A journey map is an important part of creating better customer experiences. I’m glad you are here to learn about what journey mapping is and why it matters to achieve business success.
To keep it simple, a journey map is merely a diagram that shows the steps customer(s) go through when interacting with a company. It is common to interact with companies in multiple ways such as shopping online and visiting a retail store.
The need for a journey map becomes most important as the number of touchpoints increases and when the customer buying path gets complex. There are many ways to create a journey map. They may look visually different from one organization to another, yet they have a few common components regardless of design.
3 Consistent Elements of Every Journey Map:
- Personas. Commonly known as specific customer segments. A Journey Map accounts for how target audiences think and feel, their expectations, perceptions, and more.
- Touchpoints. Journey maps identify a series of steps that customers go through as they proceed through lifecycle stages and channels. The different phases are often referenced as “LBGUPS,” which stands for Learn, Buy, Get, Use, Pay & Support. If any point is dissatisfying, customers may switch to a competitive brand.
- Data. Quantitative and qualitative insights bring the customer to life. It is wise to leverage both internal (i.e. website analytics) and external sources (i.e. social media, ratings and reviews).
Why Create A Journey Map?
- Enables teams to understand their customers and create desired experiences in support of launches (products, services, websites, etc).
- It helps organize information in one place with the ability to identify actionable improvement opportunities.
- Enables cross-teams to prioritize decisions together and focus resources on fixing customer pain points.
- Serves as a communication tool and effective for employee training. Keeps everyone on the “same page” and helps break company silos!
- Helps leaders identify operational inefficiencies to ensure employees are spending time on activities that add value for customers.
What a Journey Map Is Not:
Journey mapping is an effective method for understanding your business from a customer’s point of view. On the contrary, it is NOT meant to be designed from just the internal employee perspectives. Likewise, the end goal of journey mapping is NOT for the sake of creating a pretty document.
Important: every Customer Journey Mapping session must end with clear direction on what is happening next and who is accountable for making that happen. The most value from Customer Journey Mapping is not derived from the Journey Map itself, but from the actions that follow.
Ways I Can Help You:
- Make it Simple – Break down journey mapping in an easy-to-understand way.
- Show You Where to Start – Identify the right customer journey to focus on.
- Find Customer Pain Points – Spot what’s frustrating customers and losing business.
- Turn Insights into Action – Use the journey map to drive real improvements.
- Align Your Team – Get everyone on the same page to fix what matters most.
