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How to conduct research for customer journey-mapping.

February 10, 2019 2019-02-10

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In This Article:

Introduction, why conduct research for customer-journey maps, step 1: look for existing data first, step 2: conduct qualitative research, plan a multipronged, qualitative research study, complement qualitative research with quantitative data.

Customer-journey maps visualize the steps that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. To be convincing and compelling, journey maps must be based in truth, rather than a fairy-tale–like depiction of how we would like users to interact with our products.

This article is a discussion of which research methods are appropriate for collecting data to create a customer-journey map. Additional articles discuss  when to create customer-journey maps , the 5-step process for creating journey maps , and  journey mapping in real life .

Research can be expensive and time-consuming, so what’s wrong with creating and using an assumption map based on stakeholder input and cutting out the research phase? While stakeholders do hold valuable knowledge about different areas of the customer journey, most of them do not have a broad enough perspective of the customer journey, nor a deep enough perspective of users needs at each stage, to be able to piece together a realistic, comprehensive view.

A journey map based on assumptions alone carries two risks:

• It carries less weight and is more likely to be written off as “anecdotal” than seen as a compelling tool to drive change.
• Team members may end up using what is actually an inaccurate map to make decisions that alter the experience (for better or worse).

Before beginning research for your journey-mapping initiative, spend some time looking for existing, relevant data within your organization. There is often existing (though disparate) information about the journey buried throughout various past internal efforts. This data, both qualitative (e.g., data from past focus groups, customer-support call logs, etc.) and quantitative (analytics, customer-satisfaction scores, etc.) can give you clues about how to shape and focus the content of your research efforts.

You may be tempted to use existing quantitative data as the basis for your journey map. While quantitative data can give you a high-level understanding of customers’ general attitudes and levels of satisfaction for specific interactions (think: NPS ), it is less appropriate for understanding emotions, mindsets, and motivations at the level required for effectively depicting the entire journey.

For this type of insight, qualitative research methods that allow you to directly observe or converse with customers are a better use of your time. Consider the following qualitative research methods that will allow you to understand users’ thoughts, feelings, and actions at each phase of the customer journey:

Customer or User Interviews

Interviews allow you to hear first-hand stories about customers’ experiences, mindsets, and actions. If you have been able to use existing data to create an overarching hypothesis of the phases in your customer journey, you can ask direct questions about each phase. Broad questions, such as, “Tell me how you feel about [product or service]?” are less helpful than specific ones, such as "What was particularly challenging or easy about the sign-up process?"

Interviews can be conducted in-person or over the phone. One technique for in-person interviews is to encourage participants to use sticky notes to visually capture their steps from the moment they discovered the need for a product or service through usage. This process helps users recall steps and rearrange them accurately throughout the interview. Subsequent phone interviewees can be sent strawman templates created from the in-person process, and invited to review and revise to as needed to reflect their experiences.

Field Studies

Interviews are a valuable research method for journey maps; however, because what people say they do is not always what they actually do , it’s best to couple interviews with additional qualitative methods, such as field studies . Field studies can take many forms, from in-home visits utilizing contextual inquiry to “shop-alongs” for retail experiences.

Observing customers in their own element is critical for uncovering blind spots and verifying what customers tell you during the interview process. Take note of any differences in findings from interviews and field studies. For example, during one journey-mapping research initiative, customer-service representatives reported the “correct” protocol for finding answers to customers’ questions who called in with an issue. But during a field study, however, those same customer-services representatives were observed using convoluted workarounds to find answers to customers’ questions.

Diary Studies

Because customer journeys happen over time and across many different channels, diary studies are a particularly useful method for understanding users’ thoughts, feelings, and actions over time. Diary studies are long-term studies: Users are asked to log each and every action they take related to a specific goal (e.g., buying a refrigerator or signing up for a new mobile plan), as well as how they felt during those interactions over many days, weeks, or months. Because the participant’s actions, feelings, and thoughts are captured as close to real-time as possible, the (fallible) memory that interviews rely on is eliminated. Data is also captured from participants at all stages of the journey, rather than just from one phase. Diary studies are inexpensive to set up and can be running in the background while you conduct additional types of research.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis can be especially helpful if you are designing a future-state journey map for a product or service that does not exist yet. You can take a virtual approach by using a remote-usability testing platform to record customers’ use of competitor sites and have them comment on their thoughts, feelings, and motivations at specific points within the session. This data allows for research input even when there is no existing user base.

Qualitative Research Methods Appropriate for Customer-Journey Mapping

When time and budget allow, it’s best to use a multipronged approach for customer-journey mapping research. That is, combine several different qualitative methods from above into a research study in order to explore the journey from multiple angles. Here is a sample research plan that makes use of multiple qualitative methods. (This plan should be adjusted based on contextual factors such as project goals, timeline, and budget.)

Sample Customer-Journey Research Plan

Finally, when revisiting and revising your assumption map with your newly collected insights, consider taking the opportunity to bring users into your workshop as part of the process!

Aside from highlighting potential problem areas to help shape qualitative research efforts at the onset of a customer-journey mapping initiative, quantitative data can also add another layer of evidence to your insights to make your narrative even more compelling.

For example, after the qualitative research study has been completed, you may choose to supplement or reinforce findings in the following ways:

• Follow up customer interviews with a survey to understand the frequency and magnitude of any of the behaviors you uncovered in your conversations
• Use digital analytics (e.g., page views or exit rates for relevant web pages) to add credibility to your claim that certain points in the journey are frustrating to users
• Supplement high or low areas depicted in the journey map with satisfaction metrics that align to specific interactions

As you begin planning your customer-journey–mapping research initiative, use the following steps as a guide:

• Before investing in external customer research, take a look around your organization: Is there any existing data that might prove useful, or at least help you shape your research plan?
• Plan your research study by selecting a combination of qualitative research methods that allow you direct interaction with or observation of users. User interviews, field studies, and diary studies are all useful, appropriate methods.
• Use quantitative data from sources such as analytics, customer-satisfaction or loyalty scores, and surveys to reinforce and supplement findings from qualitative research in your map.
• Bonus tip: Always remember to keep your core team of stakeholders involved in the research process and aware of new insights and developments throughout your study. Involvement increases buy-in and lessens stakeholder attachments to assumptions!

To learn more, check out our course, Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs .

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Customer Journey Map: Everything You Need To Know

Updated: Jun 12, 2024, 12:10pm

Can you describe a customer’s experience with your brand or company? If you’ve never made a customer journey map, that description is probably lacking some valuable details. Creating a customer journey map will help you understand a customer’s experience before, during and after buying your product or service, so you can identify barriers and create the best possible experience for every customer. Here’s what you need to know to better understand your audience.

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What Is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a visual tool that helps you define your customers’ needs, problems and engagement with your brand. When used properly, a map can be a vital component of effective project management.

The map is laid out as a timeline that plots every interaction a customer has with your business from awareness to repeat business. It helps you see what the customer experiences at every touchpoint.

For example, a customer journey map might help you see that a customer has trouble evaluating your product through your mobile website, couldn’t find the information they needed online, appreciated your in-store customer service and decided to purchase again.

Benefits of a Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map helps you gain a better understanding of your customers so you can spot and avoid potential concerns, make better business decisions and improve customer retention.

The map helps you see which touchpoints your customers love, so you can emphasize those, and where there are common pain points you want to improve.

You can use the map to create standard operating procedures in your business, train your staff, help all team members better understand your customers, and improve your product or service for a better user experience.

Elements of a Customer Journey Map

Customer persona.

