer journey map

Customer journey map examples can’t be complete without mentioning Amazon. Amazon’s journey map was designed to improve its complex e-commerce experience and drive customer engagement .

This map is particularly helpful for identifying specific experience touchpoints and metrics—like conversion rates and purchase assists—crucial for optimizing processes.

Let’s explore the key elements captured in this customer journey map:

  • Details user interactions across various touchpoints, from searching for products and adding items to the cart to completing a purchase.
  • Includes multiple channels, like Amazon’s website, mobile app, and customer service .
  • Captures customer emotions and concerns, ranging from anticipation during browsing to potential dissatisfaction if problems occur during checkout or delivery.
  • Tracks success metrics across each stage of the customer journey.

Do note, Amazon’s customer journey map template is incredibly detailed and complicated. So, only use it if you’re comfortable with such complexities.

Amazon's customer journey framework

HubSpot’s customer journey map for identifying friction

Finally, there’s HubSpot’s simple customer journey map example, ideal for “a day in the life” mapping. The map was designed to identify friction points in the customer experience and solve problems customers encounter throughout their journey.

Building this type of map is especially useful when aiming to improve the success of customer engagement strategies .

Here are all the elements this customer journey map can track:

  • Outlines customer interactions throughout various times of the day.
  • Tracks touchpoints such as product discovery , engagement with customer support , and decision-making processes.
  • Emphasizes different channels, including HubSpot’s website, email communications, and customer service .
  • Captures customer sentiments , from initial enthusiasm during product exploration to potential disappointment when encountering obstacles or delays.

Hubspot's customer journey map

How to create customer journey maps?

Inspired to create your own customer journey maps? Here’s a concise guide to building effective maps, from initial planning to data collection for populating your map. Let’s get started!

Determine your customer journey mapping objectives

The first step is to set your goals for the customer journey map. Clearly define what you hope to achieve with the map. For instance, are you looking to uncover customer pain points , or is the objective to improve customer engagement ?

Also, define which stage of the customer journey you will focus on, such as onboarding, purchase, or retention.

Customer journey stages

Lastly, figure out who needs to be involved in the creation and utilization of the customer’s journey map. Consider involving key stakeholders, such as marketing, customer support, and product teams , to ensure a thorough and well-defined strategy.

Identify and build the customer personas

Creating accurate customer personas helps you understand your ideal customers by identifying their key characteristics and behaviors. You can build such personas by first gathering data through in-app surveys , interviews, and product analytics . Here’s an example:

Typical customer persona card.

To simplify persona creation, consider utilizing tools like the customer profile feature in Userpilot. The feature enables you to compile and analyze gathered information, ensuring your personas reflect the real needs and preferences of your target audience.

user engagement profile

Use a suitable customer journey map template

There are several customer journey map formats and templates to choose from, each serving a different function.

So, pick a template or framework that aligns with your objectives and the specific stage of the customer journey you’re focusing on. Select one that provides clear visualizations , accommodates the data you will gather, and effectively highlights pain points and improvement areas.

Here’s a template from Miro:

Customer journey map template

Collect data to fill in your journey map

Before you start populating your customer journey map, you must first collect the relevant customer data . Some great sources for comprehensive data include customer interviews, surveys, and feedback collection .

In-app feedback collection

You can also use analytics data to uncover behavioral patterns and drop-off points .

Templates for customer journey mapping process

Finally, it’s time to explore different templates for mapping various customer journeys. There are various tools available with their own templates, each offering unique features for brainstorming, collaboration, and customization. Let’s go over all the options to find the best fit for your needs.

Customer journey map templates in Miro

Considering the level of customizability they offer, Miro’s templates are suitable for creating journey maps for projects of all kinds.

You can adjust stages and paths, add notes or extra steps, and integrate visuals , ensuring a tailored approach to mapping your customer’s journey. The same template can be used to explore all customer journey stages, like the onboarding map below.

Miro aids collaboration by allowing teams to co-create simultaneously. Team members can also brainstorm in real-time by adding sticky notes and comments to the map.

Miro's customer journey map template

Customer journey map templates in Figma

Use Figma’s template to visualize key interactions of a customer’s experience with your product, from initial contact to purchase and retention.

Figma supports collaboration with immediate updates, enabling team members to co-design together. Teams can also add comments within the design to aid the brainstorming process.

Lastly, you can adjust the template as needed by adding stages, updating content, managing connecting flows, and integrating feedback.

Figma journey map templates

Customer journey map templates in Canva

Canva offers a variety of templates, most of which are useful for visually tracking and improving user experience interactions .

Canva facilitates collaboration with its real-time editing, comments, and reactions features, allowing team members to work together.

You can also customize the template by adjusting text, colors, and layout, as well as adding icons and graphics to align with your specific needs and branding. While Canva is a good option, its customizability features are simple and more suited for beginners.

Canva journey map templates

The customer journey is not a linear path but an ongoing cycle of interactions and experiences. Nevertheless, we hope these customer journey map examples give you a starting point on how to build one. You can also try tools like Miro, Figma, and Canva, which provide great templates to build upon.

Looking to refine your customer journey map with data-driven insights? Get a Userpilot Demo and see how we can help you with effective user research.

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

Aaron Agius

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?

person creating a customer journey map

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.

Download Now: Free Customer Journey Map Templates

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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

examples of customer journey maps

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.

hubspot customer journey map stages

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7 Interesting Real-Life Customer Journey Map Examples

Kristina Allen

Creating a customer journey map is vital for any business to optimize its sales and marketing processes.

According to Salesforce , “among high-performing teams, 88% say a customer journey strategy is critical to the success of their overall marketing.”

An effective customer journey map will include each customer touchpoint a shopper interacts with on the way to making a purchase.

If you’re looking to create this document from scratch or looking for ways to improve your map, below are some customer journey map examples from highly successful companies.

Customer Journey Map Examples

When doing customer journey mapping, you should think deeply about your business and the customer experience. On that note, let’s dive into some real-life customer journey mapping and walk you through what makes customer journey maps so valuable.

Consumer SaaS Customer Journey Map Examples

Customer journey maps are essential to B2C companies in the SaaS space. It can be expensive to acquire a new customer and each month that you’re able to keep a subscription active deepens your ROI and ROAS.

Understanding each customer interaction, pain points and customer needs is vital for maximizing value throughout the customer lifecycle - and a user journey map will help identify these areas.

Spotify is one of the world’s most popular audio streaming services. When Spotify wanted to improve the music-sharing experience for its customers, it hired a marketing firm to create a customer journey map .

The goal of this user journey map was to determine where music sharing features the best fit into the customer experience .

Spotify Customer Journey Map

In this example, we see the user experience mapped out from the moment the user first opens Spotify on a mobile device, all the way through to whether they like a song that a friend has shared.

Also Read: Effective Customer Journey Design

Throughout each stage and every touchpoint, the brand lists what a customer is engaging with, doing, thinking, and feeling (something that's commonly done with an empathy map ). The agency used data research and customer surveys to better understand how users felt at each touchpoint in the customer journey to collect this information.

Based on the customer journey map, Spotify was able to identify pain points for users and address those pain points so that the music sharing experience is smooth and seamless, encouraging more users to share music -- and to do it more often. \

This journey map is excellent because it identifies key areas of customer engagement, takes into account customer behavior , and has the goal of making the customer experience as enjoyable as possible.

The end result is significantly higher customer satisfaction, which can have several key benefits, including a smoother buyer journey, greater customer loyalty, and in many cases, existing customers becoming brand advocates.

2. TurboTax

Turbo Tax is a leading online software package for preparing taxes. When the TurboTax team was ready to launch a new product called Personal Pro, they created a customer journey map to better understand the overall customer experience with this new product.

The team used a mix of data research, customer surveys, and key conversations with tax professionals to understand how the product fits into the lives of those using it.

TurboTax Customer Journey Map

TurboTax’s customer journey analytics exercise starts when someone enters the website and is in the consideration phase through to the completion of the tax filing.

This customer journey map is great because it allows the team to see each customer pain point experienced and, therefore, address these pain points to make the customer experience smoother and more satisfactory.

Ecommerce Customer Journey Map Examples

The Ecommerce space is highly competitive in almost every niche these days. To maximize profit margins while keeping pricing competitive, it’s important to convert as many shoppers that visit your site as possible.

Also Read: Customer Journey Template

In addition to converting first-time customers at high rates, it’s important to have up-sell and cross-sell touchpoints in your customer journey as well. This increases the lifetime value of your customers and drives up the ROI against your acquisition costs.

Customer journey mapping is a vital exercise that can help E-commerce businesses skyrocket conversion rates from all online shoppers and achieve higher customer success.

1. Columbia Road

E-commerce agency, Columbia Road, created this map template for a fictitious online grocery shop . Here the agency demonstrates the core activities, goals, touchpoints, and experiences that a customer will go through during the decision-making process to place an order.

Columbia Road Customer Journey Map

In this customer journey mapping exercise, the Columbia Road team went one step further than others by also including Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and which department is responsible for ensuring a customer has the best experience possible at each stage within the user journey.

Including KPIs is important because it lets you know if your customer journey map template is effective or if it needs to be adjusted to better serve your shoppers.

Amazon is one of the largest E-commerce shops in the world, with its own technology and custom systems in place for moving a customer through the sales journey. Its customer journey map is one of the most complex around and would take most people days to read through and understand each customer journey stage.

Amazon Customer Journey Map

The good news is that the map can be broken down into several more digestible parts for analysis.

Amazon Conversion Funnel

Here we can see Amazon’s customer conversion funnel and how the customer journey is enabled by its own products that push users through the sales funnel to maximize customer engagement.

Most interesting here is how Amazon includes its success metrics for each stage of the customer journey. These are the same success metrics that just about every E-commerce shop should be monitoring:

  • Impressions
  • Add to list
  • Add to cart
  • Purchase assists
  • Conversion rate
  • Subscriptions
  • Repeat purchase rates

When conducting your customer journey mapping exercise, be sure to include these key metrics to monitor your success and gain deeper insight into the overall customer experience.

3. A More Common Scenario

If looking at the Amazon customer journey map feels overwhelming to you know that you’re not alone. Most E-commerce businesses will have a much less complicated customer journey to map out.

Here's a customer journey map template for the checkout process for online shops.

Customer Journey Map Example

For instance, you see the most important stages of the checkout process, including the technology involved, common customer frustrations, and space to include solutions to make the process smoother.

For example, if a customer finds creating an account to be a barrier to checkout in the very first step - then offering a guest checkout option would be one solution for improving the customer experience.

Start your E-commerce customer journey mapping exercise using the above customer journey mapping template as an outline and then customize it for your own needs.

(If this isn't a good fit for your company, check out these other customer journey templates .)

B2B Customer Journey Map Examples (SaaS)

In the B2B customer journey , the sales cycle can vary significantly based on price point and the buy-in from stakeholders needed to make a business purchase.

When it comes to a B2B SaaS purchase for something reasonably inexpensive like Hootsuite’s social media management platform or the MailChimp email marketing platform, most of the customer journey will happen digitally with minimal to no involvement from a sales representative.

In this case, customer journey maps might be made using a simple Excel spreadsheet.

B2B Customer Journey Map using Excel

Because there are few high barriers to conversion, the customer sales journey can happen quickly and easily as long as the right digital touchpoints are in place.

The journey map example above shows that touchpoints can all be online assets from social media for awareness, to blog posts for research, to case studies or webinars for consideration. Finally, there might be a personal touchpoint at the very end if someone has a question right before or after purchasing.

If your customers go from Awareness to Purchase (or even Free Trial purchase) quickly, a simple user journey mapping might work for you.

If a B2B SaaS company has a longer sales cycle with a more highly considered product or service, the customer journey map should be more complex and done differently.

Below is an example from HubSpot. The first part of their customer journey map includes the various stages of the journey throughout each customer touchpoint:

HubSpot Customer Journey Map Template

Because this is an example of a journey with a longer sales cycle, it also breaks down the stages into substages to dig further into the mindset of a potential customer.

HubSpot Customer Journey Substages

Under the Awareness Stage would be the Stranger. Under the Consideration Stage would be the Subscriber/Lead and MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead). And under the Decision Stage would be the Opportunity and the Deal Closed/Handoff.

As a customer moves from, say, Subscriber to MQL in the Consideration Stage, they will experience different emotions and require different touchpoints to move through the sales funnel.

For example, a blog subscriber or newsletter subscriber might not even be able to afford your product or service, so it wouldn’t make sense to assign them a sales rep and waste that rep’s time.

However, once a subscriber becomes an MQL, and you know they fit your customer profile you can start treating this person as a real potential customer by dedicating more time and resources.

This also makes for a more relevant experience from your customer’s perspective. No one likes to be hassled to buy a product they can't afford.

In the overall customer journey, the subscriber and the MQL are both still in the Consideration Stage but they should be treated in a different way which is why it’s important to break the journey down into smaller stages if you have a longer sales cycle.

What Makes a Good Customer Journey Map

Above we walked through several interesting examples of customer journey maps and discussed the pros and cons. Now, as you get ready to create your own map, let’s talk about key elements to keep in mind for best practices.

1. It Should Be Based on Market Research Plus Real Customer Data

According to a study from Ascend2 in partnership with Ansira, enterprise marketers are using customer feedback surveys (53%) and customer journey marketing research (47%) to build journey maps.

Customer Journey Market Research

This is a great combination because it includes work based on theory as well as the real-world experiences of shoppers. And having this mix is critical for constructing effective journey maps and ultimately optimizing the customer experience.

Why is this combination key?

Customers don’t always know what they want or what they would prefer if they have never experienced a new product or feature before.

Therefore, it’s up to the business to continuously innovate and present ideas to shoppers. These new products and features should be workshopped based on a customer persona and user research.

Then, once the product or new feature is created, to make it as beneficial to the user as possible, feedback should be collected so improvements can be made.

Because customer journey maps need to take into account the thoughts and actions of users, compiling a document that includes a combination of market research and customer feedback surveys is the best way to get the data you need to make an effective journey map for your ideal buyer persona.

2. It Expands Beyond Your Marketing Funnel

A common pitfall for many companies when customer journey mapping is making a storyboard of the marketing funnel or marketing plan.

The marketing funnel is a good basis for creating a skeleton of the marketing portion of experience maps, but the user journey map should go well beyond marketing.

What does this mean?

The marketing funnel can be broken down into customer journey stages , just like your customer’s journey. It starts with awareness with your target audience and ends with a purchase from your ideal customer persona in the most basic sense (we often like to take this beyond purchase to gaining a loyal customer and getting a repeat purchase).

Marketing Funnel

This means in the awareness stage of your marketing funnel you may talk about social media, Google Ads, and other forms of awareness building.

Then in the interest section, you may discuss email marketing, webinars, and other forms of content that increase interest. And in the consideration phase, you may talk about the UX design of your website, sales demonstrations, customer service, and so on.

A good marketing funnel will detail basic activities that should be carried out at each stage of the funnel for your user persona.

The Customer journey maps goes well beyond these basic activities and also lists out what a customer is thinking, feeling, and doing at each stage of the marketing funnel.

Think of it as a marketing funnel on steroids! It’s a much stronger and more powerful document than just your basic marketing funnel or marketing plan.

Additionally, any customer experience mapping needs to go beyond the marketing funnel. It should include the entire user experience with the product or service, each step in the sales cycle, and the touchpoints a person may routinely have with customer service.

3. It Includes KPIs

Good customer journey maps will include the various stages of the sales and marketing cycle as well as the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the user at each stage. Great customer journey maps will include KPIs for each stage.

Including KPIs is important so that the map can be evaluated by each customer touch point and adjusted when necessary.

Also, note that a customer journey map isn’t a document that is set in stone. It should be updated when new information is learned about:

  • Customer behavior
  • Customer needs
  • Customer goals
  • Customer expectations
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Customer support
  • Customer service

It should also be evaluated and adjusted if overall sales and marketing goals are not being met.

Because the world is always evolving, so is the entire customer journey.

Whether you’re using a basic platform like Google Analytics or something more advanced like Woopra that’s specifically designed with the customer journey in mind, it should be capable of tracking all essential KPIs.

Get Started Creating Your Customer Journey Map

There's no better time to start laying the foundation for your customer journey mapping process than today.

By creating a visual representation of the buying process, you’ll gain valuable insight into the customer experience and reasons why customers do and don’t buy from you.

Once you’ve identified customer pain points you can make improvements at the necessary customer journey touchpoints, as well as optimize your customer service blueprint to position your business for sales success.

Remember, the whole goal is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes to create the best possible shopping experience for customer retention!

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What is a Customer Journey Map? [Free Templates]

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

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

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

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

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

What is a customer journey map?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The benefits of using customer journey maps

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

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

Improved customer support

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

Effective marketing tactics

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

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

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

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

Product advancements or service improvements

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

A more enjoyable and efficient user experience

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

A customer-focused mindset

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

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

How to create a customer journey map

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

Step 1. Set your focus

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

Step 2. Choose your buyer personas

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

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

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

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

Step 3. Perform user research

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

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

FAQ chatbot Kusmi Tea

Get a free Heyday demo

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

Step 4. List customer touchpoints

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

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

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

Step 5. Build your customer journey map

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

Step 6. Analyze your customer journey map

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

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

Types of customer journey maps

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

Current state

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

Future state

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

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

Day-in-the-life

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

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

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

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

Empathy maps

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

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

Customer journey map templates

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

Customer journey map template for the current state:

customer journey map template

The future state customer journey mapping template:

future state customer journey mapping template

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

day-in-the-life customer journey map

An empathy map template:

empathy map template

A customer journey map example

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

customer journey map example for "Curious Colleen Persona"

Buyer Persona:

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

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

What are their struggles?

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

What tasks do they have?

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

Opportunities:

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

Action Plan:

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

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

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

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Learn / Guides / Customer journey mapping (CJM) guide

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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.

#How the Hotjar team mapped out the ‘customer using a heatmap’ journey using sticky notes

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

#A customer journey map example from Airbnb, starting when a user needs to book accommodation and ending after their stay in an Airbnb property

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.

#A visual recap of your 2 and 1/2 days working on a customer journey map

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

#Website analytics from tools like Google Analytics are foundational to mapping customer journeys

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

#Get real-time input from your website users with Hotjar Surveys

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.

#Use this empathy map canvas template to kick-start your customer journey mapping workshop

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

#An example of a customer journey map template with different stages and themes

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:

examples of customer journey maps

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.

examples of customer journey maps

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.

examples of customer journey maps

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

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.

Customer journey mapping in Miro

Table of Contents

What is a customer journey map?

Definition of customer journey mapping.

