Customer Journey Mapping: What Is It & Why You Need One

In today's competitive market, a great product or service isn’t enough – you need to provide an outstanding customer experience. Customer journey mapping helps you visualise and optimise this process. By understanding how people engage with your business, you can improve their experience from the moment they discover your brand.

Here, we’ll walk you through what a customer journey map is, why it matters and how to create one. We'll also cover key components, common mistakes to avoid, and tools to measure your success.

What is a Customer Journey Map (CJM)?

A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of every experience your customers have with your business. It tells the story of their interactions with your brand across all channels and touchpoints. With a well-designed CJM, you can understand your customers’ needs, pain points, and emotional responses at each stage of their journey.

When you’re mapping customer journeys, you're essentially documenting the complete path a customer takes — from discovering your business to making a purchase and becoming a loyal advocate.

The Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping

Using customer journey maps can improve your bottom line. According to recent studies, companies who focus on customer experiences see:

• 1.4x faster revenue growth
• 140% surge in customer spending
• Nearly 9 in 10 customers spend more
• More than 4 in 5 employees report improved job performance

Source: TechJury

Here are some ways your business can benefit from mapping customer journeys:

• Enhanced customer understanding: Gain deep insights into customer behaviour, preferences and pain points.
• Improved customer experience: Identify and fix gaps in service delivery.
• Better resource allocation: Focus investments on the touchpoints that matter most.
• Increased customer retention: Address issues before they cause customer churn.
• Higher revenue: Create more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.
• Stronger team alignment: Give all departments a shared vision of the customer experience.

Key Components of a Customer Journey Map

A comprehensive CMJ includes several essential elements:

• Touchpoints: Every interaction between your customer and your business, whether online (website visits, email communications) or offline (in-store visits, phone calls).

• Customer actions: The specific steps customers take during their journey, from initial research to leaving post-purchase feedback.
• Emotions: The feelings and reactions customers experience at each stage.
• Pain points: Obstacles or frustrations that might prevent customers from moving forward.
• Opportunities: Potential areas for improvement or innovation.
• Internal processes: The behind-the-scenes activities that support the customer experience.

Types of Customer Journey Maps

Different situations call for different types of CJMs, and each serves a unique purpose for understanding customer experiences:

• Current state maps: Document how customers currently interact with your business. These maps highlight both the positive experiences and pain points.
• Future state maps: Visualise your ideal customer journey, so you can plan improvements and innovations.
• Day-in-the-life maps: Show how your products and services fit into customers’ daily routines, and how you can position your business to fulfil more of their needs.
• Empathy maps: Focus on customers’ thoughts, feelings and motivations to better understand their experience along the journey.

How to Map a Customer Journey

Creating a customer journey map doesn’t have to be difficult. Start simple, track its performance, and refine it over time to improve your strategy.

Let’s break down the foundational steps:

Gather customer data: To solve pain points, you should build your CJM on real customer insights rather than assumptions. You can gather customer data by: 

• Collecting customer feedback through surveys and interviews
• Analysing customer service interactions
• Reviewing website analytics and social media insights
• Studying customer complaints and compliments

Identify customer personas: Creating detailed customer profiles helps you understand and address the specific needs of different customer segments rather than taking an outdated one-size-fits-all approach.

Here’s how to get started:

• Create detailed profiles of your typical customers
• Include demographics, goals and pain points
• Consider different customer segments

Map the journey phases: Breaking down the customer journey into distinct phases allows you to optimise each stage – we’ll go through each of these in detail below.

Phase 1: Awareness

During the awareness phase of the journey, customers recognise they have a need or problem. At this stage, they're just beginning to explore potential answers.

GOAL: 

Be as visible as possible when customers start searching for a solution.

ACTIONS:

• Optimise your website for relevant search terms
• Create educational content about common customer problems

EXAMPLE: 

Let's follow Eleanor, an event planner organising her first office baby shower. Eleanor's journey begins when she realises she needs professional-quality floral arrangements to make the event special. She starts by searching for “best flowers for baby shower” and clicks on the first 3 results, leading her to local florists’ websites and blogs.

Phase 2: Research

During this phase of an online customer journey map, customers actively research possible solutions. They look to search results, social media and reviews and compare businesses that will meet their needs. If your brand isn’t easily found online, you may miss out on potential sales.

GOAL: 

Provide useful information about your products and services, and emphasise their value.

ACTIONS:

• Build a strong online presence
• Highlight customer reviews
• Create helpful content that answers common questions

EXAMPLE: 

Eleanor visits each florist’s website, checks their Instagram for design inspiration, and reads online reviews. She asks some questions via live chat, where she’s greeted warmly and given expert recommendations.