You can’t understand your customer’s experience until you know who your customer is. If you haven’t already created a customer persona to represent a group of your customers, start there.

A phase is the general stage of decision making and purchasing the customer is in. You can break down buying stages in several ways, but here’s a basic outline:

• Awareness: The customer realizes they have a need, problem or opportunity.
• Research: They research solutions to determine whether to make a purchase and evaluate options.
• Consideration: They decide they’ll make a purchase to address their need, and they narrow down their options.
• Purchase: They choose a solution and buy it.
• Support: The customer uses the product or service, engages with the company and decides whether to purchase again.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are every interaction the customer has with your brand throughout the buying journey. Phases may each include several touchpoints.

The touchpoints of your customer’s journey depend on your approach to marketing, sales, product and customer service. They might include things like:

• Marketing collateral, like posters, stickers, billboards, flyers, commercials or display ads
• Physical properties, including your storefront or office space
• Digital properties, including your website and social media pages
• Interactions with your staff, such as cashiers, customer service reps and sales reps
• Purchase experience, including the price and checkout process
• Any post-purchase follow-up from your company, like an email or phone call
• Ongoing customer support
• Renewal or cancellation of your service

Customer Thoughts, Actions and Emotions

This is where you plot the precise customer experience at each touchpoint. What are they thinking to themselves? Which steps do they take? How are they feeling?

Don’t guess at this information! Get real feedback from your customers through surveys and—even better—live interactions with your customer support staff. Basic CSAT (customer satisfaction), NPS (net promoter score) and CES (customer effort score) questions are a great place to start.

Opportunities

Once you’ve plotted your customer journey, you can include room to note opportunities based on what you see on the map.

Opportunities are anywhere you can remove pain points and improve the buying journey for your customer—where are your customers hitting roadblocks that keep them from buying (or coming back)?

Six Steps to Creating a Customer Journey Map

To create a customer journey map:

• Decide what to measure. Get clear on your goals, so you know what to look for as you plot your customer journey.
• Create your customer persona. Start with knowing which buyer you’re focused on and what their general needs and wants are.
• Define your customer buying phases. What are the stages your customer goes through between discovering their problem and deciding to purchase your product or service? Which stages happen after purchase?
• Plot your touchpoints. Within each phase, where does your customer interact with your brand?
• Add customer thoughts, actions and emotions. At each touchpoint, what is the customer prompted to think, do and feel?
• Note your opportunities. Based on your goals and what you discover through your customer journey map, which changes can you make at each touchpoint or within each phase to improve the customer experience?

There’s no correct way to design your customer journey map.

You could build it in a simple spreadsheet that includes swimlanes for phases, touchpoints, thoughts/actions/feelings and opportunities. Some journey maps are more intricately designed, with touchpoints and emotions illustrated and wrapped around a series of phases.

Validating Your Journey Map

If you create a map internally based on the phases and touchpoints your company identifies, you’re relying on assumptions that aren’t necessarily valid.

To validate your customer journey map, you have to bring the customer into the process.

Using surveys and customer interactions to determine customer thoughts, actions and emotions is a good start—you’re not assuming your customers’ reactions to your touchpoints.

But what if you’ve missed touchpoints in the customer journey? Or assumed they encounter them in one phase when they actually encounter them during another? Talking to your customers can help you identify any misguided assumptions and ensure your map accurately reflects the customer experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the sections of a customer journey map.

A customer journey map generally includes a summary of your customer persona, purchase phases, touchpoints with your company, customer thoughts/actions/emotions and opportunities to improve the customer experience.

What do you use a customer journey map for?

Companies use a customer journey map to better understand their customers’ experience when interacting with their brand. Knowing what a customer is experiencing during each touchpoint with your brand can help you identify pain points and improve the customer experience.

How do you define customer journey?

The customer journey is the series of phases and steps a potential buyer experiences before, during and after purchasing your product or service. It can include everything from their independent research and your advertising and marketing to the shopping experience and your customer service and retention efforts.

Why is mapping the customer journey important?

Customer journey mapping is an essential tool used by businesses to help them understand their customers’ expectations better and help them improve their overall customer experience (CX) level.

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The 7 best research methods for customer journey mapping

Getting authentic insights from customers is essential to effectively map out their journey. And understanding how users really interact with your product is the best way to provide tailored experiences that fit your customers’ diverse needs.

But it’s often hard to know where to begin the customer journey mapping research process and which methods to use.

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This article outlines the seven most effective research methods for customer journey mapping. Use our guide to prioritize the right qualitative and quantitative research processes for your needs—and implement them right away.

Use product experience insights to map your customer journey

Hotjar helps you understand your users by combining observational data with voice-of-the-customer (VoC) insights

7 effective customer journey mapping research methods

A customer journey map is a visual representation of how your users engage with your brand, from initial discovery—like searching online for a solution to their problem—to browsing your site, trying out your product, making a purchase—and beyond. 

Make sure your customer journey maps are informed by user-centric research rather than assumptions and guesswork.

Carry out both qualitative and quantitative research using the methods below to create a map that accurately represents your users' product experience (PX):

Qualitative research methods

Quantitative research methods are essential for effective customer journey mapping: they provide hard data that’s easy to track and compare over time. But qualitative methods uncover the how and the why behind the numbers, helping you deeply understand your customers' experience.

Hotjar Product Designer Iga Gawronska stresses the importance of diving into customer emotions in research:

"I think it’s important to map out the actions, and also the emotions and thoughts of the people that perform the actions, your users."

Use the following four qualitative research methods to get an in-depth understanding of how customers engage with your brand online.

1. Customer interviews

Customer interviews are one-on-one conversations with people who actually use your product or service. Conducting them in-person often yields the best results because it’s easier to pick up on non-verbal cues and the interview can flow more naturally—but video conferencing with tools like Zoom is a good secondary option.

By engaging in an open-ended conversation with customers, you’ll get unexpected insights and granular details about your customer’s journey, which helps you empathize with the user experience (UX).

Structuring your user interviews in different stages can help get the conversation going. Start with a warm-up that establishes trust and builds rapport, then home in on your core questions, and end with more informal, concluding thoughts from both parties.

Input your results into a user research repository as you go, so you don’t get overwhelmed at the end of the interview process. Some researchers make simple spreadsheets in Google Sheets or Excel, while others use dedicated tools like EnjoyHQ or Dovetail .

Once you’ve aggregated your interview data, you’ll start to notice trends and commonalities between interviewees and understand how they’re engaging with key touchpoints in your customer journey and what’s most important to them.

Pro tip : use a transcription tool like Otter.ai to stay focused on conducting your interview without having to take detailed notes. Having a written record of interviews at your fingertips also speeds up your data organization and analysis later.

2. Remote observation

Remote observation lets researchers see how users are behaving using online tools like video calling and screen recordings.

Remote research is convenient for both researchers and participants—neither party has to leave the comfort of their home or workspace and they can do what they need to do when it suits their schedule. Using remote research gives you insights into how your customers interact with key touchpoints on the customer journey in their everyday environment and context.

Here are two effective ways to observe your customers’ journey remotely:

Use a video conferencing tool like Zoom or Google Meet and ask users to share their screen with you while they’re interacting with your site, app, or product. Draw on the data you gather to inform your customer journey map.

Use a product experience insights tool like Hotjar Session Recordings and watch playbacks of real users interacting with your site or product across an entire session, as you observe how they scroll, what attracts attention, and where they backtrack or bounce.

Recordings are particularly valuable tools to understand the customer journey because they let researchers observe users remotely without them feeling ‘watched’ and behaving differently than usual.  