A customer journey map (or CJM) is a visual representation of the process your customers go through when interacting with your company. This diagram takes you through the exact steps that lead to a customer choosing your specific product and buying it from your business. Creating a customer journey map will provide you with a visual storyline of how a buyer or a customer persona engages with your business at every touchpoint. From seeing your brand on social media to going into the store to buy the product — the customer journey will document the entire story. Customer journey maps are especially useful when they chart the experience of a single persona. By taking one specific customer persona, such as a small business owner or a single mother, the journey map can be detailed and specific — providing you with data and information about how to target specific customers. If you include too many personas on one customer journey map, you risk your diagram becoming too generic, and you may overlook new opportunities. You’ll likely need multiple customer journey maps to accurately depict the many personas of your target audience. But of course, you’ll need to define those personas first. Miro has a user persona template that can help you represent your target audience and better understand how to satisfy their needs with your product.

examples of customer journey maps

Why is customer journey mapping important?

Ever wondered what makes a customer buy a specific product from a certain company? The answer often lies in the journey the customer takes above all else. Here’s why mapping the customer journey is so important for every business, no matter how big or small.

Makes complex customer journeys easy to understand

Like other diagrams and concept maps, turning a complex process like a customer journey into a visual representation brings clarity and shared understanding. Instead of trying to describe a customer journey model exclusively with words, the diagram gives everyone on your team a visual overview of the entire customer experience.

Most customer journey touchpoints are mapped on a timeline, which creates a chronological understanding of the needs and wants of the customer at each stage of the process. Having a tool that makes it easier for your team to understand these complex journeys is crucial, as often, a customer journey doesn’t align with one specific department. For example, marketing, sales, customer service, and technical support may all need to be involved in creating an ideal user experience.

Everyone from each of these departments needs to be clear on how the journey works, where the handoffs are, and how to maximize the experience. By having one diagram act as a point of reference, different departments can ensure they are on the same page and can make informed, collaborative decisions.

Puts you in the customer’s shoes

An effective customer journey map helps you learn not only customer behavior but also how customers interact with your product. It also helps you understand your customers on an emotional level, acknowledging what causes them frustration, happiness, and excitement. By putting yourself in a customer’s shoes, you can follow their entire journey from brand awareness to advocacy. This allows you to gain deeper insights into the customer’s pain points and what compelled them to choose your company’s product. Based on this analysis, you can tailor your business processes to attract similar personas and increase conversions.

Creates a clearer understanding of your customer’s expectations

Customer journey mapping is a strategic approach that allows your company to understand customer expectations as well as what attracts certain personas to buy your product. By taking the time to understand the customer’s journey, you can understand what they expect from their experience with your business and product. This deeper understanding of what they need from your business allows you to proactively support them. It may also identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.

Contributes to long-term customer retention

Striving to understand what the customer needs and following their journey will allow you to optimize their experience with your company. This will make your customer feel heard and appreciated, and, as a result, brand loyalty among your customer base will increase. In turn, this will lead to high customer retention and, hopefully, an increase in purchase frequency, which will benefit your company greatly in the long term.

The benefits of customer journey mapping

Many great tools can help you understand the customer journey. Why should you care about this one? Here are a few reasons why CJMs should be an essential part of your business toolkit.

Build better experiences

Customer journey mapping gives you a big-picture experience of your customer’s interaction with your brand. Think of a CJM as a map of a physical location like a city or a town. Once you have a map spread out in front of you, it’s easier to understand where you might run into roadblocks. It helps you plan ahead, and make adjustments to help customers overcome those obstacles.

Once you can visualize all phases of your customer’s journey, you can see where you’re not meeting their expectations. Armed with that knowledge, you can build a customer experience that’s seamless and satisfying. That translates into improved products and processes, more sales, faster sales cycles, and greater customer retention.

Enable customer success

For your business to succeed, your customer must also succeed. Customer journey mapping helps you see what is and isn’t working for your customer so you can set them up for success. Even a stylized picture of your customer’s journey can empower you to create, monitor, adjust, and enhance touch points.

Work better as a team

Even if your objectives are different, everyone in your organization is working toward the same goal: satisfying your customers. But it’s easy to lose focus. Engineering teams are busy coding, marketing teams are writing ad copy, sales teams are trying to sell to their prospects.… How do you all stay aligned?

Customer journey mapping is powerful because it keeps everyone focused on the customer. By creating a CJM, you can gain deep insight into what your customers want and need. For the marketing team, that means building better campaigns. For the sales team, that means deeper engagement with customers and prospects. For engineering, that means a holistic understanding of what programs are meant to achieve. Customer journey mapping makes it easy to equip every team member with a sophisticated understanding of your customers.

Set yourself apart from the competition

A  recent report  shows that 90% of the organizations that use customer journey mapping saw a decrease in churn and customer complaints. Customers and prospects respond positively when they feel like a brand understands their desires and pain points. The data is clear: customer journey mapping can set you apart from your competition.

5 customer journey stages

The customer journey map can be split into five important stages, as seen in this customer journey mapping template pack . Each customer will go through these stages as they interact with your company during their journey.

1. Awareness

Awareness is the moment when a buyer first becomes aware of your company, product, or brand. This can happen through a variety of mediums, from social media advertising to a word-of-mouth referral from another customer. Your brand can increase awareness and attract more customers through marketing practices and brand advertising. Paying attention to how your target audience grows their awareness of your brand enables you to optimize your marketing approach, budget, and channel prioritization.

2. Consideration

After your customer has become aware of your brand, they move into the consideration stage. This is a stage of ideation in which the customer considers whether they need the product or service your business is offering. They may also consider other companies that offer the same product. This stage proves the importance of good advertising at the awareness stage. If your company markets itself well, the customer will likely consider your product even more closely at this stage.

3. Purchase/Decision

After the customer has considered all of their options, it’s time to decide on the product or service they are going to purchase — or whether they’re going to make a purchase at all. Should they decide against buying, that will be the end of their personal customer journey. If that is the case, your company should focus on improving the awareness and consideration stages by working on its customer service or trying out new advertising or personalized promotional techniques.

4. Retention

Remember: the customer journey doesn’t end once they’ve made a purchase. Every company wants a loyal base of customers who return time and time again, which is why your team should analyze what needs to be done to stop customers from leaving. Fostering brand loyalty is a great way to improve your business’s general income. You can aim to retain customers by providing things like incentives, better customer support, and reminders about new products through digital marketing.

5. Advocacy

The last stage in the customer journey is advocacy — letting other people know about your brand or the service that you offer. Customers are more likely to advocate for your company if they are completely satisfied throughout each stage of the customer journey. This shows the interconnectedness of every step and how the journey is a circular pattern, even if it focuses on different personas.

What are customer journey touchpoints?

Throughout the five customer journey stages, there are different customer touchpoints . These are the moments in the customer journey when the customer interacts or engages with the business. Let’s take a closer look at the three types of touchpoints.

1. Pre-purchase touchpoints

A pre-purchase touchpoint includes any time when the customer interacts with your business before making a purchase decision. Pre-purchase touchpoints can occur in the awareness and consideration stages. They can also happen when another customer that has already gone through the entire customer journey refers your business. Pre-purchase touchpoints can happen if a buyer comes into contact with your business by visiting your website, seeing a post about you on social media, or hearing about your product from a friend. This point of the customer journey is all about persuasion and explanation. You need to make sure that when the customer discovers your business for the first time, you demonstrate that you can fulfill their buying needs.

2. Purchase touchpoints

Purchase touchpoints take place during the decision/purchasing stage of the buyer’s journey. This can happen in-store or online. You should optimize this stage to be as efficient and streamlined as possible so that the customer doesn’t change their mind during the purchase. For example, having a slow website that isn’t mobile optimized or forcing the customer to jump through hoops with a sales assistant to make a purchase will affect the buying process. Optimizing this touchpoint is essential to retaining customers, as a quick and easy purchase process could compel them to return in the future.

3. Post-purchase touchpoints

Post-purchase touchpoints include the journey’s advocacy and retention phases. The success of these touchpoints depends on how well-optimized the previous stages in the journey were. If the entire journey up until this point was enjoyable for the customer, they are more likely to refer your product or service to their friends and family. You should try to stay in regular contact with the customer to remind them about the journey and your company, as this will encourage them to return in the future.

examples of customer journey maps

What’s the difference between a customer journey map and a user story map?

Although customer journey maps and user story maps resemble each other, their functions are slightly different.

User stories are used to plan out features or functionalities, typically in an Agile model. In a user story, you describe a feature or functionality from user perspectives. That way, you can understand what the user wants to do and how that feature can help them accomplish it. Use a customer problem statement template to help you craft these perspectives.

Typically, a user story takes this form: “As a [type of user], I want to [goal], so that [benefit].” For example, “As a UX designer, I want to sketch on an online whiteboard, so I don’t have to be in the same location as my collaborators.”

You can then visualize that user story with a user story map. For example, if you wanted to visualize the user story above, you would start by detailing the various steps the user will take when using that functionality. In this case:

Sketch on the whiteboard

Share with teammates

See teammates sketch in real time

Then, you would document the features required to take each step. Once you’ve done that, you would write these features on sticky notes and rearrange them based on their corresponding functionalities.

In short, user story maps allow you to plan and implement changes to the customer journey. Customer journey maps allow you to discover and understand what those changes might look like.

How to create a customer journey map

Creating a great customer journey map can be challenging. You need to get into the mind of a specific customer persona and understand not only their needs but also the different ways in which they interact with your company. With Miro’s customer journey mapping tool , you can streamline the process of creating one of these maps for your specific needs. Or, if you'd rather not start from scratch, follow these steps when filling out Miro’s customer journey map template :

1. Set clear objectives for the map

Before diving into the creation of your customer journey map, ask yourself why you need to know this information. Are you looking to optimize certain touchpoints? Are you looking to see why customer retention is low? Do you want to determine why customers decide against your product? Figuring out why you’re building the map is essential to the success of the exercise.

2. Identify profiles and personas

As previously mentioned, you need to focus on a specific persona when examining the customer journey. It’s important to remember that the customer journey map should focus on one specific audience at a time. This will help you figure out exactly who your target customer base is and gain an in-depth understanding of the buyer’s needs that your company is attempting to fulfill.

3. List the customer journey touchpoints

Next, you need to understand what happens each time the customer comes into contact with your company. These points in the process will tell you which areas of the journey you need to streamline and optimize to improve the customer experience.

4. Take the customer journey yourself

For the customer journey map exercise to be productive, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and be honest with the experience that you have. This is the best way to see if your customer journey mapping is accurate and identify areas for improvement in the customer journey.

Customer journey mapping example

Here are some customer journey mapping examples for you to draw inspiration from and better understand what goes into a customer journey model.

Alex Gilev’s Practical Customer Journey Map

Alex Gilev is a certified UX expert and product leader experienced in creating highly usable and intuitive web applications. His practical customer journey map example created in Miro is based on the idea that you want to create an irreplaceable product for your customers. This customer journey map is divided into four phases: Discovery, Onboarding, Scaffolding, and Endgame.

examples of customer journey maps

This take on a customer journey map allows you to figure out practical fixes that will increase your competitive advantage over other businesses in the same industry. It helps you identify the value metrics that make your product desirable to the specified persona so that they’ll want to use your product frequently and repeatedly.

Build a customer journey map suited to your needs 

As we’ve shown, creating a customer journey map with your team has many benefits. This exercise can help you create the ideal experience for anyone who may come into contact with your company. It could be invaluable to the future of your business and help you build a loyal customer base.

Are you ready to get started with customer journey mapping? Try the Customer Journey Map Template , the ideal foundation on which to begin. This template is tailored to help your company identify touchpoints so that you can meet your customers’ needs.

How to make a customer journey map?

Benefits of a customer journey map, customer experience vs. customer journey map, service blueprint vs. journey map, what is consumer decision-making process, buyer journey vs customer journey, the 7 steps of the customer journey, what is service blueprint, get on board in seconds, plans and pricing.

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8 Proven Customer Journey Mapping Examples

Examples of the different customer journey maps you can create to understand how people interact with your business.

Customer journey maps visualize the interactions between a customer and a business. They depict how a customer experiences your products and services from their perspective – not from the way you, as a business, might imagine it to be. That’s why some maps don’t stop at depicting touchpoints, they also show customers’ emotions during each interaction, or the time it takes for customers to move through different journey stages .

Over the years, businesses have developed four main types of customer journey maps. Each one serves a particular purpose and requires different types of data. We look at eight real-life customer journey mapping examples to illustrate the different types of maps.

1. Current-state maps

A current-state map depicts your customer journey as it is. You use it to discover how customers interact with your business and identify problems like service gaps. A current-state map can reveal interactions that result in a high rate of either churn or conversion.

A journey map uncovers market threats and opportunities

A retirement home referral business worked with Say Yeah, a digital transformation consulting company, to develop a customer journey map that would uncover market opportunities and threats . Their data showed that the choice of a retirement home was often driven not by elderly people but by their adult children. So they set out to discover how adults came to make this choice.

Here’s the map they developed:

current-state-map

Image source

The map showed that before deciding on a retirement home, adult children also considered getting in-home elder care, renovating their homes to accommodate the physical needs of their elderly parents, and using other social support systems. This insight revealed the market opportunity to expand from retirement home referral services to a broader scope of elder care referral services.

Key takeaway: When searching for new revenue opportunities, investigate customers’ decision-making process. Find out the alternative solutions they consider not only among your direct competitors but also from other fields within your industry.

Customer journey research reveals the motives and frustrations driving customer behavior

Telus, a Canadian telco, and Bridgeable, a service design firm, mapped the customer journey to guide them in revamping their mobile service contract renewal process . They discovered that their customers tended to act in one of two behavior streams. In one, customers were “passive optimists,” going with whatever options the telco offered. In the other, customers were “proactive warriors,” hunting for better deals on the telco’s website, through customer support calls, and in stores. 

telco-journey-map

This research refuted the belief that customers used a single channel when renewing their contracts. The data showed that many customers first called a Telus rep, researched further on Telus’ website, then finally renewed their contract in a Telus store. This long process irritated customers and increased the operational costs of contract renewals. Customers were happiest when they could renew their contracts and find good deals through digital channels. Digital renewals were also operationally cheaper for Telus.

With the insights gained from mapping the customer journey, Telus and Bridgeable designed an AI-driven personalization service that offered consistent recommendations for each customer no matter which channel they chose for research and renewal. When they tested the service, customer satisfaction scores among the trial group rose by 20% and usage of lower-cost channels grew by 25%.

Key takeaway: Before redesigning a product or service, discover your customers’ perspective, even if it contrasts with your assumptions. Learn how your customers’ pain points align with the business problem you aim to solve.

Future-state maps

A future-state map shows the ideal journey you’ve envisioned for customers. You use this map when developing, relaunching, or improving a product or service. By visualizing the desired customer journey, you provide a shared vision and direction to teams across your business, including product development, marketing, sales, and customer service staff.

A process-focused map shows a new vision for airport experiences

Jacobs Joseph Butler, Global Technology Leader of Aviation at Jacobs, a technical professional services firm, created a journey map to reimagine the future of passenger departure at airports . He presented it at an Australian Airports Association Virtual National Conference, where he advocated for pleasant, safer, and more convenient airport experiences.

future-customer-journey-map

Butler’s map showed how certain interactions could be digitalized to minimize traveler effort, improve security, and boost passengers’ engagement with retail shops and branded experiences. As this ideal journey features tech solutions that most airports have not yet implemented, the map gives top-level explanations of processes.

Key takeaway: If your future-state map features novel experiences for your industry, keep the map visually simple and focus on explaining processes. At this stage, you don’t need to present granular details like customer personas and sentiments.

Argos draws an ideal, omnichannel shopping journey

Argos, a home goods store, wanted to pivot from physical-only to omnichannel retail . They worked with Spotless, a service design firm, to visualize an ideal shopping experience that would satisfy customers. The resulting map was this:

argo-journey-map

The new purchase journey allowed customers to buy products online. Argos also redesigned their stores to include digital catalogs on tablets. Shoppers could pull up similar products onscreen to read side-by-side comparisons and buyers’ reviews.

Argos’ future-state map showed all the options available to customers but highlighted the ideal paths, which were either purely online or omnichannel.

Key takeaway: If you’re improving an existing experience (not reinventing it from scratch), map out how old processes will be incorporated into new ones. Account for differences in customer preferences by outlining more than one ideal journey. 

Day-in-the-life maps

A day-in-the-life customer journey map shows the typical events in your customer’s day. It depicts how customers use your product in their daily routine. It narrates their usual experiences, goals, and pain points. You create a day-in-the-life map to better understand your customer’s persona and the factors that influence their decisions.

Observing a day in the life of a target consumer is an important step in design thinking – a creative approach to problem-solving that focuses on understanding users and collaborating with them to create practical solutions.

Put a human face to your target market by depicting a real customer’s day

Hiver, a provider of an email management solution for customer support teams, created an infographic showing a day in the life of Harsha , one of their Technical Account Managers. Although Harsha works at Hiver, he also fits the startup’s customer profile.

hiver-journey-map

Part of Hiver’s day-in-the-life map (Full infographic here )

The map explains what Harva does and whom he interacts with throughout a typical day at work. It mentions tools he uses, such as email and Slack, and his motivations and values. For instance, Harva starts his day by checking his pending tasks and hopes he doesn’t have customer complaints waiting for him. He tries never to keep customers waiting on hold.

The map of Harva’s day provides insight into customer support reps’ routines and experiences at work, along with the sentiments that drive them. It’s a detailed description that can inform the product development decisions of companies targeting a customer support persona.

Key takeaway: Create a nuanced and detailed day-in-the-life map by shadowing an actual customer or asking them to write a diary of their day. You might just find that person within your organization.

Demonstrate the possibilities of your solution with a conceptual (but data-based) day-in-the-life map

Data #3, a technology solutions provider, created a day-in-the-life map to demonstrate how clinicians can integrate the Microsoft Surface Go device into their day-to-day work . 

day-in-life-map

Part of Data #3’s day-in-the-life map (Full infographic here )

Data #3 is one of Microsoft’s largest partners in Australia. They used the day-in-the-life narrative to encourage clinicians to try out the Surface Go and give them ideas for using the device at work. Although the map is conceptual, it’s based on actual user studies and testing.

Key takeaway: Use a day-in-the-life map to depict how your customers can use your product or service in their daily routine. Observe and interview customers and test out your solution so you can base your narrative on real-life data.

Service-blueprint maps

A service blueprint map lays out the business processes and tools that support the customer journey. It shows the customer journey stages , a frontstage that depicts customer touchpoints, and a backstage that shows the business systems that make each interaction possible. 

By diagramming the relationships between these stages, you can discover both redundant and disjointed processes that add friction to customers’ interactions with your business, and identify opportunities to make the journey smoother. A service blueprint map also acts as a guide for employees in delivering business services.

You can also make a future-state service blueprint map to illustrate the way you want to deliver a planned service.

A bank identifies high-impact opportunities to improve a complex customer journey

Capital One wanted to identify opportunities to develop new features for small business card holders. The company didn’t want to introduce new features sporadically, but to integrate them with customers’ current journey. Their product designer, Kai Wang, created a service blueprint reflecting how small business owners apply for a business credit card , use it, and get approved for a higher credit limit. 

small-business-capital-one-map

A section of Capital One’s service blueprint map (Full map here )

The map highlights high-impact areas for customers (small business owners), as well as the bank’s relationship managers and underwriters. If Capital One wanted to improve parts of the journey or introduce new products or services, those areas would be the top priority.

