Customer journey maps should be a key activity for any business looking to improve customer experience and retention. Maps out the entire end-to-end process customers go through with your company reveals significant insights about pain points, needs, behaviors and opportunities.
This comprehensive guide will teach you what journey maps is all about, why it’s so critical for CX success, how to create your own maps to identify improvement areas, and real-world examples of customer journey best practices. Let’s dive right in!
What is Customer Journey Maps?
A customer journey map is a visualized narrative story following the major touchpoints a user interacts with when engaging with your brand. From initial outreach to onboarding to renewals and referrals, diagramming the key stages and emotions connected with this full experience enables effective optimizations.
Customer journey mapping calls attention to pain points during different interactions that might discourage users from continuing their relationship with your company. It also helps identify delight moments in the journey to double down on in order to encourage positive word of mouth.
Why Customer Journey Mapping Matters
Here are some compelling reasons why taking the time to map out customer journeys should be a priority:
• Pinpoints Pain Points – Reveals specific friction areas causing struggles.
• Tracks Emotional Response – Connects how users feel during different touchpoints.
• Improves Understanding – Details what users need and why at various stages.
• Enhances Empathy – Helps teams better relate to customer challenges.
• Boosts CX Scores – Addresses issues lowering satisfaction ratings.
• Informs Feature Priorities – Shows where new functionality would have biggest impact addressing problems.
• Refinines Sales Messaging – Helps match messaging better to prospects’ buying journey stage.
• Identifies Revenue Opportunities – Highlights areas where spending could be encouraged with the right nudge.
How To Create a Customer Journey Map
Follow this step-by-step process to create effective customer journey maps:
1. Define Audience
Determine which buyer persona(s) you want to map journeys for. You may need multiple maps for different audiences.
2. Outline Stages
Break the experience down into logical categories based on common customer milestones and interactions.
3. Document Touchpoints
Identify the various channels, content, ads, features and personnel users engage with in each stage.
4. Note Interactions
Capture details around what specific actions users take and business processes during the mapped touchpoints.
5. Track Emotions
Use a line graph overlay to represent how positively or negatively audiences feel during different interactions.
6. Visualize + Share
Bring all the elements together into a visually compelling journey map document that’s easy to digest. Socialize findings with internal teams.
7. Brainstorm Improvements
Use insights gathered to call out areas for improving experiences, processes and touchpoint content delivery.
Real World Examples of Customer Journey Mapping
Here are some inspiring examples of companies improving business results by taking the time to deeply map out their customer journeys:
Reducing Churn
By diagramming out the onboarding journey, a SaaS platform revealed breaks in their implementation cadence leading customers to cancel accounts. Adjusting service touchpoints lowered churn rates 22%.
Fixing Conversion Leaks
An e-commerce retailer discovered product page content gaps after mapping shoppers’ research journeys. Updated info better supported decisions, increasing purchases 18%.
Improving Renewal Rates
Identifying moments of friction for subscribers nearing renewal enabled a media site to improve tailored retention offers and onboarding check-ins to increase renewal rates 14%.
Decreasing Service Tickets
A journey map for support customers allowed an enterprise software company to pinpoint confusing interfaces generating the most how-to inquiries. Clarifying navigation lowered tickets 39% over two quarters.
Shortening Sales Cycles
Lead-to-account creation journey mapping revealed sales messaging misalignment to prospect pain points by stage. Reprioritizing content reduced average sales cycles from 89 days down to 72 days.
Bringing It All Together
Journey mapping clarifies assumed knowledge by charting data-driven customer stages, thoughts and actions from start to finish. Instead of guesswork, product teams, marketers and CX professionals can make informed decisions with insights revealed through journey mapping.
By visualizing narratives that capture major milestones and emotions connected with engaging your brand, you gain an invaluable perspective that enables laser targeting of critical pain points damaging conversion, retention and growth. Journey analytics also highlight bright spots providing strategic opportunities to further accelerate business success.