Filter your Hotjar Recordings to show certain user sessions based on referrer URL, the landing page they visited, whether they’re a new or returning customer, their session, the specific action they take, their location, and u-turns. This helps you spot trends, understand behavior patterns for different user personas , and dig deeper into the customer journey.

3. Lab observation

In lab observation, the researcher observes the participant in person, either in a formal ‘lab’ setting or another professional, controlled environment.

Lab observation can be complicated to carry out because of the cost and logistics involved, and it’s often more time-consuming than remote methods. But it’s a valuable research technique, with a reduced risk of technical difficulties and a great opportunity to build a friendly rapport with participants.

If you op for lab observation, record your conversations with participants or use a note-taking tool like Notion or Evernote to write down your observations while the participant is interacting with the site or product, so it’s easy to find the data later. As the participant explores key customer journey touchpoints , take the opportunity to ask follow-up questions to understand why your test customers are making certain choices.

4. Qualitative surveys

Qualitative surveys usually involve asking open-ended questions that prompt detailed, long-form user responses. They give you great customer insights to inform your journey map, are easy to put together, inexpensive, and work well with large numbers of participants.

The success of your survey depends on the UX research questions you ask . 

It’s important not to (knowingly or unknowingly) ask leading questions, as you’ll likely get biased responses from your participants, which won’t help you in accurately mapping out your customers’ journey. Let’s imagine you ask a research participant the following survey question:

“Did our ‘sign up for a free trial’ button catch your attention on our homepage? Why?”

This doesn’t work because the participant can’t really answer your question freely: you’re implying that your homepage CTA button should have caught their attention, so they’re more likely to answer ‘yes.’ 

Instead, you should ask:

“What site element attracts your attention most on our homepage? Why?”

Or, if they’ve already converted:

“What made you decide to click the ‘sign up for a free trial’ button on the homepage?’

Here, you’re letting the research participant fill in the blanks on their own, which will get you a more accurate picture of their user experience.

Pro tip: use Hotjar’s Survey tool and s urvey templates to quickly and easily create your own qualitative surveys and get all the details about your customers’ journey—in their own words. Filter responses and set up automations for your team to receive alerts when you get certain survey responses to uncover trends in your user data all in one place.

Use Hotjar Surveys to connect with customers and hear about all the stages in their journey with your brand.

Quantitative research methods to complement qualitative data

While qualitative research is the best way to build empathy with your customers and get a holistic view of their product experience, you also need quantitative data to get an objective, granular understanding of key moments in the customer journey.

Use these three quantitative research methods to gather precise information about your customers’ digital journey with your product:

5. Website analytics

Because website analytics show you hard data about how people are interacting with your site, they’re a great resource for customer journey mapping research. Investigate these key metrics to better understand how your users move across touchpoints:

Traffic source: are customers searching for your site on Google, clicking on a landing page, or visiting from a social media channel?

Bounce rate : do visitors arrive on your site and navigate away soon after? Or do they stay for a while, browse, and take a conversion action, like making a purchase?

New vs. returning customers: how many users are new leads and how many are existing customers?

Session duration: how long do customers spend engaging with your site on average?

While website analytics don’t explain why your users are taking certain actions, they clearly show what customers are doing on your site —and how they got there .

For best results, use a PX insights platform like Hotjar to fill in the gaps between the numbers with rich qualitative insights.

Matthew Nixon, managing director of  Molzana , illustrates how teams can combine website analytics and qualitative research tools for optimal customer journey mapping:

"Using tools like Hotjar adds color to our quantitative analysis. Before, events like button clicks, scroll rate, and video plays might not have been tagged. This is where Hotjar comes in; click and scroll maps allow us to quantify user behavior in a much more granular way, which complements the trend data we collect from web analytics."

Google Analytics is a great option for quantitative website or app data: it’s both powerful and relatively easy to set up and navigate. Use Hotjar’s Google Analytics integration to go deeper and gather both qualitative and quantitative insights to inform your customer journey map .

6. Quantitative surveys

Quantitative surveys ask customers closed-ended questions that can be answered quickly—by checking yes or no, typing in one word, or selecting a multiple-choice answer.

Quantitative surveys can take a bit longer to put together, but they’re quick and easy for customers to fill out. With Hotjar, you can quickly create quantitative surveys by modifying questions from our question bank, and build surveys your users can address in a click or two, without disrupting their experience. 

While quantitative surveys don’t give you the same level of in-depth information as qualitative, open-ended questions, they’re helpful to get a statistical overview on the customer journey, or if you’ve already identified a potential problem and want to better understand the issue.

Imagine you've discovered, through qualitative research, that several customers report difficulties browsing your website. Place a quantitative survey on key web or product pages to get more details about the exact issues they’re experiencing with questions like:

Did you experience friction when browsing our website?

What was the biggest problem you experienced when browsing our website:

Difficult to navigate on mobile

Bugs or glitches

Confusing navigation menu

Pages loaded slowly or incorrectly

I had trouble finding what I wanted

Collecting enough responses to quantitative questions helps you prioritize the most important elements of the customer experience to map out an improved user journey.

7. Customer satisfaction scores

Measuring customer satisfaction is important to understand which touchpoints are working well for your users, and which you need to improve. In particular, Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is a great indicator of overall customer loyalty and satisfaction. 

Researchers calculate this metric by asking existing customers how likely they are to recommend your product to their network on a scale of 1 to 10. Their ratings help you understand overall customer satisfaction levels, and also split users up into specific groups:

Promoters (9-10): your biggest fans. They’re highly likely to stay loyal to your company and recommend you far and wide.

Passives (7-8): middle of the road. These customers are more or less satisfied with your brand but would consider jumping ship to a competitor who meets their needs better.

Detractors (0-6): these users may have had a negative experience with your company that’s made them unlikely to return—they may even write negative reviews or testimonials about your product or services. However, negative feedback is also useful as it helps you understand which parts of your customer journey you need to focus on and fix.

While NPS scores give you an idea of how well your brand is serving your customers, they don’t tell you why customers are so loyal they regularly recommend your company. That’s why it’s a good idea to ask a couple of quick follow-up questions in your NPS survey , like “What can we do to improve your score?”

Use Hotjar’s non-intrusive Feedback widgets and Survey tools to get NPS survey responses from customers while they’re navigating your site.

Once you’ve calculated your NPS score, use your findings to identify how you can improve the customer experience and where the customer journey needs updating. For example, if many customers complained about friction in the checkout process, that’s a good indication you should focus on optimizing that part of your on-site customer journey.

Deep customer knowledge makes for easy journey mapping

Thorough research is the best way to build a customer journey map that lets you truly understand your customers and their user experience. It’s essential to use a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods to dig deep into how customers are behaving on your site and understand why and how they’re carrying out certain actions.

Combine these methods to understand your customers’ experiences from different perspectives and prioritize creating a stellar user journey.

Hotjar helps you understand your users by combining observational data with voice-of-the-customer (VoC) insights.

FAQs about customer journey mapping research

Why is customer journey mapping research important.

Customer journey mapping is important because it helps teams understand how customers interact with their brand in the wild. Customer journey mapping research makes sure your maps are based on accurate user data rather than guesswork and assumptions. By doing research, teams dig deep into the customer experience, uncover the touchpoints that are most impactful, and optimize their products or services accordingly.

What methods are good for customer journey mapping research?

Use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to get a full picture of how customers experience brand touchpoints and engage in strong customer journey mapping research. Here’s what we recommend:

Qualitative methods: customer interviews, remote observation, lab observation, and qualitative surveys

Quantitative methods: website analytics, customer satisfaction scores like Net Promoter Scores®, and quantitative surveys

Is quantitative or qualitative research better for customer journey mapping?