Key takeaway: Identify interactions that have a high impact on both the customers and on your business operations. If those interactions tend to elicit negative sentiments from the stakeholders involved, mark them as priorities for process improvement.

An enterprise discovers inefficiencies in internal tech support using service maps

Jessa Parette, a product designer who has held leadership roles in UX and experience design, helped a multinational company figure out the most pressing gaps in technical support for their employees. Without a roadmap of services, the organization didn’t realize it was paying for redundant SaaS systems. Employees – the customers in this scenario – often found it difficult to find answers to questions about processes and other technical concerns.

service-blueprint

The service blueprint map revealed gaps in the information-discovery experience for employees, as well as duplicate processes, reliance on an outdated knowledge base, and the absence of a feedback loop. Domain leaders for technical support used the service maps developed by Parette to redesign high-impact systems.

Key takeaway: Use service blueprint maps not only for customer-facing operations but also for employee experiences. 

Improve customer journey mapping with Twilio Engage

Twilio Engage lets you build in-depth profiles of your customers based on their interactions with your business across multiple channels. Twilio Engage provides you with real-time interaction data, which means your profiles are based on the most recent customer actions. Use these profiles to create detailed customer journey maps.

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Frequently asked questions

What steps or stages should a customer journey map include.

The stages in your customer journey map depend on the type of map you’re making. The most common customer journey maps – current-state maps – typically have five stages – awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and advocacy.

What are the differences between the main types of customer journey maps?

Current-state maps show how customers currently interact with your brand throughout the buyer journey. Future-state maps show what you want the customer experience to look like in the future. Day-in-the-life maps show how your customers integrate your product into their daily routine and service blueprint maps show the organizational processes that support the customer experience throughout their journey.

Which type of customer journey map is best for my company?

Your goals will determine the most suitable type of customer journey map for your company. Say you want to see the current state of customer acquisition – you’d use a current-state map. If you want to spot inefficiencies in the systems you use for delivering customer experiences, use a service blueprint map.

How can Twilio Engage help companies choose the best customer journey map?

Twilio Engage tracks customer interactions across multiple channels and provides real-time data. With insights from this data, you can build detailed and insightful customer journey maps.

Customer journey map examples: The ultimate industry collection

On this page, you get a collection of some useful customer journey map examples from different industries, such as airports, e-commerce, marketing, or telecommunication.

Emotional Journey Export from Smaply

Our article curates a collection of diverse customer journey map examples from various industries, revealing the pivotal role of understanding user pathways. Delve into real-world scenarios that showcase the impact of journey mapping in anticipating needs, enhancing engagement, and streamlining interactions.

Whether you're a marketer, designer, or entrepreneur, these customer journey maps provide actionable insights to elevate your strategies and create tailored experiences. Explore the universal power of customer journey mapping as we bridge the gap between industries and illuminate the road to exceptional user satisfaction.

Navigate to your desired example

How to navigate and use this collection:

  • Choose the industry of your interest from the list; clicking the jumpmark will take you there.
  • Expand the example map for detailed insights
  • Read details about the structure and what we learn from this map. You will see: each of the example maps has its own characteristics because it always depends on the case, what kind of data/lanes is helpful to include.
  • Healthcare journey map
  • Consulting journey map
  • Government journey map
  • NGO journey map
  • E-commerce journey map
  • Online shopping journey map
  • Employee experience journey map
  • Student experience journey map
  • Airline journey map
  • Event experience journey map
  • Public transport journey map
  • Telecommunication journey map
  • SaaS journey map
  • Marketing journey map
  • Banking journey map
  • Recruiting journey map
  • Tourism journey maps (2 examples)

Healthcare – patient experience journey map example

First, let's turn our attention to the healthcare sector, unveiling a compelling customer journey map example that sheds light on the intricate interactions patients undergo. Explore how the principles of journey mapping can transform healthcare experiences into seamless, empathetic journeys

healthcare journey map example

View healthcare / patient experience journey map

How the healthcare journey map is structured : The patient’s emotional experience is in the focus of the healthcare journey map. Distinguishing between good, bad and neutral experiences is particularly easy through green, red and yellow squares, that you can see when opening the patient journey map example. The map highlights factors that impact the patient experience, e.g. staff, building, machines. It shows how engaged the patient is during the different steps and how he or she feels at that point of time, e.g. excited, confused or relieved.

What we learn from the healthcare journey map example : This journey map example highlights many negative feelings along the patient journey (highlighted in red), some of them also in moments of high engagement. Those are the moments that should be tackled first, the ones that should be approved to relieve the patient from the worst experiences. On this healthcare journey map we also see that the treatment itself is a very limited time and most experiences of the patient are before and after the actual treatment.

Consulting journey map example ‍ ‍

Let's look at a customer journey mapping example that shows how an agency can use journey mapping to improve the coordination of a project with their clients. This will help you understand how consultants make clients happy by giving them what they need.

consulting example journey map

View consulting journey map

‍ How the consulting journey map is structured : Consultants can make use of journey mapping in two ways: first, better understanding if they satisfy their own clients. Second, as a means of communication with their client and to pitch potential solutions to them.  

What we learn from the consulting journey map example : in this client journey example we see how a consultancy interacts with their client. The backstage lane shows what different parties interact along the process and how they collaborate.

Learn more about journey mapping in consulting

Government journey map example

Here's a a customer journey map example that highlights the different steps citizens go through when interacting with government processes. Get insights into how these maps can improve the way governments connect with people and make their experiences smoother

Government journey map example

View government journey map

How the government journey map is structured : In this government journey map you see how important it is to give context to a journey map: stage descriptions and additional files add valuable information to the steps. A crucial lane is the channel overview which shows the different ways of communication. Also, the map contains a small repository of documents so the service designer can understand what the different resources are that the person must receive – the first step towards more consistent communication.  

What we learn from the government journey map example : This customer journey map helps to understand how many different channels a citizen must use in the run of a relocation. For example, it also shows that the city’s official website is always connected to moments of negative emotions, which indicates that the website does not meet peoples’ expectations and might need a major update.

NGO journey map example

Let's delve into the realm of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), showcasing a customer journey map example that illustrates the various stages individuals experience while engaging with these impactful entities. Such a map can enhance the way NGOs create positive change by understanding and meeting the needs of their beneficiaries

examples of customer journey maps

View NGO journey map

‍ How the NGO journey map is structured : This NGO journey map visualizes the experience of a volunteer for a children's home. This is a small repository with a high-level as well as a detailed journey map. It’s a zoom-in map and contains detailed information about the phases of onboarding to and volunteering at an organization. It’s also linked to the high-level map. The map analyzes challenges and lists potential opportunities of supporting the volunteer. A detailed backstage lane shows what role different stakeholders take, e.g. the supervisor at the social organization, or other employees.

What we learn from the NGO journey map example : The example of a journey map indicates a negative moment that results from a lack of information, concluding this could be solved by coaching, providing mental support and emergency contacts. Also it shows how positive experiences can be further improved.

E-commerce journey map example

Here's a user journey map example that reveals the stages customers undergo when using e-commerce platforms; journey maps play a role in improving the shopping experience and boosting user satisfaction.

e-commerce journey map example

View e-commerce journey map

‍ How the e-commerce journey map is structured : This e-commerce journey map illustrates a journey example from gathering information to the use of a product that has been ordered online. It is a very clean journey map focussing on the different channels and backstage processes of two different personas.

What we learn from the e-commerce journey map : By comparing the experience of two personas, the user journey map shows that they use different channels of communication and hence have different information available to them – which has a clear impact on their satisfaction and dramatic scores. A lane with ideas for improvement keeps a note on the actions to take. The backstage lane shows how an external stakeholder – the post office – has a crucial impact on the experience of the customer. ‍

Online shopping journey map example [including backstage processes]

User journey maps can be used as a in-depth exploration of online shopping, including the often-hidden backstage processes. This high-level customer journey map example that not only walks you through the shopper's experience but also unveils the intricate behind-the-scenes operations that contribute to a smooth and satisfying online retail journey.

Online shopping journey map example

View online shopping journey map

‍ How the online shopping journey map is structured : In this user journey map example the focus lies on the activities happening backstage in an online shopping process. It is very similar to a service blueprint, the only component missing are the arrows between the lanes. Hence, this map has a stronger focus on processes and less on the experience itself, whilst still building upon the user journey.

What we learn from the online shopping journey map : This example user journey map shows what stakeholders are involved and what their tasks are. By doing so it makes very clear who the responsible parties are when it comes to working on a specific step of the customer journey. By distinguishing between different levels of interaction/visibility it also puts emphasis on the fact that the perception and knowledge of users and internal stakeholders vary significantly.

Employee experience journey map example

We delve into the world of employee engagement and learn how a journey map example highlights the different stages employees go through during their time with a company. Explore how these maps contribute to fostering a positive and enriching workplace, ultimately boosting productivity and employee contentment.

employee journey map example

‍ View employee experience journey map

‍ How the employee experience journey map is structured : This employee journey map example illustrates a regular morning of an employee at the office. It compares two different personas and visualizes interactions between team members.

What we learn from the employee journey map example : Even though the situations seem familiar to many of us, it takes a new perspective and highlights everyday happenings that impact the team spirit. Small moments like drinking coffee with others or being annoyed by irrelevant emails have a strong impact on the mood and hence can make or break the entire day.

Student experience journey map example

Step into the world of education – we unveil a customer journey map example that provides a closer look at the different phases students encounter during their educational pursuits. Journey maps can shed light on ways to improve learning settings, tackle obstacles, and cultivate a more impactful and gratifying student experience.

student journey map example

View student experience journey map

How the student journey map is structured : This is a simple way to illustrate both a current state and a future state journey map. It shows the devices that students need, the channels they have to use and the documents they need to get. Along the long process of investigation, evaluation, enrollment, course and follow-up

What we learn from the student journey map example : The journey map clearly shows the improvements that must be made in order to have a better future-state experience for students, for example making channels usable on different devices, updating information on different channels or giving more information during the investigation phase. Such a journey map can be used to draft an outline of a course.

Airline journey map example

Let's examine a customer journey map derived from the airline sector, providing valuable insights into the path passengers follow during their flights. Discover how these maps play a role in refining airline services and crafting smooth and enjoyable travel adventures.

airline journey map example

View airlines journey map

How this airport journey map is structured : This journey map shows a classic experience at an airport, from check-in to aboard. As countless things happen behind the scenes, this airport journey map focuses on backstage processes and their influence on customer or passenger experience. Satisfaction score and dramatic arc help evaluate the customers’ feelings. 

What we learn from the airport journey map example : This journey map has a clear goal of making the experience for the customer as short and smooth as possible, whereas many different activities happen backstage to enable that. This map offers high potential for innovation because it challenges moments that we take for granted: passport control and waiting for take-off are the moments that are the ones with the lowest satisfaction scores. Therefore it makes service designers start thinking about how we can improve this experience, even though they seem to be indispensable.

This is the project you also find in the Smaply free account .

Event experience journey map example

This example takes us into the world of event experiences, presenting how customer journey mapping can outline the different phases event attendees navigate. Discover how these maps contribute to improving event organization, enhancing attendee satisfaction, and fostering more memorable and seamless event interactions.

event experience journey map example

View event experience journey map

‍ How this event experience journey map is structured : We collected feedback on the Service Experience Camp in Berlin in 2016. This journey map includes a storyboard with real-life photos, quotes from participants and satisfaction scores, backed up by a dramatic arc derived from the quotes. The journey map is in German.

What we learn from the event experience journey map : This journey map shows how many different sources of communication (channel overview), some of them even non-verbal (e.g., the venue itself) impact the experience of the event participants. Customer voices have a strong impact and make it very easy to empathize with participants.

Public transport journey map example

Here come some insights into a specific journey map focused on public transport, offering a closer look at the stages passengers go through during their journeys. Gain an understanding of how journey maps contribute to refining public transit services, optimizing user engagement, and ensuring smoother and more efficient travel for commuters.

public transport journey map example

View public transport journey map

How the public transport journey map is structured : This map is here to show you how to build hierarchies of journey maps: fields allowing for zoom-in and zoom-out are highlighted. It also includes KPIs so you can see how customer journey maps can be used beyond workshops and projects.

What we learn from the public transport journey map example : This customer journey map shows how much insecurity the passenger is experiencing along the journey – never having been at a city, or having used the local public transport results in strong ups and downs on the dramatic arc and levels out positive emotions about having finally arrived to the destination. A service designer might want to understand how to relieve the passenger from this insecurity so he or she can relax or maybe even enjoy the trip.

Telecommunications journey map example

In this section, we delve into a customer journey map specifically related to the telecommunications sector. This map outlines the different steps that customers experience when interacting with communication services, providing valuable insights into enhancing connectivity experiences and optimizing user satisfaction.

telecommunication example journey map

‍ View telecommunications journey map

How the telecommunications journey map is structured : In this example of a customer journey map you can zoom into one of the steps to get from a high-level journey map to a detailed journey map. Satisfaction scores and dramatic arc together indicate the pain points of the journey, a channel lane, the impact of communication and backstage lane how many different stakeholders are in touch with the customer along the journey.

What we learn from the telecommunications journey map : The map shows that only two steps of a rather long journey actually are positive experiences, however many steps are of high engagement. This means the journey is pretty energy-consuming for the customer. Reasons are language issues and unsatisfying device setup by the provider which is not fixed timely.

Journey mapping in SaaS example

Let's focus on a customer journey map originating from the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) domain. This map offers a comprehensive view of the stages that users progress through when utilizing SaaS solutions, offering valuable insights into refining software experiences and ensuring optimal user engagement.

example journey map SaaS

View SaaS journey map

How the SaaS journey map is structured : This journey map provides us with insights on how to onboard users to a SaaS (=software as a service) solution. A lane for job stories gives context, a lane for pain points highlights the most important fixes to be made. The journey map also highlights how the participant feels along the journey and color-codes positive and negative feelings.

If you would like to read more about backgrounds, challenges and relevance read our article about journey mapping in SaaS.

What we learn from the SaaS journey map : The worst experience has been a means that was actually implemented to help people – a pop-up wizard that pops up again and again and turns out to be annoying. This shows that research is essential because only that way we can know how our activities are perceived.

Customer journey mapping in marketing example

We delve into a customer journey map that serves as a powerful tool for marketers in shaping their communication strategies. This map illuminates the intricate steps customers take during their engagement, providing insights crucial for tailoring messages that resonate, identifying key touchpoints, and ultimately cultivating more impactful and resonant brand-consumer interactions.

Marketing example journey map

View marketing journey map

How the marketing journey map is structured : This customer journey map illustrates four phases of a buying process: Problem recognition, information search, use and leave. A zoom-in map shows the experience on the website. Also essential for marketing is a channel overview and a look at the KPIs along the journey. 

Learn more about journey mapping in marketing by reading the whole article.

What we learn from the marketing journey map : With the time component on the KPI lane we can see how some values that indicate interaction improve (orders completed) and some decrease (retention rate). Knowing this quantitative data, together with qualitative insights (pain points of customers) the journey map helps us take action.

Customer journey map in Banking example

Progressing further, our focus shifts to a customer journey map specifically within the banking sector. This map offers a comprehensive view of the stages that clients go through when engaging with banking services, shedding light on the importance of understanding these stages to enhance service efficiency, streamline processes, and ensure a seamless and satisfactory banking journey.

journey map in the banking sector example

View banking journey map

How the banking journey map is structured : Here you can find an example journey map about banking. It visualizes the process of finding a new banking provider and using it. It shows emotional journey, dramatic arc, channels of communication and files used.

Find the entire article about journey mapping in banking here.

What we learn from the banking journey map : The journey map is a first step towards a repository and collects all files that the customer needs along the journey – especially in an environment where we see a high need / desire of information this is crucial to efficiently communicate with the customers and can prevent negative experiences, e.g. having to contact customer support because things don't work as expected.

Journey mapping in recruiting example

In the upcoming section, we'll delve into an employee journey map example from the realm of recruitment. This map outlines the key phases that candidates experience during the hiring process, offering valuable insights into streamlining procedures, optimizing candidate experiences, and ultimately fostering a more efficient and effective recruitment process that aligns with organizational goals.

 journey map example of the recruitment process

View recruiting journey map

How the recruiting journey map is structured : This journey map repository consists of two journey maps: The high-level journey visualizes the experience of a person being frustrated in her job and finding a job ad. The detailed journey map visualizes the experience of the applicant as well as the one of the recruiting manager. 

Read the whole article about journey mapping in recruiting here.

What we learn from the recruiting journey map example : The lack uncovers that a crucial step  – the application – is actually connected to a negative experience. To better understand the roots, it dives into the experiences and connects a detailed map which looks a it, step by step, and discloses the first improvements that are needed.

Customer journey example from tourism & travel

Our attention shifts to specific customer journey maps within the realm of tourism and travel. These maps provide a comprehensive view of the stages that travelers go through when planning, experiencing, and reflecting upon their journeys, offering insights into how businesses in this sector can enhance customer interactions and ensure memorable and seamless travel experiences.

Tourism journey map, example #1

tourism journey map example

View tourism journey map

How the tourism journey map is structured : This is a journey map in German language. It visualizes and compares the experience of two different personas during their holiday, during their planning and travel phase.. The emotional journey illustrates where and how much the satisfaction differs at specific points.

What we learn from the tourism journey map example : The map shows how the quality of a specific step – in this case, consulting at the travel agency – can strongly influence an experience. Also it makes clear that some personas need more information than others, and are more involved into the journey – e.g., one persona goes through more steps than the other. The map also shows the value of emotional journey mapping.

Journey mapping in tourism, example #2

Journey map visualizing the process of finding a destination for a vacation.

How the tourism journey map is structured : The high-level journey visualizes the overall experience they have, from the desire to go on a holiday to reflecting on the trip and looking at photos they took. The detailed journey map visualizes the pre travel experience: how they find Berlin as a potential destination, booking and preparing for the trip.

Read the whole article about journey mapping in tourism here.

What we learn from the tourism journey map example: This tourism journey map example is a small journey map repository, consisting of a high-level journey map and a zoomed-in, more detailed journey map. The high-level journey map includes a channel and a backstage lane for context and empathizing with the personas.

Wrapping it up

There are many attributes that make a journey map valuable. Therefore journey maps can vary a lot in what they look like. The objective of the map, the persona and also the industry that is the subject are attributes that make journey maps differ from one another. Depending on the case, the following example journey maps have different kinds of data underlying which is represented in various lanes.

Always keep in mind: there is no right or wrong.

As our exploration of diverse customer journey map examples comes to a close, we reflect on the invaluable insights gained across industries. These real-world case studies have unveiled the transformative potential of understanding user experiences. From retail to healthcare, technology to hospitality, we've witnessed the universal impact of empathetic journey mapping. By dissecting these pathways, we've learned to anticipate pain points, optimize touchpoints, and cultivate authentic connections.