Phase 3: Consider

At this stage, customers compare their options. They evaluate factors like pricing, reviews, brand reputation and the customer service they’ve received.

GOAL: 

Stand out from competitors by demonstrating unique value and building trust.

ACTIONS:

• Display social proof through testimonials and case studies
• Offer live chat or consultation services
• Provide detailed product comparisons

EXAMPLE: 

Eleanor compares her experiences and decides to buy from the florist who seems to understand her needs the most.

Phase 4: Purchase

The purchase phase of a client journey map is critical — it's where customer expectations meet reality, and is ripe for pain points. Long checkout forms or multiple checkout screens can frustrate customers. The same goes for unexpected shipping charges and slow-loading interfaces.

GOAL: 

Remove all barriers to completing the purchase while exceeding expectations.

ACTIONS: 

• Ensure a simple checkout process
• Avoid surprise costs like shipping fees
• Reward customers for their purchases with coupons or small gifts

EXAMPLE:

Eleanor orders a floral arrangement from an online florist. After checkout, she receives an email with a 20% discount code for her next purchase and a surprise digital coupon for a free vase, redeemable on her next order.

Phase 5: Loyalty

If a customer makes it this far in their buying journey, they’re a loyal customer and want to buy from you again. The key is to create meaningful, personalised experiences that make customers feel valued and understood, rather than just offering transactional benefits.

GOAL: 

Create meaningful, personalised experiences that make customers feel valued.

ACTIONS:

• Create loyalty programs
• Provide early access to new products or services
• Create VIP customer support channels

EXAMPLE: 

Eleanor is thrilled with the floral arrangement she ordered. A few weeks later, she received an exclusive email offer with early access to seasonal bouquets. She also gets a personalised thank-you note from the florist, along with a discount for her next purchase. Feeling valued, Eleanor decides to order flowers again for another occasion.

Phase 6: Advocacy

Happy customers become advocates, sharing their experiences through word of mouth and online reviews. Provide an exceptional experience for a customer’s second and third purchase, and they may be willing to become a brand ambassador.

GOAL: 

Transform satisfied customers into brand promoters. 

ACTIONS: 

• Feature customer success stories in your marketing
• Engage with and share customer content on social media
• Develop a brand ambassador program

EXAMPLE: 

Eleanor posts a glowing review online and shares a photo of her bouquet on Instagram. The florist engages with her post, thanking her and resharing her photo. A few weeks later, they invited her to join their brand ambassador program, offering exclusive perks for referrals. Now, Eleanor isn’t just a repeat customer — she’s an advocate for the brand.

Tools to Measure and Track Your Customer Journey Map

Customer journey mapping isn’t a once-off task. To provide the best customer experience, you’ll need to regularly audit and optimise your map using real data and feedback. The right tools can help you track key metrics and uncover pain points you might have missed:

• Google Analytics: Tracks website traffic, user behaviour and conversion rates.
• HubSpot or Salesforce: Customer relationship management (CRM) software to monitor interactions and engagement.
• SurveyMonkey or Typeform: Collects customer feedback through surveys.
• Hootsuite or Sprout Social: Analyses social media engagement and brand sentiment.
• Zendesk or Freshdesk: Customer support tools to monitor inquiries, response times and satisfaction levels.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Some customer journey maps can miss the mark entirely. Don't worry, these missteps are easy to avoid when you know what to look for:

• Ignoring emotional factors: Customers make decisions emotionally as well as rationally, so addressing their feelings is crucial.
• Focusing only on new customers: Retaining existing customers is just as important, if not more so, for long-term success.
• Overcomplicating the process: A journey map should be clear, actionable, and easy to follow – too much complexity can make it ineffective.
• Neglecting internal alignment: Make sure your entire team understands and uses the journey map to create a cohesive experience.
• Failing to update regularly: Customer behaviours change over time, so revisit and refine your journey map based on new data and feedback.

Creating a Customer Journey Map

If you want happy customers who leave glowing reviews and keep coming back, you need to understand their experience every step of the way.

Customer journey mapping helps you see things from their perspective – what they need, where they might get stuck, and how you can make their experience smoother. Start by defining your ideal customer and mapping out key touchpoints where they interact with your business.

Keep it simple at first and build on it as you grow. Invest in tools and strategies that help fine-tune the experience. And don’t forget – customer journeys evolve, so regularly check your data, see what’s working and adjust your approach to keep improving.