Neither quantitative nor qualitative research is better for customer journey mapping—both approaches complement each other and should be used together to get a full picture of how customers are behaving—and why they’re behaving that way. While qualitative research excels in uncovering genuine customer feelings and emotions, quantitative research is valuable because it gives research teams hard data that’s easily measurable and useful for analytics and spotting trends.

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

Updated: April 17, 2024

Published: May 04, 2023

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

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

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

Table of Contents

What is the customer journey?

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

• What’s included in a customer journey map?

The Customer Journey Mapping Process

Steps for creating a customer journey map.

• Types of Customer Journey Maps

Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices

• Customer Journey Design
• Customer Journey Map Examples

Free Customer Journey Map Templates

Free Customer Journey Template

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

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

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

Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey

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

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

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

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

1. Use customer journey map templates.

Why make a customer journey map from scratch when you can use a template? Save yourself some time by downloading HubSpot’s free customer journey map templates .

This has templates that map out a buyer’s journey, a day in your customer’s life, lead nurturing, and more.

These templates can help sales, marketing, and customer support teams learn more about your company’s buyer persona. This will improve your product and customer experience.

2. Set clear objectives for the map.

Before you dive into your customer journey map, you need to ask yourself why you’re creating one in the first place.

What goals are you directing this map towards? Who is it for? What experience is it based upon?

If you don’t have one, I recommend creating a buyer persona . This persona is a fictitious customer with all the demographics and psychographics of your average customer. This persona reminds you to direct every aspect of your customer journey map toward the right audience.

3. Profile your personas and define their goals.

Next, you should conduct research. This is where it helps to have customer journey analytics ready.

Don’t have them? No worries. You can check out HubSpot’s Customer Journey Analytics tool to get started.

Questionnaires and user testing are great ways to obtain valuable customer feedback. The important thing is to only contact actual customers or prospects.

You want feedback from people interested in purchasing your products and services who have either interacted with your company or plan to do so.

Some examples of good questions to ask are:

• How did you hear about our company?
• What first attracted you to our website?
• What are the goals you want to achieve with our company? In other words, what problems are you trying to solve?
• How long have you/do you typically spend on our website?
• Have you ever made a purchase with us? If so, what was your deciding factor?
• Have you ever interacted with our website to make a purchase but decided not to? If so, what led you to this decision?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easily can you navigate our website?
• Did you ever require customer support? If so, how helpful was it, on a scale of 1 to 10?
• Can we further support you to make your process easier?

You can use this buyer persona tool to fill in the details you procure from customer feedback.

4. Highlight your target customer personas.

Once you’ve learned about the customer personas that interact with your business, I recommend narrowing your focus to one or two.

Remember, a customer journey map tracks the experience of a customer taking a particular path with your company. If you group too many personas into one journey, your map won’t accurately reflect that experience.

When creating your first map, it’s best to pick your most common customer persona and consider the route they would typically take when engaging with your business for the first time.

You can use a marketing dashboard to compare each and determine the best fit for your journey map. Don’t worry about the ones you leave out, as you can always go back and create a new map specific to those customer types.

5. List out all touchpoints.

Begin by listing the touchpoints on your website.

What is a touchpoint in a customer journey map?

A touchpoint in a customer journey map is an instance where your customer can form an opinion of your business. You can find touchpoints in places where your business comes in direct contact with a potential or existing customer.

For example, if I were to view a display ad, interact with an employee, reach a 404 error, or leave a Google review, all of those interactions would be considered a customer touchpoint.

Your brand exists beyond your website and marketing materials, so you must consider the different types of touchpoints in your customer journey map. These touchpoints can help uncover opportunities for improvement in the buying journey.

Based on your research, you should have a list of all the touchpoints your customers are currently using and the ones you believe they should be using if there’s no overlap.

This is essential in creating a customer journey map because it provides insight into your customers’ actions.

For instance, if they use fewer touchpoints than expected, does this mean they’re quickly getting turned away and leaving your site early? If they are using more than expected, does this mean your website is complicated and requires several steps to reach an end goal?

Whatever the case, understanding touchpoints help you understand the ease or difficulties of the customer journey.

Aside from your website, you must also look at how your customers might find you online. These channels might include:

• Social channels.
• Email marketing.
• Third-party review sites or mentions.

Run a quick Google search of your brand to see all the pages that mention you. Verify these by checking your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from. Whittle your list down to those touchpoints that are the most common and will be most likely to see an action associated with it.

At HubSpot, we hosted workshops where employees from all over the company highlighted instances where our product, service, or brand impacted a customer. Those moments were recorded and logged as touchpoints. This showed us multiple areas of our customer journey where our communication was inconsistent.

The proof is in the pudding — you can see us literally mapping these touch points out with sticky notes in the image below.

Don't forget to share this post!

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

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Consumer journeys: developing consumer-based strategy

• Published: 09 February 2019
• Volume 47 , pages 187–191, ( 2019 )

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• Rebecca Hamilton 1 &
• Linda L. Price 2  

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Consumers undertake many journeys in pursuit of large and small life goals and in response to various opportunities, obstacles, and challenges. Consumer journeys may anticipate consumption experiences, such as when consumers take steps to choose products, brands, or technologies, engage in online or offline retail experiences, and use products and services. However, consumers take other journeys that don’t have consumption as their goal but nonetheless implicate brands, technologies, products, and services. For example, a cancer patient and family members undertake a traumatic emotional journey that involves a complex network of heath care brands, technologies, and services as patients and their families move from diagnosis, through treatment, to recovery, remission, or end-of-life care (Berry et al. 2015 ). An Uber driver may use his Toyota not only to take his own journeys but also to earn money by taking other people where they need to go. During some parts of these journeys, the consumer role may not be as prominent as other roles such as patient or producer or person.

The broad topic for this special issue, consumer journeys, is contoured by a focus on consumers rather than customers or firm touchpoints, and on journeys rather than goals, tasks, or jobs. Both of these aspects frame the topic in particular and significant ways.

Focus on consumers

The focus on consumers rather than customers is deliberate and important (Hamilton 2016 ). An essential impetus for this issue is to highlight the value of consumer-based strategy for generating customer insights. “Consumer-based strategy is organizational strategy that is developed based on insights about consumers” (Hamilton 2016 , p. 281). More holistic than a traditional strategic focus on customers, consumer-based strategy recognizes the need to understand consumers as they select, create, integrate, use, adapt, and discard products and services in order to meet needs and accomplish goals. “Consumers” is a more general term than “customers” that emphasizes that people draw on and integrate a wide variety of market and non-market resources to pursue their life paths (Epp and Price 2011 ). As Fournier famously wrote, consumers don’t choose brands, they choose lives (Fournier 1998 ).

Consumers act as resource integrators in their role as customers of multiple entities, trying to accomplish, for example, the goal of moving to a new home or going on a family vacation. These common examples highlight the importance of understanding the context of the consumer’s overall journey (Rawson et al. 2013 ). Understanding what consumers are trying to accomplish both before and after interacting with a provider can help providers increase the value they provide to their consumers (Seybold 2001 ). Such a perspective recognizes that “markets, customers, resources and contexts are constantly changing,” (Bettencourt et al. 2014 , p. 60). Without this broader perspective, firms can become so consumed with improving a specific touchpoint or maximizing choice of an option that they lose sight of the consumer’s overall goal. When consumers move to a new home, they may need to navigate a complex array of separate and layered service encounters, including the home transaction(s), inspections, insurance, the physical move, and furnishing the new home. Even planning a family vacation is a complex problem, involving integrating various collective and individual goals (Epp and Price 2011 ). Firms may mismatch solutions to consumers because they don’t appreciate the array of networked goals, goal management approaches, and constraints that families face. By looking at consumer networks more holistically, firms can improve solution design, identify new network partners, and create new offerings (Epp and Price 2011 ).