Equipped with these learnings, we can elevate our strategies, designing experiences that resonate with customers on a profound level.

Let these examples stand as a testament to the enduring importance of putting the customer journey at the heart of every endeavor, propelling us toward a future where exceptional experiences define success.

And now, what's next?

Now as you're equipped with a load of insights and inspiration, it's time to start creating your own journey maps with Smaply!

It's free, forever.

examples of customer journey maps

Isabel Grillmayr

Isabel has a multifaceted background that seamlessly weaves together business acumen, sustainability expertise, and a profound understanding of tourism management. A true marketer at heart, she is driven by her passion for crafting exceptional experiences through service design, all while prioritizing sustainability and fostering innovation. Currently pursuing a master's degree in sustainability management, Isabel's commitment to shaping a more responsible and forward-thinking business landscape shines through her inspirational articles.

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What is a customer journey map and how to make your own [examples included]

Written by by Kiran Shahid

Published on  November 2, 2023

Reading time  12 minutes

Do you know what your customers see and do before they purchase from you?

They see your ads, interact with you on social media and explore your website before they buy. All these interactions—from the first ad impression to every “Please help” DM customers send—define your customer journey. To keep up with it all and better inform your social media marketing strategy , create a customer journey map as a blueprint to help you understand your customers at each stage.

Let’s explore what customer journey mapping is and how it helps your brand.

examples of customer journey maps

Social Customer Care by Sprout Social

What is customer journey mapping?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of each point of interaction your customers have with your company. You can style the map like a flowchart, timeline, table or even on sticky notes.

Creating the map is a great internal exercise. Along the way, you might find pain points or touchpoints you didn’t know existed. A basic customer journey map includes the buying stages (and support touchpoints) a customer goes through.

Example of a customer journey map by Starbucks. The image shows the different touchpoints and the experiences customers have.

More detailed maps include:

  • actions your customers take
  • good and bad emotions your customers experienced
  • departments involved in customer touchpoints
  • content types you serve your customers
  • solutions to pain points

What is a customer touchpoint?

A touchpoint on the customer journey map is the point of interaction a customer has with your brand. It doesn’t need to be a two-way interaction. Seeing a social media ad, getting a branded newsletter and asking a friend for a product recommendation are all touchpoints.

Customers may experience emotions and actions at touchpoints. When someone asks for product recommendations, people might mention your brand. You might not serve that recommendation to them directly but someone still introduces you to a potential customer.

What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

A customer journey map puts the customer first by giving you a deeper understanding of how your customers interact with your brand. This enable you to make better decisions and improve customer experiences.

When coupled with social media market research , they help brands:

  • Provide an overview of the resources your customers use . This helps determine the ROI of customer-centric engagement and service. For example, if blogs are your highest traffic sources, investing more in those channels makes sense.
  • Identify content gaps . Pain points without solutions are an excellent source for content ideation and development . If customers need help with a specific product issue, for example, but find limited guidance, create in-depth video tutorials to address this pain point.
  • Identify inefficiencies . Maybe some processes are repetitive, or some solutions cause more friction. If your customers have trouble checking out due to a complicated form, for example, simplify it to reduce cart abandonment rates.
  • Generate marketing campaign ideas . A clear understanding of customer motivations and journey stages creates targeted campaigns. You can provide them with relevant content and incentives to move them closer to a purchase.
  • Guide multiple departments. Streamline content creation, social customer care strategy and messaging optimization across every touchpoint. Departments use the customer journey map as a central reference to ensure a consistent and customer-focused approach.
  • Enhance customer communication . Customer journey maps reveal critical touchpoints, like social media interactions, for timely and meaningful engagement. In fact, The Sprout Social Index™ shows 51% of customers believe the most memorable brands on social respond to customers.

Every business and industry has its unique customer journey maps, but the fundamentals remain the same.

Recently, our social team talked about using social media for the customer journey in the auto industry. Watch the video below to hear their discussion on touchpoints, customer experience and how legacy brands are going beyond traditional tactics like targeted ads to tell their story.

It’s a great example of how industry-specific customer journey follows the fundamentals but also has touchpoints specific to them.

What’s included in a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is like a detailed travel itinerary for your customer’s experience with your brand. It includes elements like:

1. The buying process

The buying process is the step-by-step path a customer follows to make a purchase decision. It tells you where customers drop off or face obstacles during making purchases.

Use prospecting tools, content management systems (CMS) and behavior analytics tools to gather data. Facebook Shops, Instagram Shopping and TikTok Shop data also provide valuable insights into how customers find products and engage with content via social commerce .

Pro tip : Categorize the journey into stages like awareness, consideration and decision to map these steps horizontally on the customer journey map.

Don’t forget to integrate feedback mechanisms, such as customer surveys or user testing. These offer qualitative insights into the buying process. Understanding the “why” behind customer behavior can be as important as knowing the “what.”

2. Emotions

Emotions show how customers feel at different touchpoints in their interaction with your brand. Emotions heavily influence purchase decisions and brand loyalty which is exactly why it’s so important to include them.

Think about it: When someone has a great experience with your brand and feels happy, they’re more likely to buy from you again. On the flip side, if they feel frustrated or unhappy, they’ll knock on your competitor’s door.

Use surveys or feedback forms to ask customers how they felt during their experience. You might have come across these smileys during your own shopping experience:

The image shows five smiley faces with different feelings ranging from worst to excellent.

These scales are a convenient way to gauge how your customers feel at any point.

Pay attention to what they say on social media and in reviews. You can tell if they’re happy or upset by their tone.

Tools like Sprout Social use AI-driven sentiment analysis to dig into social listening data to give you insights on what people think about your brand.

Screenshot of Sentiment Summary from Sprout Social. The image shows a 72% positive sentiment along with data like net sentiment score and net sentiment trend.

These insights are handy when creating emotional marketing campaigns . When you know how customers feel, take actionable steps to solve any negative experiences and encourage positive ones.

3. User actions

User actions are the steps customers take when they interact with your brand. They include steps like visiting your website, clicking on a product, adding items to their cart or signing up for your newsletter.

Actions highlight what people do at each stage. Each of these actions tells you something about what customers are interested in and how close they are to making a purchase.

Analytics tools for your website or app are your best bet for such data. These tools show you which pages customers visit, what they click on and where they drop off.

Once you have this information, tailor your marketing efforts and content to align with the actions customers take at each stage.

4. User research

User research examines what customers search for or where they turn for information during the buying process. This part of the customer journey map helps you understand how customers gather information.

For example, in the awareness stage, buyers often rely on search engines like Google to research solutions to their problems. But it’s not just about where they go—it’s about what they’re looking for. Knowing their specific research topics allows you to address their pain points.

What’s the trick? Keep an eye on what customers search for online. Tracking keywords and phrases they use on search engines, as well as social media market research are good places to start.

Also, monitor discussions and conversations to get a deeper understanding of the questions, concerns and topics that are top-of-mind for your potential customers.

The key is to use this information to provide potential customers with what they need at each stage. Targeted content delivery positions your brand as a valuable source of information.

5. Solutions

This section outlines the actions and strategies your brand implements to address customer pain points and improve their overall experience.

It documents the specific solutions or improvements applied at each stage of the customer journey. These include steps like changes to website design that resolve issues and improve the customer experience.

It visualizes how your brand responds to customer needs and challenges at different touchpoints. Besides that, it’s a good reference to ensure your team implements the solutions and refines them to increase customer satisfaction.

What are the 7 steps to map the customer journey?

A strategic approach to building a map ensures you capture every touchpoint, anticipate customer desires and address potential pain points. Here are seven steps to build a journey map unique to your customers and business needs.

1. Set your goals

What do you want to get out of this process? And why does it matter to your business? Knowing your goals sets the stage for how you assemble your map.

Some examples of goals include:

  • Identify the top three customer pain points. Use these pain points to create content.
  • Understand customer interests and motivations to develop better products and services.
  • Total the cost of customer interactions to set a better social media budget .

2. Decide on a customer journey map type

There are several different customer journey maps and each one has its advantages. When you decide which map to work with, you know which details to focus on.

These are four of the most common types of customer journey maps: current state, future state, day in the life and service blueprint. We’ll go further into detail on each one later on.

Understanding your goals and where your brand stands in its evolution will guide you in selecting the appropriate map type.

3. Create and define your customer personas

Which customers will you focus on? It’s difficult to map a customer journey if you don’t have a customer in mind. Customer personas are fictional characters that represent each of your target customer groups. They’re detailed with everything from demographics to interests to buying behavior.

Example of a user persona type. The image different information like bio, frustrations, motivation and preferred channels.

If you’ve already created social media personas to understand your audience, you’re more than halfway there. But if you haven’t, then our buyer persona template  or Xtensio’s will be useful. To really get to know someone’s purchase decisions and shopping processes, interview existing customers.

Pro tip: If you have distinctively different personas—such as, if you serve both a B2C and B2B market—set up different customer journey maps.

4. Break it down: touchpoints and stages

A social media funnel maps the customer journey from awareness at the top of funnel down to advocacy at the bottom of the funnel.

The customer journey map is divided into stages that usually fit within the funnel illustrated above. List out the stages to begin. Next, list out the main customer touchpoints that exist for your company. When you’re done with both lists, place the touchpoints into the different stages.

To get even more detailed, assign department owners to each touchpoint. You can identify where certain social media channels fit into the mix. And, you can assign predicted customer sentiment or emotions to different stages of the journey. It’s up to you how detailed you want the map to be.

5. Gather data and customer feedback

You need rock-solid data on how customers interact with your brand to create an accurate customer journey map. Focus on these three aspects:

Analyze existing data

Jump into the data you already have—more specifically website performance, chats with customer support and sales records. This information can tell you loads about how customers act, what they like and what frustrates them.

This quantitative data offers a foundational perspective on how customers interact with your brand, helping you identify both strengths and areas of improvement.

Conduct customer interviews

Get personal with one-on-one chats with customers. Ask them about their experiences, what bugs them and what they expect when they deal with your brand. These talks reveal qualitative insights that numbers can’t, like understanding the emotional and psychological aspects of the customer journey.

Create surveys and questionnaires

Turn to surveys and questionnaires for a more structured and broader approach to gathering feedback. Send them out to a bunch of customers and get structured feedback. Ask questions about their journey with your brand, how happy they are and where they think things could get better.

A combination of these three aspects gives you a 360-degree view of what your customers really experience with your brand.

6. Test and identify pain points

To confirm your customer touchpoints, you probably checked in on various departments and spoke to customers. This is great work but you need to take another step further: test it yourself. Go through the customer journey from the viewpoint of the customer.

While you’re testing the journey, keep an eye out for challenges, confusion or any frustrating moments. For example, if the website takes forever to load, if instructions aren’t clear or if reaching customer support is a headache, make detailed notes of these issues.

It’s also a smart move to collect feedback from both colleagues and customers who’ve gone through the journey. This way, you double-check and confirm your findings for a more complete picture.

A hands-on approach ensures your customer journey map reflects the real-world experience and equips you to take targeted actions to improve the overall customer journey.

7. Make changes and find solutions

So your map is complete. What’s next? You need to find or create solutions to the pain points you identified in the previous step.

Now’s the time to check in on the goals you established in step one and make the moves to smooth out the journey. Give yourself time and space to implement some of the solutions, whether a quarter or six months, and check back on the map to update it.

As you put these changes into action, make sure to watch your customer journey map closely. Don’t forget to keep it up to date to show the improvements and how they affect the customer experience. This keeps your customer journey map fresh and super useful for steering your brand toward delivering an exceptional customer experience.

4 types of customer journey maps and examples

Let’s take a look at the four most common customer journey maps and examples of each.

1. Current state

Current state customer journey maps are like an audit. You document how your customers experience their buying and service paths in your company’s current state. These are especially helpful to establish a baseline for your customer service experience.

Take a look at this simplified current state customer journey map from Nielsen-Norman.

Example of a current state customer journey map from Nielsen. The image shows the different stages like define and select and other information such as expectations and opportunities.

The map follows the journey of “Jumping Jamie” as they navigate the process of switching to a different mobile plan. The map defines the current journey into four stages. Apart from the journey, it also highlights opportunities and metrics to track.

Current state maps are fantastic for sharing user frustrations with all departments. This helps you get everyone on board with investing in solutions and brainstorming ways to address user pain points.

2. Future state

Future state customer journey maps follow the same format as current state maps except they represent the ideal journey. You can use them alongside your current state maps to identify painpoints and areas to improve.

Here’s an example of a future state journey map:

Example of a future state customer journey map from Queensland Government. The image shows stages like action and research with touchpoints.

Why does this visual work? It covers different states, feelings and even touchpoints in a cohesive format.

The map visualizes the best-case scenario to create a north star vision for your brand. It aligns your efforts toward achieving the ideal customer journey.

3. Day-in-the-life

Day-in-the-life customer journey maps outline one of your persona’s schedules as they go about their day. The interactions may or may not involve your company. Creating one of these maps helps you identify the best times and areas to interact with your customer.

Here’s a “day-in-the-life” visual from Pipedrive.

Example of a day-in-the-life map from Pipedrive. The image shows the journey with times and activities.

The map doesn’t just highlight when the persona does something, but it also highlights different touchpoints and the different people they interact with throughout the day. And, notice those thumbs ups and downs? Those highlight how the child feels during different activities too.

4. Service blueprint

Example of a service blueprint customer journey map created in Miro that a bank might use. The image shows stages like customer actions, onstage contact actions, backstage contact actions.

A service blueprint customer journey map focuses solely on when you provide customer service. It ignores components like ads that might exist in other maps.

Miro, a collaborative online whiteboard for teams, created the above map with a bank in mind. You’ll notice how this map is only about a customer’s visit to the bank. This type of map helps brands look at individual service areas and interactions. It’s a macro version of the current and future state maps.

Get started with customer journey map templates

Creating a customer journey map doesn’t have to be overwhelming. There are plenty of free and paid templates out there to help you create one. If you think you’ll need more guidance or many maps, some companies offer special software to design a custom map. Build your first journey map or improve your existing one with these options.

  • Current state template , provided by Bright Vessel.

A blank template of a current state template, from Bright Vessel, a digital marketing agency and consultancy. The image shows boxes like customer actions and customer touchpoints.

  • Customer journey map template by Moqups, a design and collaboration tool.

Example of a customer journey map and persona template by Moqups.

  • Service blueprint template by Miro

Another example of a service blueprint template by Miro.

  • Customer journey map template by Mural, a planning tool.

Screenshot example of a customer journey mural map template by Mural, a planning tool.

  • UXPressia’s customer journey map online tool , made specifically to create presentation-ready customer journey maps.

Screenshot example of UXPressia's customer journey map online tool.

Create a strong foundation with a well-integrated customer journey map

A customer journey map gives you the recipe for crafting personalized, impactful interactions that build customer satisfaction and loyalty.

When you know what they are and why they’re important, it’s time to make yours. Use data to create a solid customer journey map that exceeds customer expectations at every touchpoint.

Check out how you can turn your B2B social media data into a revenue-driving powerhouse and create a memorable brand.

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Sprout Social helps you understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.

examples of customer journey maps

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examples of customer journey maps

customer journey mapping

How to create a customer journey map

Lucid Content

Reading time: about 8 min

How to Make a Customer Journey Map

  • Conduct persona research
  • Define customer touchpoints
  • Map current states
  • Map future states

Steve Jobs, the genius behind Apple’s one-of-a-kind customer experience, said, “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.”

Nowadays, a clear vision and strategy for customer interactions is no longer an optional “nice-to-have”—it’s essential. As you refine your customer experience, a customer journey map is one of the most powerful ways to understand your current state and future state.

Customer Journey Map Example

A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the process your customers go through in interacting with your business, such as an experience on the website, a brick and mortar experience, a service, a product, or a mix of those things.

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of a customer’s experience with your brand. These visuals tell a story about how a customer moves through each phase of interaction and experiences each phase. Your customer journey map should include touchpoints and moments of truth, but also potential customer feelings, such as frustration or confusion, and any actions you want the customer to take.

Customer journey maps are often based on a timeline of events, such as a customer’s first visit on your website and the way they progress towards their first in-product experience, then purchase, onboarding emails, cancellation, etc. 

Your customer journey maps may need to be tailored to your business or product, but the best way to identify and refine these phases is to actually talk to your customers. Research your target audiences to understand how they make decisions, decide to purchase, etc. Without an essential understanding of your customers and their needs, a customer map will not lead you to success. But, a well-constructed and researched customer journey map can give you the insights to drastically improve your business’s customer experience.

The benefits of customer journey mapping

Customer journey mapping is a powerful tool for uncovering insights into your customer experience, driving business goals, and building resilience in a changing market. In a 2022 report, Hanover Research found that 94% of businesses said their customer journey maps help them develop new products and services to match customer needs. Another 91% said their maps drove sales. 

But understanding a customer’s journey across your entire organization does so much more than increase your revenue. It enables you to discover how to be consistent when it comes to providing a positive customer experience and retaining customer loyalty. 

This was especially evident in recent years as top of improving marketing, customer journey maps emerged as a valuable way to understand evolving buyer behavior. In fact, 1 in 3 businesses used customer journey maps to help them navigate the changing landscape during the pandemic.

When done correctly, customer journey mapping helps to:

  • Increase customer engagement through channel optimization.
  • Identify and optimize moments of truth in the CX.
  • Eliminate ineffective touchpoints.
  • Shift from a company to a customer-focused perspective.
  • Break down silos between departments and close interdepartmental gaps.
  • Target specific customer personas with marketing campaigns relevant to their identity.
  • Understand the circumstances that may have produced irregularities in existing quantitative data.
  • Assign ownership of various customer touchpoints to increase employee accountability.
  • Make it possible to assess the ROI of future UX/CX investments.

Following the process outlined above, customer mapping can put your organization on a new trajectory of success. Yet, according to Hanover Research, only 47% of companies currently have a process in place for mapping customer journeys. Making the investment to map your customer journey and solidify that process as part of your company’s DNA can result in significant advantages in your competitive landscape, making your solution the go-to option that customers love.

Customer journey maps can become complicated unless you keep them focused. Although you may target multiple personas, choose just one persona and one customer scenario to research and visualize at a time. If you aren’t sure what your personas or scenarios might be, gather some colleagues and try an  affinity diagram in Lucidchart to generate ideas.

1. Set goals

Without a goal, it will be difficult to determine whether your customer journey map will translate to a tangible impact on your customers and your business. You will likely need to identify existing—and future—buyers so you can set goals specifically for those audiences at each stage of their experience.

Consider gathering the key stakeholders within your company—many of whom likely touch different points of the customer experience. To set a logical and attainable goal, cross-functional teamwork is essential. Gather unique perspectives and insights about each part of the existing customer journey and where improvements are needed, and how those improvements will be measured.

Pro Tip : If you don’t already have them in place, create buyer personas to help you focus your customer journey map on the specific types of buyers you’re optimizing for.