Focus on journeys

As importantly, the framing of consumption processes as journeys is consequential. “Journey” is one of the primary deep metaphors that consumers use to describe and understand their lives, and especially to make meaning of the past, present, and future (Zaltman and Zaltman 2008 ). Deep metaphors “provide a window into people’s underlying conceptions of the social world,” and help them interpret and evaluate information related to abstract constructs (Landau et al. 2010 , p. 1046; Lakoff and Johnson 2008 ). The journey metaphor is evoked in numerous naturally occurring consumer settings and associated with a variety of experiences. Journeys can be arduous, as in a hero’s journey, be of short or long duration, have unexpected events and turns, go toward or away from something, be repeated multiple times, and include obstacles, detours, and alternative routes. The journey includes the events or “touchpoints” along the way, but it is also a narrative of a progression in which overcoming fear and failure may be important parts (Arnould and Price 1993 ). The journey metaphor has been usefully applied to love, relationships, disease, adventure, addiction, education, growth, creativity, grief, death, and numerous other concrete and abstract human experiences.

Recent research has underscored the importance of examining the customer journey in order to understand customer experience. The customer journey is defined as the process the customer goes through, across all stages and touchpoints with an organization, comprising the customer experience (Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ). Mapping customer journeys from a firm perspective has long been a valuable tool for improving customer experiences (Bitner et al. 2008 ; Dhebar 2013 ; Edelman and Singer 2015 ; Rawson et al. 2013 ), and is likely to remain so. Yet, as Lemon and Verhoef ( 2016 ) explain, only some of these touchpoints are controlled by the firm, and firms need to deepen their understanding of both the ones they control and the ones they don’t. Increasingly, theory and research call for advances in customer journey mapping, moving toward more adaptive and customized mapping, done less from a strictly firm perspective, and incorporating more of the pre- and post- components of the customer journey with the firm (Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ; Voorhees et al. 2017 ; Rosenbaum et al. 2017 ). New technologies and platforms have altered customer journeys in myriad ways (Kannan and Li 2017 ; Court et al. 2009 ; Edelman and Singer 2015 ). New technology has introduced many different channels through which consumers can interact with product and service providers (Barwitz and Maas 2018 ; Chheda et al. 2019 ; Leeflang et al. 2014 ), giving consumers considerable control in how they interact with providers (Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ). It is important to examine touchpoints across multiple channels because analyzing channels individually can lead researchers to incorrect conclusions (Li and Kannan 2014 ).

Consumer journeys

A consumer journey often subsumes customer journeys, in that a consumer journey is broader and may involve multiple activities (e.g., engaging with a social media platform and then visiting a retailer, or deciding to see a doctor and then visiting a pharmacy) and multiple service providers (e.g., comparison shopping). Beyond understanding provider–consumer touchpoints, we contend it is vital to understand the complex emotional and experiential journeys that consumers engage in with the help of brands, technologies, products, and services. We can think of customer journeys as being motivated by more concrete goals, such as getting medications, while consumer journeys may be motivated by more abstract goals, such as getting healthy and feeling good again. For example, a customer journey with a pharmacy might flow from naming it as the preferred pharmacy during a visit to the doctor, stopping at its retail location on the way home to pick up the medication, and taking the medication each day until the prescription is gone. In contrast, a consumer journey might begin with the consumer feeling a bit off, modifying exercise and diet to no avail, searching online for a diagnosis of the symptoms being experienced, deciding to see a doctor and making an appointment, and then following a customer journey with the pharmacy. Following this broader conceptualization, we consider how a person’s role as a consumer relates to this person’s other roles, whether these roles are as a patient, a parent, or a producer.

Increasingly, service providers are taking these other roles into consideration. For example, the CEO of CVS Health, Larry Merlo, recently noted that their customers are also patients, and understanding them more holistically—in both roles—is important. Supporting this idea, CVS Health has developed a “Health Engagement Engine” that integrates their own pharmacy data with data from other sources such as health plans, providers, and health systems. Similarly, platforms such as AirBnB will be more successful if they understand that the same people sometimes play the role of guests (consumers) and other times the role of hosts (producers). In addition, by understanding AirBnB’s role in the consumer journey, there is an opportunity to enlarge the platform to build on and complement other aspects of that journey. For example, AirBnB has expanded their service to include letting users book experiences on their app and make restaurant reservations in select U.S. cities (Forbes 2017 ). In their advertising, Deloitte Digital declares, “the customer experience is dead. It’s time to see the customer journey as what it really is, a human journey” (Advertising Age Cover Advertisement, December 17, 2018). This overstates the case, but highlights increasing recognition of the need to understand holistically how people move into and out of consumer roles and customer journeys.

Overview of the articles in this issue

This special issue brings together a set of 13 conceptual and empirical articles around the broad topic of consumer journeys. Due to the high level of interest (over 60 submissions) and space constraints, nine papers appear in this issue (vol. 47, issue 2) and four papers will appear in a special sub-section of the next issue (vol. 47, issue 3). We are grateful to the many authors, reviewers, and conference participants who helped bring this issue to fruition, along with the vision, energy and resolve of editors Robert Palmatier and John Hulland. By design, the articles in this issue represent broad and diverse perspectives on consumers’ journeys.

Illustrating a wide view of the roles of consumers within journeys, work by Nakata and colleagues (Nakata et al. 2019 , issue 2) suggests that focusing on a consumer’s interactions with firms produces limited models of the journey that miss the nuance of consumers’ usage experiences over extended periods in everyday settings. Their paper reports a qualitative study of the situated experiences of disadvantaged consumers who are struggling to treat chronic hypertension, which incorporates consumers’ interactions with firms but spends more time with them as they follow their daily routines. Complementing this work, a paper by Trujillo Torres and DeBerry-Spence ( 2019 , issue 3) examines consumers’ responses to traumatic, extraordinary experiences such as receiving a cancer diagnosis. A qualitative analysis identifies strategies consumers use to construct an enduring life story, claim authority and preserve meanings as they live through traumatic experiences.

Work by Novak and Hoffman ( 2019 , issue 2) also considers consumers’ usage experiences over an extended time period, in this case, focusing on technology products. They propose a framework for considering consumers’ complex relationships with smart objects. Sometimes, consumer have relationships with smart objects that are similar to “master–servant” relationships, but sometimes the consumer and the smart object behave more like partners. For example, Amazon’s Alexa might remind a consumer of an upcoming appointment or communicate with other devices to turn off or turn on lights.

New technology platforms push firms to think about engaging consumers in multiple roles. Just as CVS Health is moving towards considering people in both their roles as both customers and patients, platforms like AirBnB and Uber are being pushed to consider their customers in other roles such as producers. Daellert’s paper ( 2019 , issue 2) suggests that consumer co-production activities require firms to rethink their role in the marketing value creation process. He encourages marketers in the sharing economy to not only think about how to support consumers in fulfilling their own consumption needs but also to help them create value for other consumers.

Consumers’ use of products and brands to fulfill their goals is often shaped by experiences that far predate the typical span of a customer journey. Mende and colleagues (Mende et al. 2019 , issue 2) show that the early life experiences of consumers with their caregivers shape their relationships with romantic partners and their consumer journeys with regard to romantic consumption even in adulthood. Similarly, the paper by Hamilton and colleagues (Hamilton et al. 2019 , issue 3) examines consumer decision journeys that are constrained by a scarcity of products and/or a scarcity of resources. Research on customer journeys often implicitly assumes that consumers have access to products and services and that they have sufficient resources to buy them. However, many consumers experience either temporary restrictions on the availability of products or resources or chronic scarcity. In particular, there is growing evidence that scarcity of resources during childhood can have a lasting effect on how consumers navigate their decision journeys.

Another case in which consumer journeys are influenced by experiences that far predate the customer journey is in inspiring brand experiences during foreign exchange trips. Vredeveld and Coulter ( 2019 , issue 2) study the consumer journeys of international students from nine countries temporarily living in the U.S. They find that the cultural experiential goals of these students influence their use of brands during their stay in the U.S. In some cases, their brand usage is motivated and interpreted based on expectations developed when they were exposed to the brands before they came to the U.S., such as in American movies.

Some of the papers in the special issue expand the scope of previous work on customer journeys by considering multiple service providers and spillovers across them. For example, Hildebrand and Schlager ( 2019 , issue 2) examine how pre-shopping activity on social media affects consumers’ subsequent shopping behavior. Their field study and experiments show that using Facebook before engaging in a product configuration task makes consumers more likely to choose conventional product features. Using Facebook seems to encourage consumers to focus more on how others will evaluate them, making them less willing to choose unconventional features.

The stage in the journey in which consumers encounter features can also influence their receptivity to the features. Schamp et al. ( 2019 , issue 2) show that ethical attributes (such as environmentally friendly ingredients) have more influence at some stages of the consumer decision journey (choice; when consumers are considering small assortments) than at other stages (consideration; when consumers are considering large assortments). Thus, a consumer’s interest in ethical attributes is not static, but depends on the stage of the journey.

Work by Kranzbuehler and colleagues (Kranzbühler et al. 2019 , issue 2) considers how to structure a consumer’s interactions with multiple service providers across a consumer journey. Specifically, they consider cases in which firms may want to dissociate themselves from a consumer touchpoint, such as when that touchpoint is inherently dissatisfying for customers. Using both a field study and experiments, these authors identify conditions under which firms may want to use branded outsourcing as a strategic tool to reduce their own brand’s associations with a negative touchpoint. Notably, the extent to which consumers perceive multiple brand-owned touchpoints as being designed in a thematically cohesive and consistent manner, which Kuehnl and colleagues (Kuehnl et al. 2019 , issue 3) call “effective customer journey design,” tends to affect consumers’ evaluation of utilitarian brand attributes more than their evaluation of hedonic brand attributes. In contrast, evaluation of hedonic brand attributes is influenced more by the brand experience.

Knowing how to engage consumers effectively may depend on the length of the consumer’s journey with the brand. Akaka and Schau ( 2019 , issue 3) show that as consumers’ identities evolve, their consumption practices also evolve. Focusing on the practice of surfing, they show that identity alignment (and misalignment) over time encourages consumers to change the way they interact with products and brands. Turning to firms’ efforts to engage consumers, Hanson et al. ( 2019 , issue 2) examine the effects of different kinds of incentives for engagement, such as points and badges, for consumers to engage in an online brand community. They show that for novices, who are new to the community, signals that communicate a specific social role drive more engagement (such as creating discussions, posting comments, and future engagement intentions) than signals that do not provide role clarity. However, for consumers with longer tenure, the degree to which incentives communicate a social role is less influential. Notably, consumers develop and change along their journeys, and firms need to take this evolution into consideration.

Conclusion and research directions

To summarize, we propose that important strategic insights can be uncovered by moving from a focus on a customer’s journey with a single firm to a broader scope, in which the consumer may shift between roles as a patient and consumer or between roles as a producer and consumer. These consumer journeys may include interactions with other consumers, as in the case of brand communities or when buying for others, and interactions with smart objects. Consumer journeys may encompass interactions with multiple firms, either by the design of the focal firm, as in the case of outsourcing, or in spite of its efforts, as in the case of comparison shopping. These journeys are often extended in time and initiated in distant places, with lagged effects on consumers’ decision making with respect to specific products and brands. We hope that as you finish reading this issue you will allow this broadened perspective on consumers’ journeys to spark your own ideas and future research.

A treasure trove of future research directions is embedded in each of the papers that encompass this issue. Here we underscore a few possible future directions. First, future theory and research should investigate the temporality and duration of consumer journeys. This issue has uncovered challenges in neatly defining a pre-core-post customer journey process, suggesting the value of more adaptive and customized time frames depending on the consumer journey context. Moreover, the pre- and post- components of a consumer’s journey may themselves be quite prolonged, as consumers develop histories with brands, navigate networked relationships with smart objects in their homes, or replicate relational journeys from their past.

Second, future theory and research should interrogate when and how consumption processes are experienced as journeys and how that metaphor shapes consumers’ experiences. For example, thinking of a consumption process as a journey versus, for example a job to be done, may change how consumers think about control, unanticipated events, obstacles, failures, emotions, progress, and outcomes. Journeys may not always be motivated by explicit goals, and goals may change over time. This may, in turn, have additional implications for when and how we think about customer journeys and customer experience. Importantly, when is it useful and when does it create value to frame a process as a consumer journey, and when not?

Third, future research should deepen our understanding of people’s movements between their roles as customers and other roles, and the role of companions in consumers’ journeys. As a whole, the articles in this issue suggest that a contextualized view of these movements between roles, sometimes with companions, can shed important insight on customer touchpoints even when these touchpoints comprise only a small portion of the overall consumer journey. This broadened perspective emphasizes the way in which consumer journeys collide, interplay, and change directions.

Finally, not new to our issue, there are widening opportunities to investigate how new platforms and technologies are interfacing with elements of both consumer and customer journeys as enablers, rewards, obstacles, and companions. Again, we contend it is useful to consider these platforms and technologies as part of a consumer journey, and not just as funnels through which consumers come to engage with the firm.

We are confident that readers will identify many additional exciting contexts and opportunities for investigating consumer’s journeys, and we look forward to watching how the journey continues.

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Hamilton, R., Price, L.L. Consumer journeys: developing consumer-based strategy. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 47 , 187–191 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00636-y

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Customer Journey Maps

What are customer journey maps.

Customer journey maps are visual representations of customer experiences with an organization. They provide a 360-degree view of how customers engage with a brand over time and across all channels. Product teams use these maps to uncover customer needs and their routes to reach a product or service. Using this information, you can identify pain points and opportunities to enhance customer experience and boost customer retention.

“ Data often fails to communicate the frustrations and experiences of customers. A story can do that, and one of the best storytelling tools in business is the customer journey map.” — Paul Boag, UX designer, service design consultant & digital transformation expert

In this video, Frank Spillers, CEO of Experience Dynamics, explains how you can include journey maps in your design process.

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Customer Journey Maps – Tell Customer Stories Over Time

Customer journey maps are research-based tools. They show common customer experiences over time To help brands learn more about their target audience. 

Maps are incredibly effective communication tools. See how maps simplify complex spaces and create shared understanding.

Unlike navigation maps, customer journey maps have an extra dimension—time. Design teams examine tasks and questions (e.g., what-ifs) regarding how a design meets or fails to meet customers’ needs over time when encountering a product or service. 