2. Conduct persona research

Flesh out as much information as possible about the persona your customer journey map is based on. Depending on the maturity of your business, you may only have a handful of records, reports, or other pre-existing data about the target persona. You can compile your preliminary findings to draft what you think the customer journey may look like. However, the most insightful data you can collect is from real customers or prospective customers—those who have actually interacted with your brand. Gather meaningful customer data in any of the following ways:

  • Conduct interviews.
  • Talk to employees who regularly interact with customers.
  • Email a survey to existing users.
  • Scour customer support and complaint logs.
  • Pull clips from recorded call center conversations.
  • Monitor discussions about your company that occur on social media.
  • Leverage web analytics.
  • Gather Net Promoter Score (NPS) data.

Look for information that references:

  • How customers initially found your brand
  • When/if customers purchase or cancel
  • How easy or difficult they found your website to use
  • What problems your brand did or didn’t solve

Collecting both qualitative and quantitative information throughout your research process ensures your business makes data-driven decisions based on the voice of real customers. To assist when conducting persona research, use one of our user persona templates .

Customer Journey Map Example

Discover more ways to understand the Voice of the Customer

3. Define customer touchpoints

Customer touchpoints make up the majority of your customer journey map. They are how and where customers interact with and experience your brand. As you research and plot your touchpoints, be sure to include information addressing elements of action, emotion, and potential challenges. 

The number and type of touchpoints on your customer journey map will depend on the type of business. For example, a customer’s journey with a SaaS company will be inherently different than that of a coffee shop experience. Simply choose the touchpoints which accurately reflect a customer’s journey with your brand.

After you define your touchpoints, you can then start arranging them on your customer journey map.

4. Map the current state

Create what you believe is your as-is state of the customer journey, the current customer experience. Use a visual workspace like Lucidchart, and start organizing your data and touchpoints. Prioritize the right content over aesthetics. Invite input from the stakeholders and build your customer journey map collaboratively to ensure accuracy. 

Again, there is no “correct” way to format your customer journey map, but for each phase along the journey timeline, include the touchpoints, actions, channels, and assigned ownership of a touchpoint (sales, customer service, marketing, etc.). Then, customize your diagram design with images, color, and shape variation to better visualize the different actions, emotions, transitions, etc. at a glance.

Mapping your current state will also help you start to identify gaps or red flags in the experience. Collaborators can comment directly on different parts of your diagram in Lucidchart, so it’s clear exactly where there’s room for improvement.

5. Map future states

Now that you’ve visualized the current state of the customer journey, your map will probably show some gaps in your CX, information overlap, poor transitions between stages, and significant pain points or obstacles for customers.

Use hotspots and layers in Lucidchart to easily map out potential solutions and quickly compare the current state of the customer journey with the ideal future state. Present your findings company-wide to bring everyone up to speed on the areas that need to be improved, with a clear roadmap for expected change and how their roles will play a part in improving the customer journey.

Customer journey map templates

You have all the right information for a customer journey map, but it can be difficult to know exactly how to start arranging the information in a digestible, visually appealing way. These customer journey mapping examples can help you get started and gain some inspiration about what—and how much—to include and where.

Basic Customer Journey Map Example

Don’t let the possibility of a bad customer journey keep you up at night. Know the current state of the customer journey with you business, and make the changes you need to attract and keep customers happy.

customer journey mapping

Customer journey mapping is easy with Lucidchart.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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Customer journey map templates: 6 examples to inspire you

examples of customer journey maps

Customers can seem completely unpredictable sometimes. They spend weeks researching your products, engaging with your content, and filling their cart—coming this close to finally making a purchase—just to abandon it before checking out. 

Or they subscribe to your emails, click through to your product pages, learn more about your offerings, but never take that next step to buy. 

You’re left sitting behind the scenes wondering what the heck they’re doing. 

While some people really are just quick to changing their minds, customers not moving efficiently through your sales funnel could be a sign of a problem: you might not understand your customer journeys . For example, do you know how customers prefer to communicate with you after  they’ve bought something from you (as opposed to before)?

Respondents in the 40-55 and 55+ age groups who were surveyed in the Customer Communications Review stated that phone calls were their preferred communication after a purchase. On the other hand, 18-39s actually preferred online chat and email over the phone:

Preferred communication after purchase

Your customer journey explains how they get from Point A (not being a customer) to Point B (becoming a customer). But the progression is never really that linear. Instead, customers are often all over the place—bouncing from point to point, engaging with content along the way. 

And what’s the best way to understand any kind of journey? A map. Here’s everything you need to know about customer journey mapping, including: 

  • What is customer journey mapping? 
  • Why should small businesses create customer journey maps? 
  • How to create a customer journey map in 5 simple steps 
  • Examples of different customer journey map types

🏃‍♀️ In a hurry? Get the 6 customer journey map templates right now 👇

customer journey map template

What is customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping is the exercise of visually outlining the process a prospect goes through to become a customer. That might be something as simple as signing up for a free trial or as involved as making an extravagant purchase. 

Customer journey maps are typically just a rough outline of the possible directions a customer might move in. Because every person is different, you can’t predict the exact steps they might take to convert. 

However, customer journey mapping can help you understand the thought processes, behaviors, and needs of your customers to prevent anyone from slipping through the cracks. Which leads to our next point.

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Why do you need a customer journey map?

A customer journey map breaks down the conversion process into individual phases. Rather than just looking at the end destination as the only goal, a customer journey map allows you to visualize the many small decisions your customers make to eventually become a customer. 

You’re then able to narrow your focus and deliver the right resources at the right time—converting customers more quickly and preventing prospects from getting neglected. 

Creating customer journey maps can also help you make fundamental improvements to your business: 

  • Get to know your target audience. Understanding your customer journey comes with getting to know your audience better. You’re analyzing their decisions, thinking about their needs, and putting yourself in their shoes. With that research, you gain more knowledge about who your target audience really is and the customer experience they’re looking for.
  • Create an inbound-first marketing model. Inbound marketing campaigns bring leads to you rather than you needing to hunt them down yourself (as you would with outbound marketing strategies like cold calling). When you know your target audience well, you can create inbound calling strategies that bring them to you.
  • Adopt a customer-centric strategy . Customer-centricity should be an organization-wide initiative—but you can’t deliver this if you don’t really know who your customer is. Creating customer journey maps gives every department—sales, marketing, product development, service—a better understanding of who they’re connecting with. 

In short, customer journey maps just help you do business better. Rather than guessing what your customer needs, you know what they need—and how to give it to them. 

Next steps? You need to create your unique map. 

How to create a customer journey map in 5 steps

Customer journey mapping looks slightly different from company to company. Your customers, products and services, and resources available will all influence this process. 

While every map will look different, there are some fundamental, systematic steps you can take—starting with why you need a map in the first place. 

We’re going to map this out in a spreadsheet. You can more easily follow along if you do the same! You can download a template of the customer journey map spreadsheet below —feel free to edit it based on what you need.

1. Establish your objectives

The first thing you need to do is answer the question of why? Why are you creating this customer journey map?

This might seem like a trick question. After all, we did just give you a bulleted list of why you should care about customer journey maps, but we’re looking for an answer a little deeper than that.

What are you hoping to accomplish by mapping out this customer journey? What are the individual steps and goals you want the customer to complete? What resources do you need to share with the customer at each point? Set a clear goal for yourself.

Think about how this behavior from the customer will translate into the larger business objectives you’re trying to accomplish. For example, you might want to reduce churn and convert more past customers. Maybe you need to boost sales or sell more of a specific product or service.

Knowing your objectives can help you identify potential problems in your current customer journey (but more on that later).

In the first line of your spreadsheet, write out your objective.

Creating a customer journey map: Establish your objectives

2. Create and highlight your target personas

Creating customer personas is the very first step in getting to know your audience better. A customer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, including demographics and psychographics. 

If you haven’t already created customer personas, take a step back and outline all your different types of customers, who they are, and what they might be looking for—both from your brand and from other businesses they engage with. 

Here are some questions your buyer personas should address: 

  • What are your customers’ job titles and responsibilities? 
  • Where are they located? 
  • What hobbies, activities, or organizations do they partake in? 
  • Are they the decision-maker for buying your product? If not, how do they connect with the decision-maker?
  • What challenges are they facing? 
  • What solutions have they already tried to solve those challenges? Where did those solutions come up short? 
  • What are they interested in learning about from you? 
  • What are the most important factors when they’re deciding to make a purchase? 

You’ll have a few customer personas, and you can’t target them all with one customer journey map. Each persona will likely have a different customer journey depending on who they are, their budget constraints, problems they’re facing, and solutions they’ve tried. Now is the time to identify the personas relevant to the customer journey map you’re creating. 

You’ll need to look back at your objectives here. What did you say you wanted to accomplish, and who is most likely to complete that task? If this is the first customer journey map you’re creating, just focus on one persona for now. 

Establish your target persona and some key details about who they are right below the objective line in your spreadsheet. Having this info clearly visible throughout the customer journey mapping process will help you stay focused. 

Creating a customer journey map: Create and highlight your target personas

3. Know your customer lifecycle phases

Although customer journey maps differ from brand to brand, customers tend to follow similar processes: 

  • Awareness : Discovering your brand and the solutions you provide
  • Research: Learning more about your business and what you have to offer, and determining if you have the right solutions to solve their problems
  • Consideration: Comparing your brand with competitors to see which offers the right solution for their unique needs 
  • Purchase: Making a final selection and buying (or otherwise converting, such as reaching out through email or phone call)

Add a section for each stage to your spreadsheet. 

Creating a customer journey map: Know your customer lifecycle phases

Understanding these different phases and what happens at each one sets the framework for mapping out your customer journey. 

Think about what your goal is at each stage of the customer lifecycle. What action or behavior would move them to the next phase? What are their unique needs at this phase? What questions might they be asking?

These questions are the next thing to answer in your spreadsheet:

Creating a customer journey map: Know your customer lifecycle phases

Finally, consider what your goals as a business are at each stage. What do you want to provide your customers to move them through the customer journey? 

Creating a customer journey map: Know your customer lifecycle phases

4. Map out your touchpoints

A touchpoint is any place where your customer engages. This could be through your website, an email marketing campaign, social media, third-party review sites, or on a virtual call —anywhere they can get in touch with you. 

There are likely a number of different touchpoints between your customer and your brand, but not all of them will be relevant to your customer journey map. 

Different touchpoints typically go with different phases of the customer journey. For example, social media interactions are more prevalent during the awareness stage while customer reviews or blog posts might not be looked at until the customer is in the consideration phase. (Learn about more social media benefits .)

Map out your touchpoints by breaking down your customer journey into the phases in Step 3, starting with awareness. 

Identify the specific profiles or platforms the customer might go through at the awareness stage. This might include social media or posts from influencers or media websites. 

Add this to your spreadsheet: 

Creating a customer journey map: Map out your touchpoints

Now give some context to those actions. What is the customer doing at this stage? What might they be thinking or feeling? Think about the emotional side (like anxiety and excitement) of the transaction as well. 

Creating a customer journey map: Map out your touchpoints

Follow this process all the way through to the end, outlining where the customer is getting in touch at each phase, as well as what they’re doing, thinking, or feeling.

5. Find the gaps and fill them

If your customer journey were perfectly established already, you wouldn’t be here. Customers are falling through somehow, somewhere, and you need to find out why. 

Talk with customer-facing team members. 

No one knows your customers’ frustrations better than your support team members. They interact with customers daily—responding to problems, answering questions, collecting feedback—so why not ask them what it is they’re hearing? 

Here are some questions you can ask your team: 

  • What problems do you hear most frequently from customers? 
  • What roadblocks or challenges have customers experienced in the past? 
  • What emotions are they typically feeling when they reach out? Are they supportive, frustrated, confused? 
  • What questions do they typically ask? 
  • What experiences do customers seem to enjoy or are impressed by? 

These can help get the conversation flowing.

Use the right communication tools to make it easier for customer support team to share information with other teams. Knowing customer reactions in real-time can keep your customer journey maps strong. One way to do this is through a team messaging app. For example, RingCentral’s team messaging platform makes it easy to share files, relay messages, or just connect on customer challenges or feedback:

For most businesses, your customer-facing team will need a way to quickly and efficiently keep you updated if new or unexpected problems appear. 

Go straight to the source. 

While your support team probably has some useful information, they’re only able to gather insights and data about the customers they’ve connected with. If customers leave the customer journey before feeling invested enough in your brand to reach out, you might never know what they think. 

Up until this point, you’ve just been making educated guesses about customer needs, behaviors, and thought processes. Maybe you’ve used data and analytics to back up your points, but it’s still reactive. 

That’s why you need to go straight to the source—your target audience. 

Talking with your customers and prospects through interviews, surveys, and questionnaires can affirm or challenge the assumptions you’ve made. Here’s how: 

1. Identify the audience group and how you’re going to connect. Who are you going to talk to and how? This might be social media followers, past customers, people who’ve abandoned full carts—or all three! Establish who you want to hear from and how you’re going to get in touch. 

If your cloud-based phone system has an auto dialer (or other calling features), it can help you connect with large groups of customers, getting more reliable information more quickly for your customer journey map.

2. Create your questions. Once you have their attention, figure out what you’re going to ask. Keep it short—3 to 5 questions for prospects and maybe 5 to 10 for established customers. Questions you might ask include: 

  • What made you choose/not choose to purchase from us? 
  • What problem or challenge were you hoping the product/service would solve? 
  • Did you struggle to find any information about the product/service or the brand? What information was it? 
  • What could have made the buying process easier?
  • How could we improve the customer experience?

3. Collect responses and look for patterns. Every customer will likely have a different experience, but similar groups might have similar reactions. Look for patterns in your customers’ and prospects’ responses. If they all outline the same problem with your buying process, you know your map has some gaps. 

Follow the customer journey map yourself. 

Your customer service team and the customers themselves should have given you some decent insights, but nothing beats the first-hand perspective. 

After implementing changes to your customer journey map based on the information you’ve collected, it’s time to follow the map yourself. 

Pretend you’re a customer interested in your products or services. Follow the progression of touchpoints you established to move through the awareness, research, consideration, and purchasing stages. 

At each point, analyze if you feel you have enough information or not. Do you have any questions that haven’t been answered, or do you feel like something is missing? There might still be some gaps that haven’t been identified yet. 

If you feel like you’re too close to the customer journey and content available to get a good read, ask someone outside your circle to follow the process—a friend or family member who might not be a customer or involved with the business. 

Examples of customer journey maps

Need a little more inspiration? Here are some examples of customer journey maps you can pull from. 

1. Business to business (B2B) buyer journey maps 

Let’s start out with a pretty basic customer journey map. If you’ve been following along with our spreadsheet, your customer journey map probably closely resembles this example : 

Business to business (B2B) buyer journey maps

It’s simple and to the point. If you’re new to customer journey maps, a clean, basic flow is easy to understand and gives you all the information you need at a quick glance. 

When you’re a business that sells to businesses (B2B), the buyer is rarely just one person. While a single person might be the final decision-maker, a B2B purchasing decision often involves multiple people giving their approval, meaning the entire cycle can take a bit longer. (Sometimes months!)

Here’s another great example of a basic B2B customer journey: 

Business to business (B2B) buyer journey maps

While it’s a little more in-depth, it’s still easy to read for your entire team. 

As we see in both of these customer journey maps, the phases of the purchasing journey go beyond just awareness, research, consideration, and purchase, yet there are content recommendations and goals at each step. If you feel like you need to take up more space or more steps, go with your gut. 

Key takeaways: 

  • Don’t overdesign for the sake of looking cool. A basic guide like this one gives you all the information you need in an easy to read and understand package.  
  • Expand your customer journey map so it feels right for you. If your customer needs more phases to get through their journey, that’s totally fine. 

2. Software as a service (SaaS) buyer journey maps

Your customer journey map should show a progression of how your customer moves through the buying process. The SaaS buyer’s journey is unique because much of the journey is still continuing after the decision is made. Because SaaS business models are built on the hope that the customer keeps returning, you need to think about the customer’s experience beyond just the initial purchase. 

This example of a SaaS customer journey does a great job of showing the seamless movements, thoughts, and feelings of customers at different stages of buying subscription software: 

Jeff Crezo's Taskly Journey

They also give solid descriptions with recommendations for approaching each phase of the journey. 

Key takeaway: 

  • Remember that the journey is fluid. The ending of one phase should transition smoothly into the next, so consider what the customer might be experiencing at all points of the customer journey. 
  • Don’t assume your customer journey ends when they make their first purchase. If you need the customer to convert again, create a journey map that represents that process. 

3. In-store shopping buyer journey maps 

Customer journey maps don’t discriminate between online or in-store purchases. If you’re a retail store, you still need to outline the various touchpoints, emotions, and customer needs. 

Here’s an example from the grocery store The Fresh Market : 

Customer journey map, example from The Fresh Market

One great thing about this customer journey map is that they’ve laid out the emotions and experiences for both returning customers and first-time customers. This comparison shows how two different customers can have similar—or very different—experiences. 

Be sure to focus an equal amount on the research and pre-shopping connections as much as the in-store touchpoints. Your customer journey doesn’t begin when the customer walks in the door, and they’re not committed to purchasing once they get inside. Make sure your customer journey map represents the full picture.

  • Look at the same journey from different perspectives. Don’t assume a customer will have the same experience every time they buy from you. 
  • Remember the full customer journey. Although they’re shopping in store, the customer journey begins long before.  

4. Online learning buyer journey maps

Sometimes the end goal isn’t to make a purchase at all, but instead to educate a customer about a general topic or just provide some information. 

Here’s an example of a customer journey map for bringing information to customers from USA.gov. 

Linda's Journey Map

Notice how it more or less follows the same steps. 

Treat an online learner the same way you would a traditional buyer. While you may not need them to take out their credit card to become a customer, you still want them to connect. Don’t discredit education customer journey maps just because they don’t end in a purchase.

  • If you have a non-traditional end goal, customer journey maps are still important. Follow the same steps by outlining emotions, feelings and needs, and activities performed. 

5. Multichannel buyer journey map

Our customers rarely engage with content and brands in just one way. They’re searching for omnichannel content that brings them through the customer journey at various points of their daily lives. By following the customer through the different channels—on mobile, at home, and in store—you can ensure your audience is appropriately targeted at every step. 

Here’s an example of a customer journey map that displays this process: 

Example of Multichannel buyer journey map

Make sure to plan for the transitions. Don’t assume your customer will seamlessly move from one channel to the next. It’s your responsibility to find ways to connect with your customers through their favorite channels. 

  • Recognize how your customers engage with content in different ways. While they might be targeted online, they might eventually move to buy in-store. Create a customer journey map that meets all these needs. 

Ready to create a customer journey map of your own?

Now that you have all the pieces to create a customer journey map, you’re ready to get started! 

But mapping out the customer journey is just the first step. Once you create your map, you need to apply it to your business model, content, and deliverables to create a better customer experience for your audience. 

And it shouldn’t stop there. Just like your buyer personas and marketing campaigns, customer journey maps require consistent revival. Come back to your customer journey map every few months to see if it’s still relevant. 