Customer journey maps should have comprehensive timelines that show the most essential sub-tasks and events. Over this timeline framework, you add insights into customers' thoughts and feelings when proceeding along the timeline. The map should include: 

A timescale - A defined journey period (e.g., one week). This timeframe should include the entire journey, from awareness to conversion to retention.

Scenarios - The context and sequence of events where a user/customer must achieve a goal. An example could be a user who wants to buy a ticket on the phone. Scenarios are events from the first actions (recognizing a problem) to the last activities (e.g., subscription renewal).

Channels – Where do they perform actions (e.g., Facebook)?

Touchpoints – How does the customer interact with the product or service? What actions do they perform?

Thoughts and feelings – The customer's thoughts and feelings at each touchpoint.

A customer journey map helps you understand how customer experience evolves over time. It allows you to identify possible problems and improve the design. This enables you to design products that are more likely to exceed customers’ expectations in the future state. 

How to Create a Customer Journey Map for Exceptional Experiences?

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

Define Your Map’s Business Goal

Before creating a customer journey map, you must ask yourself why you're making one in the first place. Clarify who will use it and what user experience it will address.

Conduct Research

Use customer research to determine customer experiences at all touchpoints. Get analytical/statistical data and anecdotal evidence. Leverage customer interviews, surveys, social media listening, and competitive intelligence.

Watch user researcher Ditte Hvas Mortensen talk about how user research fits your design process and when you should do different studies. 

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Review Touchpoints and Channels

List customer touchpoints (e.g., paying a bill) and channels (e.g., online). Look for more touchpoints or channels to include.

Make an Empathy Map

Pinpoint what the customer does, thinks, feels, says, hears, etc., in a given situation. Then, determine their needs and how they feel throughout the experience. Focus on barriers and sources of annoyance.

Sketch the Journey

Piece everything—touchpoints, timescale, empathy map output, new ideas, etc.). Show a customer’s course of motion through touchpoints and channels across the timescale, including their feelings at every touchpoint.

Iterate and Refine

Revise and transform your sketch into the best-looking version of the ideal customer journey.

Share with Stakeholders

Ensure all stakeholders understand your map and appreciate how its use will benefit customers and the organization.

Buyer Journey vs User Journey vs Customer Journey: What's the Difference?

You must know the differences between buyer, user, and customer journeys to optimize customer experiences. A customer journey map is often synonymous with a user flow diagram or buyer journey map. However, each journey gives unique insights and needs different plans.

Customer Journey

The customer journey, or lifecycle, outlines the stages a customer goes through with a business. This journey can vary across organizations but includes five key steps:

1. Awareness : This is the first stage of the customer journey, where the customers realize they have a problem. The customer becomes aware of your brand or product at this stage, usually due to marketing efforts.

2. Consideration : Once customers know about your product or service, they start their research and compare brands.

3. Purchase : This is the stage where the customer has chosen a solution and is ready to buy your product or service.

4. Retention : After the purchase, it's about retaining that customer and nurturing a relationship. This is where good customer service comes in.

5. Advocacy : Also called the loyalty stage, this is when the customer not only continues to buy your product but also recommends it to others.

The journey doesn't end when the customer buys and recommends your solution to others. Customer journey strategies are cyclical and repetitive. After the advocacy stage, ideally, you continue to attract and retain the customers, keeping them in the cycle. 

There is no standard format for a customer journey map. The key is to create one that works best for your team and product or service. Get started with customer journey mapping with our template:

This customer journey map template features three zones:

Top – persona and scenario. 

Middle – thoughts, actions, and feelings. 

Bottom – insights and progress barriers.

Buyer Journey

The buyer's journey involves the buyer's path towards purchasing. This includes some of the steps we saw in the customer journey but is specific to purchasing :

1. Awareness Stage : This is when a prospective buyer realizes they have a problem. However, they aren't yet fully aware of the solutions available to them.

2. Consideration Stage : After identifying their problem, the buyer researches and investigates different solutions with more intent. They compare different products, services, brands, or strategies here.

3. Decision Stage : The buyer then decides which solution will solve their problem at the right price. This is where the actual purchasing action takes place.  

4. Post-Purchase Evaluation : Although not always included, this stage is critical. It's where the buyer assesses their satisfaction with the purchase. It includes customer service interactions, quality assessment, and attitudinal loyalty to the brand.

All these stages can involve many touchpoints, including online research, social media interactions, and even direct, in-person interactions. Different buyers may move through these stages at different speeds and through various channels, depending on a wide range of factors.

User Journey

The user journey focuses on people's experience with digital platforms like websites or software. Key stages include:

1. Discovery : In this stage, users become aware of your product, site, or service, often due to marketing efforts, word-of-mouth, or organic search. It also includes their initial reactions or first impressions.

2. Research/Consideration : Here, users dig deeper, exploring features, comparing with alternatives, and evaluating if your offering suits their needs and preferences.

3. Interaction/Use : Users actively engage with your product or service. They first-hand experience your solution's functionality, usability, and usefulness to achieve their goal.

4. Problem-solving : If they encounter any issues, how they seek help and resolve their issues fall into this stage. It covers user support, troubleshooting, and other assistance.

5. Retention/Loyalty : This stage involves how users stay engaged over time. Do they continue using your product, reduce usage, or stop altogether? It includes their repeated interactions, purchases, and long-term engagement over time.

6. Advocacy/Referral : This is when users are so satisfied they begin to advocate for your product, leaving positive reviews and referring others to your service.

Download this user journey map template featuring an example of a user’s routine. 

Understanding these stages can help optimize the user experience, providing value at each stage and making the journey seamless and enjoyable. 

Always remember the journey is as important as the destination. Customer relationships start from the first website visit or interaction with marketing materials. These initial touchpoints can influence the ongoing relationship with your customers.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

All customer interactions, pre and post-purchase.

Pre-purchase stages: awareness, consideration, conversion.

Subset of interactions in digital platforms.

Start/End Point

From marketing to end of customer relationship.

From awareness to conversion stages.

From user entry to exit on a digital platform.

All types of products and services—software and non—software interactions.

Decision-making before a purchase

Primarily digital platform interactions.

Drawbacks of Customer Journey Maps

Customer journey mapping is valuable yet has limitations and potential drawbacks. Recognize these challenges and create more practical and realistic journey maps.

Over-simplification of Customer Experiences

Customer journey maps often risk simplifying complex customer experiences . They may depict varied and unpredictable customer behaviors as straightforward and linear. This simplification can lead to misunderstandings about your customers' needs and wants. As a result, you might overlook customers' diverse and unique paths. 

Always remember that real customer experiences are more complex than any map. When you recognize this, you steer clear of decisions based on simple models.

Resource Intensity

Creating detailed customer journey maps requires a lot of resources and time. You must gather extensive data and update the maps to keep them relevant. This process can strain small businesses or those with limited resources. 

You need to balance the need for comprehensive mapping with available resources. Efficient resource management and prioritization are crucial to maintaining effective journey maps.

Risk of Bias

Creating customer journey maps carries the inherent risk of biases . These biases can arise from various sources. They can impact the accuracy and effectiveness of the maps. 

Alan Dix, an expert in HCI, discusses bias in more detail in this video.  

Common biases in customer journey mapping include:

Assumption Bias: When teams make decisions based on preconceived notions rather than customer data.

Selection Bias: When the data doesn’t represent the entire customer base..

Confirmation Bias : When you focus on information that supports existing beliefs and preferences. Simultaneously, you tend to ignore or dismiss data that contradicts those beliefs.

Anchoring Bias : Relying on the first information encountered (anchor) when making decisions.

Overconfidence Bias : Placing too much trust in the accuracy of the journey map. You may overlook its potential flaws.