While you don’t need to start from scratch, moving through these steps and looking at examples of customer journey maps other brands have created can give you inspiration and insight to dig deeper. As your customer journey maps get more detailed, you can build stronger connections with your audience. 

Originally published Feb 01, 2020, updated Aug 19, 2024

examples of customer journey maps

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Customer Journey Mapping: How to Understand Your Buyers and Enhance Their Experience

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  • Published: 14 Dec, 2023
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The recent State of the Connected Customer Report  by Salesforce revealed that for 80 percent of people, the experience a brand provides is as important as its product. With customer expectations at an all-time high, businesses must deliver the best service  possible to satisfy consumers and stay competitive. For that, it’s crucial to understand what customers want and anticipate their actions.

A customer journey map is vital in this context. It helps businesses understand and manage interactions with their clientele at every touchpoint, from the first encounter to the final transaction. So this post is all about the tool that guides you in creating exceptional customer experiences and how you can get the most out of it.

What is customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping is creating a visual story of customers' interactions with the brand or product. It's like drawing a route people usually take from the moment they first become aware of your product or service all the way through to purchasing and even after-sales support.

A customer journey map includes all the touchpoints the customer can have with your brand, such as seeing a social media ad, visiting a store, calling customer support, and so on. Also, it should reflect the customers’ pain points , emotions, and reactions at every stage of the journey so that you understand them better and see how to improve their experience.

Why is customer journey mapping important?

Before we delve into the details of customer journey mapping, let’s say a few words about why do it at all. Here are some of its benefits.

Understand your customers better . Customer journey mapping helps you see your business through your customers' eyes. You get to understand what they like, what bothers them, and what makes them happy.

Find problems . Sometimes, there are bumps in the road that can make your customers unhappy, like a confusing website or long wait times. Journey mapping helps you spot these problems so you can address them.

Adjust your strategy . As you get to understand your customers better, you might realize that you have to tailor your offerings, pricing range, marketing campaigns, support team workflows, etc.

Improve customer experience and foster loyalty . When you know what your customers go through, you can make their journey smoother and more enjoyable. This means increased conversion  and retention  rates. Happy buyers are likelier to keep returning and recommend your brand to others. Research states that 88 percent  of customers repeat the purchase if they like the customer service.

In essence, customer journey mapping is a tool that helps businesses empathize with their customers and improve their interaction journey, leading to better customer-brand relationships and business success.

Customer journey stages

As we start exploring a customer journey map, let’s first look at what a common customer journey looks like. Here are its main phases.

Customer journey stages

Awareness . This is the initial stage where potential customers realize they have  a need or a problem that requires solving and become aware  of a product or service.

Potential touchpoints at this stage: social media, industry events, online/offline ads, search results, etc.

Consideration . At this stage, customers look for solutions. They are considering  different products or services and are researching to find the best option.

Potential touchpoints at this stage: your website, blog, knowledge base , reviews, testimonials, case studies, etc.

Decision . This is the point where the customer decides  on a solution that best fits their needs.

Potential touchpoints at this stage: email newsletter, pricing information, your website, physical store, sales reps, etc.

Purchase . The customer buys the product or service and starts using it.

Potential touchpoints at this stage: customer support (phone, messages, chatbots), help desk/FAQ sections, etc.

Retention . A fter the purchase, the focus shifts to keeping the customer happy and engaged with the product or service. This stage is about building loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases.

Potential touchpoints at this stage: email, newsletters, sales reps, etc.

Please note that this is the typical scenario but not the only one. The stages can vary across industries and product types, so you might want to include other phases in your customer journey map. Or else, you might need to map out only one part of the journey, for example, pre-purchase, to better understand how your marketing campaigns work.

What’s included in a customer journey map?

When creating a customer journey map, you’ll evaluate your buyer’s interactions with your brand and look for opportunities to enhance their experience. So here are the main elements of a customer journey map.

Elements of a customer journey map

Elements of a customer journey map

Buyer/user/customer persona  – a prototype of your target audience.

Scenario  – a short description of the interaction story.

Customer’s goals/needs/expectations  – why people turn to your brand.

Stages  – the phases your customer goes through in the interaction scenario.

Actions and touchpoints – what customers do and where the interaction happens.

Emotions and experiences  – what customers feel and think as they interact with your brand.

Emotional curve  – the visual line of how the customer sentiment changes depending on their experience.

Opportunities  – how you can improve the customer experience at each touchpoint or stage.

You can also include other elements like KPIs to track, designated people responsible for implementing improvements, and so on. T he complexity and elements of a customer journey map can vary based on the nature of your business, the type of customers, and your goals.

A simple example of a traveler journey map that an OTA or a hotel could create

A simple example of a traveler journey map that an OTA or a hotel could create

The components of the customer journey map also depend on its type. There are many different modifications you can create for various business goals, so let’s talk about some of them.

Customer journey map types

Each customer journey map has its own focus and purpose. The choice of which one to use depends on your specific objectives, the complexity of your customer experience, and the information you want to capture. Here are some of the main types.

Current state journey maps provide a detailed view of the existing customer experience (just like in the illustration above). It’s the most basic map that documents touchpoints, interactions, and emotions “as is.”

Future state journey maps  envision the ideal customer journey after implementing improvements or changes. They serve as a roadmap for designing and delivering a better customer experience and help teams set goals and prioritize initiatives to reach the desired state.

Day-in-the-life journey maps  focus on a specific persona or customer segment's daily activities and how they interact with a product or service throughout their day. These maps help businesses understand a customer's routines and identify opportunities to provide value.

Channel-specific journey maps  concentrate on a particular customer interaction channel, such as a website, mobile app, social media, or in-store experience. They help businesses optimize touchpoints within a specific channel.

Service blueprints  go beyond the customer perspective and provide a comprehensive view of the entire service ecosystem. They include the customer journey, frontstage interactions (visible to the customer), and backstage processes (invisible to the customer). Service blueprints help improve alignment and coordination within an organization.

An example of a service blueprint for visiting a restaurant. Source: Miro

An example of a service blueprint for visiting a restaurant. Source: Miro

Some other types are emotional journey maps, lifecycle journey maps, cross-channel journey maps, etc. You can focus on a specific category or use a combination of these maps to better understand your customer journey and drive improvements in the customer experience.

How do you create and use a customer journey map ?

There’s no single best format for a customer journey map. It can be a linear timeline, flowchart, or any other visual representation that best suits your needs. You can draw it on paper, put sticky notes on a whiteboard , or design it in specialized software (we’ll talk about digital tools further on).

Since customer journey mapping is part of market research, usually, it’s the marketing or sales department that’s responsible for creating it. However, it’s worth engaging different teams in this process.

Define objectives

First of all, you have to decide on your goals – or why you want to analyze your customer journey. For example, it can be something as specific as checking how a particular marketing project works, i.e., how effective ad retargeting is. Or it can be a strategic business objective like attracting more customers, increasing sales volume per customer, or improving retentio n.

Pro tip: Make a customer journey map for a specific interaction scenario for a certain customer segment. This way, it won’t be too generic, so you’ll be able to explore your buyers’ sentiments  more deeply at each stage of their way and get more concrete results to work with. 

Create a buyer persona

As we said, you must create a fictional representative of your target audience. To understand their needs and pain points, design a persona with a specific traits -- professional background, motivations, lifestyle, goals, and so on.

Pro tip : Add as many details as possible to make the most accurate representation of your customer. Later on, it will help you better understand their perspective.

Identify touchpoints and map the customer journey

As we said, you have to define the ways customers interact with your brand at each stage. Make a list of all the potential touchpoints and then map them out on the customer journey stages.

Use various data sources such as website analytics, customer feedback, social media interactions, and sales data to gather information about where and how customers interact with your brand. Also, engage teams from various departments (sales, customer support, marketing) and encourage their input.

Pro tip : Look at your competitors to see where they engage with customers. This can provide insights into touchpoints you haven’t considered.

Understand the customer's perspective

As you record your customers' actions at each stage, remember to make the  map from the customer's point of view. It must show what they think and feel  at each touchpoint, what they're trying to achieve, and any challenges they might face.

examples of customer journey maps

Watch our expert explain customer research in product discovery

Get feedback directly from your customers through surveys, interviews , or email questionnaires to understand their experience at different touchpoints. Ask about their motivations  and any difficulties they encountered.

Pro tip : Tools like website heat maps, open rates for emails, and engagement rates on social media can help you understand your customers’ behavior better.

Highlight emotions and experiences

A customer journey map goes beyond the actions customers take. It dives into their emotional experience, whether they're happy, frustrated, or confused at different stages.

It’s important to record both positive and negative emotions. The former exhibits opportunities to enhance the experience or exceed customer expectations, while the latter highlights pain points or bottlenecks where customers face challenges or frustrations.

Pro tip : Ask your customer support which questions they get most often. Also, pay attention to what customers say about your brand on social media, online review platforms, or other resources.

Identify opportunities for improvement

By mapping this journey, you can see where you're providing a great experience and where you fall short. This helps you find ways to enhance your strong sides and improve the weak ones. For example, some reasons for poor customer experience include long waiting times to get to customer service, unintuitive website interface, missing app functionality, high prices, and so on.

Pro tip : Conduct brainstorming sessions with different teams and encourage active cross-department collaboration. Also, try to go through the journey that you’ve depicted yourself to get first-hand experience.

Create a better customer experience

Ultimately, the goal is to use this map to make strategic decisions that enhance the customer experience, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty. Develop strategies and initiatives to address the pain points, optimize touchpoints, and leverage opportunities identified in the customer journey map.

Pro tip : Focus on your business goals when you analyze the impact of customer experience and prioritize your activities.

B2B customer journey map

If your company doesn’t work with individual customers but deals with other businesses, you can still take advantage of a customer journey map. A B2B customer journey map is a useful tool for managing client relationships. Just like the B2C analog, it visualizes the process they go through and experiences they have when interacting with your company. However, there are certain differences that impact the components of the customer journey map. 

The complexity of the decision-making process . In the B2B context, there’s a more complex decision-making process, often with multiple stakeholders. The journey may include stages like RFP (Request for Proposal) submission, detailed product evaluations, approvals from different departments, and a longer negotiation phase. In B2C, the decision-making process is usually simpler and quicker, often involving only the individual consumer or their immediate family.

Length of sales cycle . B2B sales cycles are typically longer, sometimes lasting months or even years, as they involve higher-value transactions and more deliberation. B2C sales cycles are shorter, often concluding within a few days or even instantly.

Touchpoints . B2B touchpoints include industry events, professional networks, detailed product demos, and extensive follow-up communications. B2C touchpoints often focus more  on mass marketing channels like social media, online ads, reviews, and retail environments.

Customer goals and expectations . Business customers often have specific, pragmatic goals like improving efficiency, increasing ROI, or integrating with existing systems. Meanwhile, individual consumer goals may be more diverse, including personal enjoyment, convenience, price, and brand alignment.

Relationship and engagement . B2B focuses more on building long-term relationships and ongoing engagement.   In the B2C model, while repeat business is also important, engagement is often more transactional and less personalized unless it’s a high-value product or a niche market.

Just like in a B2C context, delivering a positive experience to your business clients is important. Customer journey mapping helps you understand how you can enhance your relationships.

Customer journey mapping softwa re

As we said, you can certainly map your customer journey on a sheet of paper, but we recommend you use a specialized digital tool instead. The software helps automate this process, allows for convenient collaboration, and enables easy editing, sharing, and so on. Besides, most platforms offer several editable templates for different purposes.

There are multiple tools available to help you with customer journey mapping. A simple online search will give you a list of relevant platforms. Some are designed specifically to manage customer experience, while others are more general-purpose and can be used for different scenarios.

When choosing a tool, we recommend you consider the following factors:

  • available templates,
  • integration options,  
  • interface intuitiveness,
  • customization options,
  • collaboration features, and
  • customer support and training.

We’ll take a look at some of them to give you an idea of what’s out there. Please note that we don’t promote any of the tools; the choice was based on their popularity.

Customer journey mapping tools compared

Customer journey mapping tools compared

Smaply  is a specialized, user-friendly tool for journey mapping. It allows businesses to create detailed customer personas, journey maps, and other related visuals. It’s particularly good for visualizing complex customer interactions over multiple channels.

Miro  is a multipurpose online collaborative whiteboarding platform. It offers numerous templates and tools for creating detailed customer journey maps, making it easier to visualize the customer experience.

UXPressia  is specifically designed for creating customer journey maps with 100+ templates and customization options. It offers a persona creation feature, impact mapping, and the ability to integrate real data into your maps. You can also connect it to Jira, Google Analytics, and other external apps to add information to your maps.

Lucidchart is a diagramming app that helps create flowcharts, organizational charts, customer journey maps, etc. Besides creating visuals, it offers integration options with popular business tools like Google Workspace, Atlassian, and Slack.

Custellence  is another focused customer journey mapping app. It has numerous templates for different industries and an intuitive, drag-and-drop user interface.

Customer journey map templates

As we’ve already mentioned, most software tools provide interactive templates for different scenarios. But if you don’t want to work on any focused platform, here are some downloadable templates for you:

  • the most basic PDF template  from Nielsen Norman Group,
  • a collection of PowerPoint templates  from HubSpot,
  • an editable Google Docs template  from WordStream, and
  • a set of colored templates  available in Google Slides or PowerPoint from Slidesgo.

We realize it might be confusing at the beginning when you don’t have a clear idea of how to approach customer journey mapping. For inspiration, check out some examples of how it might look.

Customer journey map examples

Companies create customer journey maps for a wide range of scenarios and with different purposes. While the objective isn’t always about getting more profit, it’s always about enhancing customer experience.

M ultiple use cases. UXPressia has a big section with customer journey map examples  for many industries, including banking, travel, entertainment, and so on. Within each industry subsection, they cover multiple scenarios, plus they provide different user persona examples.

A customer journey map for an airplane passenger. Source: UXPressia

A customer journey map for an airplane passenger. Source: UXPressia

Attending city tours . Mural, a visual planning and collaboration tool, has created a customer journey map  for travelers on guided city tours. The steps include browsing, booking, attending, and rating the tours.

Sharing music on Spotify . Meghana Bowen, a UX/UI designer, presented a customer journey map  of using the Spotify app and sharing music with others. The author has also defined a user persona and depicted the following process of creating the sharing feature design.

Spotify customer journey map. Source: Meghana Bowen

Spotify customer journey map. Source: Meghana Bowen

New students coming to the university campus . Iris Wu and Mei Xue created a service to facilitate traveling to Carnegie Mellon for incoming students. As part of their research, they’ve designed current and future  customer journey maps  to better understand the difficulties that international students encounter.

Best practices

We’ve already included some pieces of practical advice in the previous sections, but we still have a few more final tips.

Collaborate . We’ve mentioned it above but still want to emphasize the importance of cross-department collaboration when creating and working with the customer journey map. And, of course, involve your customers as well. Only in this case you’ll be able to have the most detailed information about your customer experience and improve it throughout all touchpoints.

Designate . As you implement changes, it’s crucial to assign responsibilities so that everyone knows their roles and tasks in these projects.

Track . It’s also important to develop KPIs so that you can track progress. The metrics you choose will depend on your objectives, but some examples are customer satisfaction score, net promoter score , conversion rate, or churn rate.

Update . Remember that the customer journey is dynamic and can change over time. Regularly revisit and update your customer journey map to reflect any changes in customer behavior or market conditions.

examples of customer journey maps

How to Create a Customer Journey Map with Templates and Examples

How to Create a Customer Journey Map with Templates and Examples

Using data gathered from feedback surveys , online reviews, and other customer satisfaction metrics , a customer journey map is used to tell the story of a customer’s lifetime relationship with a company. Depending on the customer persona, this relationship can be as short as a few minutes or as long as many years. Customer journey maps are useful tools for visualizing the quality of each interaction and the customer’s reaction to that touchpoint as they move up the brand equity pyramid .

You can download our customer journey map template, or continue reading to learn more about creating your own.

Table of Contents:

Customer Journey Map: Understanding the Basics

  • How to Create a Customer Journey Map in 7 Steps:
  • Determine Target Personas
  • Define Your Customer Touchpoints, Actions, and Reactions
  • Break Out Touchpoints and Actions Into Phases
  • Test the Customer Journey Map
  • Complete the Customer Journey Map with Persona Data
  • Identify Areas of Improvement
  • Create a Corresponding “Business Actions” Map

Customer Journey Map Examples

  • Customer Journey Map Downloadable Template

Before we dive into creating your own customer journey map, it’s important to cover the basic ideas behind these types of visualizations and why they’re helpful for businesses.

How Journey Map Tracking Helps Businesses Understand Customers

As we briefly mentioned earlier, customer journey maps are tools that help you visualize the specific steps customers go through when interacting with your business. Using buyer personas (a semi-fictional representation of a type of customer based on market research and real customer data, as defined by Hubspot ) you can track the path different customers take on the road to conversion and pinpoint failed or successful interactions. This ultimately helps you do things like:

  • Allocate advertising budgets to channels that produce the most positive responses
  • Collaborate across teams to improve touchpoints that continuously produce a negative reaction
  • Retain and satisfy existing customers by improving previous customers’ churn points

What Are Customer “Touchpoints”?

touchpoints

Customer touchpoints are any interaction someone has with your brand. These could be awareness-based touchpoints, where a potential customer learns about your company for the first time through things like:

  • Social media ads
  • Reading an online review
  • Finding your site through organic search

Or, touchpoints can be more direct interactions such as:

  • Clicking a product and reading the description
  • Adding a product to their shopping cart
  • Making a call to your customer service center
  • Signing up for an email newsletter

Depending on the structure of your business, your customer journey map can cover just the main customer touchpoints on your buyer journey, or it can encompass any small interaction that can occur as well. Your ability to create a broad or detailed customer journey map will also depend on the customer data available to you.

How to Create a Customer Journey Map in 7 Steps

Though there are many customer journey map templates available online (including ours at the end of this article) it’s still good to understand the fundamental ideas behind how these maps are created so you can learn to customize each to suit your needs.

Step 1: Determine Target Personas

determine-target-personas

Each customer journey map is meant to demonstrate just one segment of your customer base, so it should be built specifically for each persona. Many businesses already have personas built for other purposes such as targeted ad campaigns, but if you haven’t, they aren’t too hard to construct. Utilizing your existing user data, create mock customers based on factors like:

  • Demographic data (age, gender, location, etc.)
  • How they first learned about your company
  • Their budget
  • What their goals are when purchasing from you
  • What’s most important to them when buying
  • Pain points that your company either does or could address

Then, decide which persona you’re going to target for this iteration of your customer journey map. For example, you could focus on the “tech-forward business executive” or the “Millennial startup owner,” whichever customer type you want to learn more about and improve the customer experience for.

Step 2: Define Your Customer Touchpoints, Actions, and Reactions

Once you’ve decided on your target persona, the next step is to define the customer touchpoints you want to track. As we talked about earlier, customer journey maps can be used to paint a broad picture of the buyer journey or track every little interaction possible. It’s up to you to determine what the most useful route will be for your project and where you want to focus your efforts.

It can be helpful at this step to list out every touchpoint you can think of, and then narrow down as needed. You’ll likely need to collaborate across teams to make sure you’re covering every type of customer interaction.

When you have your list of touchpoints compiled, it’s then easy to construct a corresponding list of customer actions. For example, if the touchpoint is “reads online review,” then the logical action would be “searches for company/product online.” After that, the next touchpoint would be “homepage/landing page” and the action would be “reads about product details.” You can see how building your customer journey map becomes easier once you get started.

In addition to touchpoints and actions, the third metric you will need to track in your journey map is customer reactions. These can be as basic as “positive and negative,” or be broken down further into numerical scales or other ratings. Customers take each action based on their reaction to the previous touchpoint. For example, a progression could look something like:

Touchpoint: targeted ad, Reaction: positive, Action: clicks ad > Touchpoint: ad landing page, Reaction: neutral, Action: reviews additional competitor options

It’s important to track each of these points concurrently to understand where customer pain points come from.

Step 3: Break Out Touchpoints and Actions Into Phases

phases

Once you have all of your touchpoints, actions, and reactions listed, put them in a logical order that follows the actual buyer journey. At this point, it can be helpful to break out the list into overall phases in order to get a clearer visualization of the process. Again, these phases can be named whatever makes the most sense for your business. If you want to keep things general, you could follow a specific model, for example, the brand equity pyramid, and use the related phases of “brand salience,” “brand meaning,” “brand response,” and “brand resonance.”

It may be more helpful to name your phases something more specific, however, so you could also structure the map into sections labeled “Discovery,” “Exploration,” “Comparison,” “Conversion,” and “Retention” in order to better represent the customer’s thought processes. Though this step is optional, it’s easier to look at a chart that is broken down into larger phases vs a timeline that just details every specific interaction.

Step 4: Test the Customer Journey Map

Now that you’ve established the basic structure of your map via touchpoints grouped into phases, you should have a few different people run through the map to make sure your model is sound. Put yourself into the shoes of your target persona and pretend you are going through each touchpoint as that type of customer. At each point, stop and ask yourself “What would the customer do next?” The point of this exercise is just to ensure that you’re not leaving out any vital steps in the customer journey and that the map follows a logical progression.

Step 5: Complete the Customer Journey Map with Persona Data

persona-data

Now that you’ve properly set up your customer journey map and tested it for any missing pieces, all that’s left to do is fill in the persona data. From your persona creation process, you should already have a good understanding of each type’s reasons for interacting with your business and what their specific pain points are. Using customer feedback data, abandoned cart data, advertising data, page bounce rate data, and other sources of customer information, you can reconstruct what the typical buyer’s journey looks like for this segment, including their unique actions and reactions at each step.

Step 6: Identify Areas of Improvement

The main purpose of creating customer journey maps is to display your data in a way that’s easier to visualize than numbers in a spreadsheet. If you’ve displayed your persona data accurately, then it should be simple enough to determine where customers are dropping out of the buyer’s journey. Look for places with negative reaction scores, especially scores that lead to customers bouncing from your site, and identify why this is.

At this point in your analysis, it can be helpful to add a new section to your customer journey map called something like “Pain Points,” “Reaction Explanations,” or simply “Why?” In this section, you can add notes or theories about why those negative reactions are occurring. Sometimes figuring out the issue can be a simple matter of walking through the buyer’s journey yourself (perhaps you discover something like an ad pointing to an unrelated landing page) or running additional customer feedback surveys to gather more data about a particular touchpoint.

Step 7: Create a Corresponding “Business Actions” Map

business-actions

Now that you’ve pinpointed steps on the customer journey that are causing negative reactions, you should be able to identify what your company needs to do to improve these interactions. However, when you aren’t able to determine exactly what is causing these negative reactions, it’s hard to know what to do to fix them. As mentioned, you can always run additional customer feedback surveys to try to shed some light on the issue, but you may be able to discover more immediate fixes by creating a “business actions” map that corresponds to your customer journey map.

While a customer journey map is structured from the customer’s point of view, this reverse map would look at the same touchpoints and actions but from the business’s point of view. For example, if a customer submits a return request, what actions does the returns team take in response? Having each step detailed like this helps you paint a more holistic picture of your business processes to find unexpected areas of customer friction where things may be slipping through the cracks.

Just like customer data in a spreadsheet, there’s only so much you can explain with words on a page. Take a look at the customer journey map examples below to better visualize how these tools can help your business operations.

Hubspot’s simple example helps you understand customer motivations on a basic level, and is most useful for companies without in-depth persona data.

hubspot-screenshot

Bright Vessel’s customer journey map is color-coordinated so each department can easily see which touchpoints and actions they are responsible for.

bright-vessel-screenshot

Digital.gov’s example allows for more in-depth customer details, helping you better visualize your personas.

digital-gov-screenshot

Customer Journey Map Template

Below is a customer journey map template that you can download, edit, and customize to represent your business’s needs.

customer journey map

Customer journey maps are an essential tool for any business looking to learn more about customer pain points on the buyer’s journey. But in order to create these maps, you first need to gather customer data. Chattermill can help you collect, manage, and analyze your customer feedback with our AI-powered software. Contact us to learn more.

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Customer journey mapping: A step-by-step guide

Christian Cabaluna

If you're struggling to keep customers engaged beyond just hearing about your product and getting initial interest, this customer journey mapping guide is exactly what you need.

With over a million data insights extracted to date, we created this actionable guide to simplify the process of creating a customer journey map. This will help you engage your potential customers more efficiently and see better conversion rates. 

Let’s get right to it.

Step 1: Clarify your goals & scope

This is where you will define why you want to map your customer journey and outline where you will outline your project boundaries. Here is what you need to do:

  • Identify what you want to accomplish with the customer journey map. Is it to drive more visitors, improve customer satisfaction, or increase conversion rates?
  • Next, set your mapping effort’s scope , including which customer segments (new customers, returning customers, or high-value clients) or stages of the journey (awareness, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase support)  you will focus on for mapping.

Identify who will be involved in the process–marketing teams , customer support, or product development.

Step 2: Gather insights from customer data

This step is where you will understand your customers' behaviors, preferences, and pain points throughout their journey. Here’s how to do it:

Identify and gather data from diverse sources . Use Clootrack to collect customer feedback and candid discussions from eCommerce sites, forums, blogs, and social media, alongside private enterprise data like customer service calls, NPS surveys, website/app feedback, and chatbots.

Organize your data into meaningful segments based on demographics, behavior patterns, and interactions with your brand so you can understand different customer personas and their unique journey experiences.

Identify key touchpoints where customers interact with your brand—from initial awareness to post-purchase support. This will highlight critical moments that influence customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Use Clootrack to gather qualitative feedback directly from customers . Analyzing feedback and sentiment analysis will provide nuanced insights into customer emotions and perceptions at each stage of their journey.

Involve cross-functional teams –marketing, sales, customer support, and product development—in the data analysis process. Their diverse perspectives will help you better understand the customer journey.

Use the gathered insights to refine your customer journey map . Identify areas for improvement or opportunities to enhance customer experience, thereby driving engagement and loyalty.

Step 3: Craft detailed customer personas

This step helps you visualize and understand your target audience more deeply. Here’s how to proceed:

Use the data you gathered from Step 2 to create distinct customer personas . These personas should represent different segments of your audience based on demographics, behaviors, and preferences.

Define each persona by outlining their specific traits, such as age, interests, challenges, and buying motivations. This detailed characterization helps humanize your audience and makes customizing your strategies to their needs easier.

Give each persona a name that reflects their characteristics and motivations. This simple step can make personas more relatable and memorable for teams across your organization.

Create visual representations or profiles that encapsulate each persona’s traits and behaviors. This helps you empathize with your audience and intuitively understand their journey.

Share these personas with relevant teams, such as marketing, sales, and customer support. Ask for their feedback to ensure it is accurate and aligns with their experiences and observations.

Step 4: Pinpoint critical touchpoints

These touchpoints are key moments where customers interact with your brand and can significantly impact their overall experience. Here’s what you need to do:

  • Use the personas to map out the typical paths your customers take from initial awareness to post-purchase support. Identify all potential touchpoints where customers engage with your brand and where they potentially drop off.
  • Pinpoint specific interactions at each stage of the journey that are crucial for customer satisfaction and loyalty. These interactions may include website visits, product searches, social media interactions, and customer service inquiries.
  • Identify which touchpoints have the most significant impact on the customer experience and business outcomes. Focus on optimizing these high-priority touchpoints to maximize customer engagement and retention.
  • Recognize that customers may interact with your brand using multiple channels (website, social media, physical stores). To provide a unified experience, ensure consistent and seamless transitions between these channels.
  • Use feedback forms, customer interviews, and traditional surveys with CX data analytics to learn how customers see and interact with each touchpoint .
  • Adjust your touchpoint strategy based on new data and evolving customer expectations.

For example:  

Are ads bringing a steady customer flow to your website? How much of them convert? If your ads aren’t getting the projected traction, how can you maximize your ad efforts ? If they click on your ad but don’t drop off seconds later, what friction are they experiencing? 

Step 5: Visualize the customer's journey

This visual representation helps you and your team understand the flow of interactions and experiences that customers go through. Here’s how to proceed:

  • Use diagrams, flowcharts, or journey mapping tools to visually represent each stage of the customer journey—from initial awareness to post-purchase support. This map should include key touch points identified in Step 4.
  • Map out the actions customers take at each stage, like research, consideration, purchase, and advocacy to see your customers’ progression and decision-making process.

Highlight customer emotions, motivations, and pain points at each touchpoint to understand how customers perceive their interactions with your brand.

Integrate the personas created in Step 3 into your visual map. Assign each persona to different journey stages to illustrate how different customer segments experience your brand.

Present the visual customer journey map to cross-functional teams , including marketing, sales, customer support, and product development.

Step 6: Extract & analyze key insights

This process helps uncover actionable findings that can drive strategic decisions and improvements. Here’s what you need to do:

Identify metrics and indicators most relevant to your goals and customer journey stages. It can include conversion rates, customer satisfaction scores, retention rates, and engagement metrics.

Use data analytics tools and platforms to analyze quantitative data effectively. Clootrack can provide deep insights into customer sentiment, preferences, and behavior patterns across different touchpoints.

Apply qualitative analysis methods to interpret customer feedback, comments, and suggestions. Conduct thematic analysis or sentiment analysis to uncover recurring themes and emotions customers express.

Compare insights across different segments to identify trends, preferences, and pain points that may vary among customer groups.

Step 7: Spotlight pain points and growth opportunities

This step focuses on addressing challenges and seizing potential areas you can improve. Here’s what you can do:

Pinpoint recurring issues or frustrations customers express . Focus on areas where customers face obstacles or dissatisfaction while interacting with your brand.

Highlight specific touchpoints or stages in the journey where customers experience the most significant challenges or friction. These pain points could include long wait times, confusing navigation, product issues, or poor customer service experiences.

Prioritize pain points based on how critical they are for customer experience and business outcomes. 

Brainstorm actionable solutions and initiatives to mitigate pain points and capitalize on growth opportunities. Implement changes that align with customer needs and strategic business objectives.

For example :

You notice that potential customers feel  your products are pricey, so they bounce off the product page without adding an item to the cart. To fix this, offer them discounts that make them feel purchasing is a steal, like what this  workout supplement store  did. They give potential customers a 5% discount when they subscribe and a 10% discount,  making the latter discount irresistible.

Representation purpose

Step 8: Formulate actionable strategies

Here is how you can formulate strategies that address identified challenges and capitalize on potential improvements:

Break down strategies into targeted actions aimed at different customer segments, personas, or journey stages. 

Prioritize actionable strategies based on their potential impact on customer satisfaction, retention, and business growth. Focus on initiatives that address critical pain points or leverage significant growth opportunities.

Roll out strategies in phases or iterations to test their effectiveness and adjust based on feedback and performance metrics. 

Communicate strategy objectives, action plans, and expected outcomes clearly across the organization. Educate team members on their roles and responsibilities in executing strategies effectively.

3 Types of customer journey maps and examples

As you go through each one, consider which matches your goals the closest.

1. Current state journey map

current state customer journey map

Get the full template

This type of customer journey map illustrates customers' existing experience as they interact with a product, service, or brand. It focuses on capturing the actual steps, touchpoints, emotions, and pain points customers encounter in their journey.

eCommerce purchase journey : Map out how customers navigate from browsing products online to making a purchase, including interactions with customer support and post-purchase follow-up.

Banking service experience : Detail the current process customers go through when opening an account, managing transactions, and accessing customer service.

Healthcare patient journey : Charting the steps patients take from scheduling an appointment to receiving care to follow-up visits, highlighting interactions with staff and satisfaction levels at each stage.

2. Future state (ideal) journey map

A future state journey map focuses on mapping out the desired steps, interactions, and touchpoints that will optimize customer satisfaction and loyalty. Here’s how it looks:

Fashion retailer future state journey : Customers browse online and in-store, with personalized style recommendations based on past purchases and preferences. Virtual fitting rooms let trying on clothes digitally before purchasing. 

Hotel ideal journey : Guests book their stays via a user-friendly app or website, customizing room preferences and special requests in advance. Upon arrival, they receive a personalized welcome and digital room keys for contactless access. Throughout their stay, they receive tailored recommendations for local experiences and amenities, with seamless check-out and post-stay follow-up for feedback and loyalty rewards.

Automotive ideal journey : Customers explore and configure their desired vehicle online, scheduling test drives at their convenience. After purchase, they receive personalized maintenance reminders and updates on service appointments via a mobile app. Proactive alerts for recalls or upgrades keep them informed, with seamless integration of vehicle data for personalized service recommendations.

3. Day in the life journey map

A day in the life journey map portrays a detailed view of how customers interact with your product, service, or brand throughout their daily activities. It focuses on capturing how customers behave, their pain points, and engagement moments across various touchpoints. Here’s how it works:

Meal kit service day in the life journey : A customer plans meals for the week using an online platform, customizing recipes based on dietary preferences and family size. They receive a scheduled delivery of pre-portioned ingredients with recipe cards, and cooking meals with step-by-step instructions. Throughout the day, they provide feedback on recipes through a mobile app, and get personalized recommendations for future meals based on their preferences.

Fitness app day in the life journey : A customer starts their day with a personalized workout routine a fitness app suggests, tracking their progress and calories burned. Throughout the day, they receive motivational messages and reminders to stay hydrated. After workouts, they log meals and monitor nutritional intake through the app, with personalized recommendations for achieving fitness goals. In the evening, they review sleep patterns and receive tips for improving sleep quality.

Now, what should you use for which?

Use a current-state journey map to understand existing pain points and improve current customer experiences, a future-state journey map to envision and plan ideal customer interactions for future improvements, and a day-in-the-life journey map to capture detailed daily interactions.

5 Customer journey mapping best practices

Keep these 5 points in mind to make the most out of your customer journey mapping efforts.

I. Use customer experience analytics

Pick an advanced CX analytics platform that can handle diverse data sources, such as website interactions, social media engagements, customer service interactions, and sales data. Create a unified view and configure live dashboards and automated alerts that notify your teams instantly when critical issues or opportunities arise.

II. Include diverse perspectives

Bring together people from different departments like marketing, customer support, product development, and sales. In brainstorming sessions, focus on understanding what each team sees and experiences with customers. 

Discuss how customers interact with your brand at different stages—like when they first discover your product, when they decide to buy, and after they've made a purchase to get a clearer picture of what customers like, where they might get stuck, and how to make their experience better overall.

III. Focus on emotions and pain points

Pay attention to how customers feel at different stages of their interaction with your brand using customer surveys, feedback forms, and social media listening to gather insights into their experiences and emotions. 

In brainstorming sessions, discuss common frustrations, challenges, and moments of delight that customers encounter. Identify specific touchpoints where emotions play a significant role, like during product research, purchasing decisions, or customer support interactions.

IV. Keep it visual and understandable

Work with an expert designer on a clear and intuitive layout that anyone in your team can grasp quickly. Be straightforward in representing customer interactions and touchpoints. Use color coding, icons, and timelines to visually differentiate between different stages and actions within the journey.

V. Validate with customers

Involve your actual customers in the process by using surveys, interviews, or focus groups to gather direct feedback. Focus on determining whether the mapped journey aligns with their real-life experiences and emotions.

Pay attention to any discrepancies or missed opportunities they highlight. This customer-centric approach shows that you value their input in shaping a better overall experience.

It can look overwhelming to implement in the beginning. But focus on one step at a time, see how and where you can apply each action point, and you will gradually see the progress. 

Always keep customer-centricity in mind. This means considering how customers feel about your offer rather than what you think they feel, so invest in collecting customer feedback and improving your interaction loop. 

How do you do that with all the platforms you need to track? Clootrack is the answer. We integrate customer data from first-party and third-party sources into a secure, AI-powered CX analytics engine so it’s easier to discover underlying customer issues in real-time.

Read Next:    Omnichannel retail and the rise of experiential shopping

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A winning SaaS customer journey: From signup to success

What makes a user choose one SaaS product over another? And how do businesses keep them engaged once they start using it? These are the key challenges the SaaS customer journey can help to solve. 

In this article, we'll define a SaaS customer journey, explain why visualizing it is essential, and how to do it effectively. We’ll also delve into the specifics of the B2B SaaS customer journey. Using real-world examples, we'll explore how companies can navigate such journeys, improve strategies, and build stronger customer loyalty—ultimately driving growth and satisfaction.

  • 1 SaaS customer journey: definition
  • 2 SaaS customer journey stages
  • 3 How to build a SaaS customer journey map
  • 4 Life-based SaaS customer journey examples
  • 5.1 Longer sales cycle
  • 5.2 Dealing with multiple decision-makers
  • 5.3 Procurement and negotiations as stages
  • 5.4 Tailored onboarding and support
  • 5.5 Retention focused on value delivery
  • 6 Wrapping Up
  • 7 Key points

SaaS customer journey: definition

SaaS customer journey

A SaaS customer journey is a user's complete experience with a SaaS product, from discovering it to becoming a loyal, recurring user or the one who quit. It covers every point of interaction between the customer and the SaaS provider, helping businesses better understand user behavior, expectations, and their needs at each stage. For example, a mid-sized company is looking for a scalable cloud storage solution. They attend a webinar hosted by a SaaS provider and later participate in a product demo. Hooked by the features, they sign up for a plan. The journey doesn't end there. The company's IT team collaborates with customer support during onboarding to ensure seamless integration. Over time, they receive helpful resources, from tutorials to personalized tips, guiding them to maximize the platform's potential.

For example, a mid-sized company is looking for a scalable cloud storage solution. They attend a webinar hosted by a SaaS provider and later participate in a product demo. Hooked by the features, they sign up for a plan. The journey doesn't end there. The company's IT team collaborates with customer support during onboarding to ensure seamless integration. Over time, they receive helpful resources, from tutorials to personalized tips, guiding them to maximize the platform's potential.

After the onboarding process, the company's IT team continues to explore the platform's more advanced features, with regular check-ins from customer success to ensure everything is running smoothly. As the company scales, it integrates additional services and expands its usage. Near the renewal phase, they receive a usage summary and insights into how they could further optimize their experience. This proactive engagement not only reinforces the platform's value but encourages the company to upgrade its plan and expand into other departments, ensuring long-term retention and growth.

To visualize a customer journey, we are going to build a customer journey map , as a well-mapped journey can completely transform how companies engage with their users. It does this by identifying key touchpoints, revealing pain points, and helping businesses tailor their interactions to meet customer needs more effectively.

A detailed map allows companies to anticipate issues before they arise, create personalized experiences, and deliver targeted solutions at the right moment—whether it's improving onboarding, providing timely support, or encouraging deeper product adoption. This results in higher engagement, customer satisfaction, and long-term retention.

SaaS customer journey stages

SaaS customer journey stages

Think of the SaaS customer journey as a roadmap outlining the different stages users go through when interacting with a SaaS product—from first hearing about it to becoming loyal, long-term customers.

A customer journey map for SaaS serves as a tool to visualize these stages, allowing businesses to refine interactions, improve user engagement, and boost conversion and retention rates. While the specific stages may vary depending on the product or audience, there’s a general structure that applies in most cases. Here's the outline of this structure:

  • Awareness 

This is when users learn about the product through marketing campaigns, social media, or word of mouth. At this point, the goal is to showcase the product's value proposition and grab attention. Whether through blogs, paid ads, or content marketing, it's all about making a solid first impression.

  • Consideration

In this phase, potential users are weighing their options. They explore product features, read reviews, watch demos, or try free trials.  

  • Trial/Buying decision 

This stage marks the tipping point in the SaaS customer journey, where potential users either commit to the product or walk away. Here, users are actively evaluate the product’s value, usability, and overall fit for their needs based on their trial experience or interactions with the sales team.

Users need an intuitive onboarding process to get up to speed quickly. Tutorials, user guides, and proactive support ensure new customers can easily navigate and start using the product effectively. First impressions here can cement long-term success.

Now that the user knows the basics, the focus shifts to deepening engagement. Regular product use is encouraged by providing insights into advanced features, ongoing support, and tips. This stage solidifies user satisfaction and strengthens the customer’s connection to the product.

  • Renewal/Expansion

The final stage revolves around whether the user renews their subscription or scales up. If the product continues to deliver value, users are likely to renew and may even upgrade their plans or expand usage within their organization.

How to build a SaaS customer journey map

Building a SaaS customer journey map is about more than just listing stages—it's about making each interaction count. 

saas service rating

A well-crafted map is the key. Let’s create a basic yet effective structure for your SaaS customer journey map together. 

To start, you'll need to research and gather data on your current SaaS customer experience. The best sources of this information are your clients and the employees who interact with them regularly. You can collect this data through customer surveys, interviews, and feedback forms to understand their pain points and expectations. Internally, consult your customer support and sales teams for insights on common issues, user behavior, and recurring feedback. Tools like NPS, customer satisfaction surveys, and support ticket analysis can provide valuable, actionable insights for improving the customer journey.

Next, you need to define the goals of your journey map, as these will determine the scope of the journey. Perhaps you're focused on the detailed onboarding process, so you'd map out smaller steps within that stage. Or, you might want to analyze the entire end-to-end journey to identify where churn occurs.

Once you've identified the stages for your map, you can move on to the sections. These sections form the core content of each stage, revealing different aspects of the customer experience. You could include elements such as:

For each stage of the journey, list the specific actions users take. Are they browsing your website, signing up for a free trial, or diving into product features? Knowing exactly what users are doing helps you fine-tune their experience. These actions give clues as to where users might face friction or drop-off points, enabling you to be proactive.

  • User expectations & needs

Map out the expectations users bring at every step. For example, during onboarding, a user might expect a smooth setup process, with clear instructions. In the adoption stage, they might want to learn about advanced features. Listing these expectations helps you make sure your product meets or exceeds them.

https://uxpressia.com/customer-journey-map-online-tool

Identify the platforms or devices users engage with—desktop, mobile, tablet, or a combination. Is their experience seamless across platforms? Are they contacting support via chat, email, or phone? Mapping out all the ways they interact with your product helps ensure consistency and usability.

  • Pain points & solutions

Don’t shy away from detailing where users run into trouble. This section highlights problems they face at each stage, whether it's confusion during onboarding or difficulty finding support. Next to each pain point, offer a clear solution. This helps your teams understand what to fix to improve the user experience.

  • User quotes

Adding user quotes brings a personal and realistic feel to the map. Whether from surveys, feedback, or customer success interactions, including authentic voices helps you understand how users truly feel at each stage. These quotes can also highlight specific frustrations or positive feedback that can guide your roadmap.

user registration

In B2B, for instance, tracking and leveraging relevant statistics can provide powerful insights to refine the customer journey. Adding industry reports, benchmarks, and other relevant data to your journey map helps contextualize each stage, whether understanding which markets or company sizes are most likely to convert or tracking key performance indicators like Net Promoter Score (NPS). For example, knowing which regions or industries are adopting your product more rapidly can help tailor your strategy to target similar markets.

Trick: Include industry-specific statistics from reports, such as market share or buyer demographics, to align your journey map with real-world trends. Use NPS or similar metrics to gauge customer satisfaction and pinpoint areas needing improvement. 

stats section uxpressia

  • Experience graph

Here’s where you get into the emotional side of the journey. An experience graph shows the highs and lows of user emotions across the entire process, from the excitement of discovery to potential frustration in onboarding. Plot these emotions on a graph for each stage. It’s a simple way to visualize how smooth (or rocky) the experience is, giving teams a quick glance at where improvements are needed.

Trick: Use icons to represent emotions on your experience graph. With a single look, you can easily identify where your journey is working well and where it needs attention.

Experience graph

Interface screenshots

Include relevant screenshots of your product interface for each step of the journey. This is a quick and effective way to make the map more visual and actionable for your team. Seeing what users see helps everyone, from marketing to product design, identify where improvements can be made.

After all your efforts, you’ll have a living and breathing artifact—a source of inspiration, insights, and the foundation for strategic planning. For example, here’s a SaaS buyer journey map built in UXPressia:

SaaS buyer journey map built in UXPressia

It’s clear, visual, and easy to use.

Pro tip: Your customer journey isn’t set in stone. As your product evolves and user needs change, so should your journey map. Continuously gather feedback and use data to make improvements.

Trick: A/B test different touchpoints by changing the flow of your onboarding process, adjusting your pricing model, tweaking in-app messaging, etc. Small changes can make a big difference.

Life-based SaaS customer journey examples

Here are a few real-world SaaS customer journey examples to show how companies guide users from initial interest to long-term loyalty. 

  • Slack has a strong focus on user onboarding. When potential users sign up, Slack immediately introduces them to the product’s core features through interactive tutorials and tooltips that guide them step-by-step. 

interactive tutorials

They also offer a free trial, allowing users to experience the product's full functionality before committing to a paid plan. Slack emphasizes seamless integration and continuous engagement, with regular updates, new feature releases, and targeted emails designed to deepen user adoption and retention.

  • Dropbox is another excellent example of a well-structured SaaS user journey. New users are guided through a simple and intuitive onboarding process. Dropbox uses gamification techniques, rewarding users with additional storage when they complete tasks like downloading the app on different devices or referring friends. 

uses gamification techniques,

The focus on ease of use helps retain users during the critical early stages of adoption. At the same time, their SaaS customer journey map may highlight Dropbox’s emphasis on converting free users to paid plans through storage limitations and upsell offers when they reach their storage cap.

  • HubSpot’s journey starts with offering users free tools like CRM software, encouraging businesses to try the platform. HubSpot’s onboarding process includes helpful content like blogs, webinars, and tutorials to guide users on how to make the most of the platform. 

HubSpot’s onboarding process

The SaaS customer journey stages are marked by automated emails, personalized recommendations, and tailored success stories, all aimed at nurturing the user into adopting higher-tier paid services.

The B2B SaaS customer journey: what’s different?

The B2B SaaS customer journey has several unique features distinguishing it from a B2C SaaS experience. Understanding these differences is crucial for creating actionable SaaS customer journey maps that align with business goals .

Longer sales cycle

AB2B sales cycle is often significantly longer, requiring more time to move from awareness to purchase. This is due to multiple decision-makers, internal discussions, and budget approvals. For instance, when considering enterprise-level SaaS products like Salesforce or HubSpot, a company may take weeks or even months to evaluate the product before committing.

The complexity of this process makes it essential to map interactions over time, ensuring each key moment—demos, follow-ups, trials—are tracked for optimal engagement.

Dealing with multiple decision-makers

In a B2B context, decisions are rarely made by one person. Instead, multiple stakeholders (e.g., IT managers, financial officers, and department heads) must align on the purchase. When it comes to working with enterprise customers, Dropbox expanded into enterprise services, accounting for the needs of different departments, including legal and procurement.

That means your B2B journey map should outline interactions with each type of decision-maker and provide materials catered to their needs, such as detailed product specs for IT and ROI analyses for financial teams.

Procurement and negotiations as stages

B2B SaaS deals typically include formal procurement processes and contract negotiations, which differ from the more straightforward purchases seen in B2C. Businesses review legal aspects, pricing models, and service agreements during these stages in detail.

Your B2B SaaS customer journey map should include these phases, emphasizing touchpoints like procurement approvals and compliance documentation. Understanding this complexity helps smooth the process and allows sales teams to offer resources that address concerns proactively.

Tailored onboarding and support

support

Onboarding in a B2B SaaS environment often involves entire teams or departments, not just individual users. Products like Slack, for example, provide in-depth onboarding with custom training sessions to help businesses integrate the platform seamlessly into their workflows.

Your journey map should reflect the onboarding process, showing the interaction between your customer success team and various business departments. You’ll need to track ongoing support interactions and usage metrics to ensure successful product adoption across the entire organization.

Retention focused on value delivery

While the renewal stage is important in B2C, it becomes even more critical in B2B, where renewals often depend on the perceived value delivered over time. Asana and Monday.com help large teams achieve measurable results throughout the SaaS user journey by offering real-time dashboards, task automation, and detailed reporting.

Their platforms track progress on tasks and goals, provide actionable insights with customizable reports, and streamline workflows with automation, all while enhancing team collaboration through shared workspaces and communication tools. This ensures teams can continuously measure and improve productivity and project outcomes.

Measurement of  CX metrics  such as engagement and product utilization is important to maintain customer satisfaction. Building feedback loops into your journey map—via NPS scores or regular customer check-ins—ensures you are actively addressing user concerns before renewal discussions arise.

Mapping the B2B SaaS customer journey, be sure to focus on specific points like legal reviews, customized onboarding, and continuous support. Since B2B sales cycles are longer and involve multiple decision-makers, the journey map needs to address these complexities. By considering these factors and focusing on delivering value over time, businesses can create a detailed and effective journey map that aligns with the needs of B2B clients.

Wrapping Up

Mapping a SaaS customer journey can aid you in delivering a smooth, value-driven user experience. Businesses can fine-tune their strategies to better meet customer needs, boost engagement, and drive long-term retention by identifying key touchpoints like discovery, onboarding, and renewal.

Whether you're working in a B2C or B2B space, a journey map gives you the visibility needed to track every interaction, anticipate challenges, and ensure each phase provides maximum value. For B2B SaaS, things get more complex with longer sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, and stages, like procurement and contract negotiations. A well-crafted journey map helps simplify these complexities, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

In short, building a SaaS customer journey map isn't just about improving user interactions—it's about fostering long-term relationships and crafting a seamless, engaging experience that fuels business growth.

  • The full experience users go through when interacting with a SaaS product, from discovery to long-term engagement.
  • Mapping a customer journey helps optimize interactions at each stage, improves satisfaction, and reduces churn.
  • Key stages include Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Onboarding, Adoption, and Renewal/Expansion, with specific focus points for each.
  • The B2B SaaS journey is more complex, involving longer sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, procurement, and detailed onboarding processes.
  • Customization and personalization at every stage of the journey are crucial, especially for B2B, where various departments interact with the product.
  • Use data analytics, customer feedback, and CX metrics to regularly update and improve the journey map, ensuring user satisfaction and business growth.

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  1. 8 Customer Journey Map Examples [+ Templates]

    Customer journey map examples can't be complete without mentioning Amazon. Amazon's journey map was designed to improve its complex e-commerce experience and drive customer engagement . This map is particularly helpful for identifying specific experience touchpoints and metrics—like conversion rates and purchase assists—crucial for ...

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

    3. Ecommerce Customer Journey Map Example. This fictitious customer journey map is a clear example of a day-in-the-life map. Rather than just focusing on the actions and emotions involved in the customer's interaction with the company, this map outlines all the actions and emotions the customer experiences on a typical day. Image Source

  3. 150+ Best Customer Journey Map Templates and Examples

    17. SVG or EPS customer journey mapping stencil. This one's a doozy. Available as an Omnigraph stencil, Visio stencil, EPS, or SVG, this customer journey mapping template is best suited for complex journeys with many touchpoints, or for when you need to provide a lot of visual information to your stakeholders.

  4. 7 Interesting Real-Life Customer Journey Map Examples

    Understanding each customer interaction, pain points and customer needs is vital for maximizing value throughout the customer lifecycle - and a user journey map will help identify these areas. 1. Spotify. Spotify is one of the world's most popular audio streaming services.

  5. What Is a Customer Journey Map? 10 Templates & Examples

    What stands out about this journey map template is that it has a space for describing the specific stage of the customer, which you can also use to write associated actions. There's also a star rating row that can help sum up the customer experience at each stage. 6. Business Software Customer Journey Map Template.

  6. 5 Successful Customer Journey Mapping Examples To Inspire You

    Learn how to create a customer journey map by looking at successful examples from B2B, B2C, ecommerce, and SaaS businesses. See how to use data, empathy maps, and Post-its to understand your customers' actions, feelings, and pain points.

  7. 12 Customer Journey Map Templates (2024 Guide)

    Discover 12 customer journey map templates to help you define your customer journey, improve your customers' experience and drive business success. ... For example, you can use a map—which reveals locations when clicked or hovered on—to illustrate buyer persona demographics. Step 3: Customize the Colors and Fonts ...

  8. What is a Customer Journey Map? [Free Templates]

    Essentially, customer journey maps are a tool that you can use to understand the customer experience. Customer journey maps are often visual representations showing you the customer's journey from beginning to end. They include all the touchpoints along the way. There are often four main stages in your sales funnel, and knowing these can help ...

  9. How to Create a Customer Journey Map: Template & Guide

    An example of a customer journey map template with different stages and themes. 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]

  10. What is a Customer Journey Map? Tips & Examples

    Customer journey mapping example. Here are some customer journey mapping examples for you to draw inspiration from and better understand what goes into a customer journey model. Alex Gilev's Practical Customer Journey Map. Alex Gilev is a certified UX expert and product leader experienced in creating highly usable and intuitive web applications.

  11. How to Create a Customer Journey Map

    Example 2: a client journey map for a corporate bank. This free template is an example of a multi-persona, B2B customer journey. The key persona is a newly opened company looking for a bank to run their business. The map also visualizes interactions between the personas involved. Open a full-size image in a new tab.

  12. 8 Proven Customer Journey Mapping Examples

    We look at eight real-life customer journey mapping examples to illustrate the different types of maps. 1. Current-state maps. A current-state map depicts your customer journey as it is. You use it to discover how customers interact with your business and identify problems like service gaps. A current-state map can reveal interactions that ...

  13. Customer Journey Map Examples

    How the marketing journey map is structured: This customer journey map illustrates four phases of a buying process: Problem recognition, information search, use and leave. A zoom-in map shows the experience on the website. Also essential for marketing is a channel overview and a look at the KPIs along the journey.

  14. Customer Journey Mapping and How to Make Your Own [Examples Included]

    This way, you double-check and confirm your findings for a more complete picture. A hands-on approach ensures your customer journey map reflects the real-world experience and equips you to take targeted actions to improve the overall customer journey. 7. Make changes and find solutions. So your map is complete.

  15. Customer journey mapping 101 (+ free templates)

    Step 2. Create personas. If you don't already have customer personas created, now is the time to do it. Develop two to three detailed customer or user personas representing your target audience, and use these personas in your customer journey mapping exercise. Some good questions for this stage in the process include:

  16. How to Create a Customer Journey Map

    Simply choose the touchpoints which accurately reflect a customer's journey with your brand. After you define your touchpoints, you can then start arranging them on your customer journey map. 4. Map the current state. Create what you believe is your as-is state of the customer journey, the current customer experience.

  17. Customer Journey Map: Process, Templates, and Examples

    Customer Journey Map Examples. Let's look at some examples that illustrate the versatility of customer journey maps and how to tailor them to different industries, products, and services. Example 1: The Online Shopper. Sarah's journey from seeing an Instagram ad to posting a picture of herself wearing the new outfit.

  18. Customer Journey Map How-To (+7 Templates & Examples)

    In fact, don't do that. Choose 1-3 that will clearly communicate the right information to whomever you're presenting the map to. 5. MightyBytes' PDF customer journey map template. MightyBytes offers a super simple customer journey mapping template in PDF format. Best of all, it's directly editable. 6.

  19. Customer journey map templates: 6 examples to inspire you

    Expand your customer journey map so it feels right for you. If your customer needs more phases to get through their journey, that's totally fine. 2. Software as a service (SaaS) buyer journey maps. Your customer journey map should show a progression of how your customer moves through the buying process.

  20. Customer Journey Maps: Full Guide, Examples, Templates

    A B2B customer journey map is a useful tool for managing client relationships. Just like the B2C analog, it visualizes the process they go through and experiences they have when interacting with your company. ... UXPressia has a big section with customer journey map examples for many industries, including banking, travel, entertainment, and so ...

  21. How to Create a Customer Journey Map with Templates and Examples

    Using data gathered from feedback surveys, online reviews, and other customer satisfaction metrics, a customer journey map is used to tell the story of a customer's lifetime relationship with a company.Depending on the customer persona, this relationship can be as short as a few minutes or as long as many years. Customer journey maps are useful tools for visualizing the quality of each ...

  22. Customer journey mapping: A step-by-step guide

    3 Types of customer journey maps and examples. As you go through each one, consider which matches your goals the closest. 1. Current state journey map. Get the full template. This type of customer journey map illustrates customers' existing experience as they interact with a product, service, or brand. It focuses on capturing the actual steps ...

  23. A Winning SaaS Customer Journey

    Think of the SaaS customer journey as a roadmap outlining the different stages users go through when interacting with a SaaS product—from first hearing about it to becoming loyal, long-term customers.. A customer journey map for SaaS serves as a tool to visualize these stages, allowing businesses to refine interactions, improve user engagement, and boost conversion and retention rates.