These biases may misguide the team, and design decisions based on these maps might not be effective.

To address these biases, review and update journey maps with real user research data. Engage with different customer segments and gather a wide range of feedback to help create a more accurate and representative map. This approach ensures the journey map aligns with actual customer experiences and behaviors.

Evolving Customer Behaviors

Customer behaviors and preferences change with time. A journey map relevant today can become outdated. You need to update and adapt your maps to reflect these changes. This requires you to perform market research and stay updated with trends and customer feedback. 

Getting fresh data ensures your journey map stays relevant and effective. You must adapt to evolving customer behaviors to maintain accurate and valuable customer journey maps.

Challenges in Capturing Emotions

Capturing emotions accurately in customer journey maps poses a significant challenge. Emotions influence customer decisions, yet you may find it difficult to quantify and represent them in maps. Most journey maps emphasize actions and touchpoints, often neglecting the emotional journey. 

You must integrate emotional insights into these maps to understand customer experiences. This integration enhances the effectiveness of customer engagement strategies. You can include user quotes, symbols such as emojis, or even graphs to capture the ups and downs of the users’ emotions..

Misalignment with Customer Needs

Misalignments in customer journey maps can manifest in various ways. It can impact the effectiveness of your strategies. Common misalignments include:

Putting business aims first, not what customers need.

Not seeing or serving the varied needs of different customer types.

Not using customer feedback in the journey map.

Thinking every customer follows a simple, straight path.

Engage with your customers to understand their needs and preferences if you want to address these misalignments. Incorporate their direct feedback into the journey map. This approach leads to more effective customer engagement and satisfaction.

Over-Reliance on the Map

Relying too much on customer journey maps can lead to problems. These maps should serve as tools rather than definitive guides. Viewing them as perfect can restrict your responsiveness to customer feedback and market changes. Treat journey maps as evolving documents that complement direct customer interactions and feedback. 

Make sure you get regular updates and maintain flexibility in your approach. Balance the insights from the map with ongoing customer engagement. This approach keeps your business agile and responsive to evolving customer needs.

Data Privacy Concerns

Collecting customer data for journey mapping poses significant privacy concerns. Thus, you need to create a balance. You must adhere to data protection laws and gather enough information for mapping. 

You need a careful strategy to ensure customer data security. Stay vigilant to adapt to evolving privacy regulations and customer expectations. This vigilance helps maintain trust and compliance.

Learn More about Customer Journey Maps

Take our Journey Mapping course to gain insights into the how and why of journey mapping. Learn practical methods to create experience maps , customer journey maps, and service blueprints for immediate application.

Explore this eBook to discover customer journey mapping .

Find some additional insights in the Customer Journey Maps article.

Questions related to Customer Journey Maps

Creating a customer journey map requires visually representing the customer's experience with your product or company. Harness the strength of visual reasoning to understand and present this journey succinctly. Instead of detailing a lengthy narrative, like a book, a well-crafted map allows stakeholders, whether designers or not, to grasp the journey quickly. It's a democratized tool that disseminates information, unifies teams, and aids decision-making by illuminating previously unnoticed or misunderstood aspects of the customer's journey.

The customer journey encompasses five distinct stages that guide a customer's interaction with a brand or product:

Awareness: The customer becomes aware of a need or problem.

Consideration: They research potential solutions or products.

Purchase: The customer decides on a solution and makes a purchase.

Retention: Post-purchase, the customer uses the product and forms an opinion.

Advocacy: Satisfied customers become brand advocates, sharing their positive experiences.

For a comprehensive understanding of these stages and how they intertwine with customer touchpoints, refer to Interaction-Design.org's in-depth article .

A perspective grid workshop is a activity that brings together stakeholders from various departments, such as product design, marketing, growth, and customer support, to align on a shared understanding of the customer's journey. These stakeholders contribute unique insights about customer needs and how they interact with a product or service. The workshop entails:

Creating a matrix to identify customers' jobs and requirements, not initially linked to specific features.

Identifying the gaps, barriers, pains, and risks associated with unmet needs, and constructing a narrative for the journey.

Highlighting the resulting value when these needs are met.

Discuss the implied technical and non-technical capabilities required to deliver this value.

Brainstorming possible solutions and eventually narrowing down to specific features.

The ultimate aim is to foster alignment within the organization and produce a user journey map based on shared knowledge. 

Learn more from this insightful video:

Customer journey mapping is vital as it harnesses our visual reasoning capabilities to articulate a customer's broad, intricate journey with a brand. Such a depiction would otherwise require extensive documentation, like a book. This tool offers a cost-effective method to convey information succinctly, ensuring understanding of whether one is a designer or lacks the time for extensive reading. It also helps the team to develop a shared vision and to encourage collaboration.  Businesses can better comprehend and address interaction points by using a journey map, facilitating informed decision-making and revealing insights that might otherwise remain obscured. Learn more about the power of visualizing the customer journey in this video.

Pain points in a customer journey map represent customers' challenges or frustrations while interacting with a product or service. They can arise from unmet needs, gaps in service, or barriers faced during the user experience. Identifying these pain points is crucial as they highlight areas for improvement, allowing businesses to enhance the customer experience and meet their needs more effectively. Pain points can relate to various aspects, including product usability, communication gaps, or post-purchase concerns. Explore the detailed article on customer journey maps at Interaction Design Foundation for a deeper understanding and real-world examples.

Customer journey mapping offers several key benefits:

It provides a holistic view of the customer experience, highlighting areas for improvement. This ensures that products or services meet users' needs effectively.

The process fosters team alignment, ensuring everyone understands and prioritizes the customer's perspective.

It helps identify pain points, revealing opportunities to enhance user satisfaction and loyalty.

This visualization allows businesses to make informed decisions, ensuring resources target the most impactful areas.

To delve deeper into the advantages and insights on journey mapping, refer to Interaction Design Foundation's article on key takeaways from the IXDF journey mapping course .

In design thinking, a customer journey map visually represents a user's interactions with a product or service over time. It provides a detailed look at a user's experience, from initial contact to long-term engagement. Focusing on the user's perspective highlights their needs, emotions, pain points, and moments of delight. This tool aids in understanding and empathizing with users, a core principle of design thinking. When used effectively, it bridges gaps between design thinking and marketing, ensuring user-centric solutions align with business goals. For a comprehensive understanding of how it fits within design thinking and its relation to marketing, refer to Interaction Design Foundation's article on resolving conflicts between design thinking and marketing .

A customer journey map and a user journey map are tools to understand the experience of users or customers with a product or service.

A customer journey map is a broader view of the entire customer experience across multiple touchpoints and stages. It considers physical and digital channels, multiple user personas, and emotional and qualitative aspects.

A user journey map is a detailed view of the steps to complete a specific task or goal within a product or service. It only considers digital channels, one user persona, and functional and quantitative aspects.

Both are useful to understand and improve the experience of the users or customers with a product or service. However, they have different scopes, perspectives, and purposes. A customer journey map provides a holistic view of the entire customer experience across multiple channels and stages. A user journey map provides a detailed view of the steps to complete a specific task or goal within a product or service.

While user journeys might emphasize specific tasks or pain points, customer journeys encapsulate the entire experience, from research and comparison to purchasing and retention. 

Customer journey maps and service blueprints are tools to understand and improve the experience of the users or customers with a product or service. A customer journey map shows the entire customer experience across multiple touchpoints and stages. It focuses on the front stage of the service, which is what the customers see and experience. It considers different user personas and emotional aspects.

A service blueprint shows how a service is delivered and operated by an organization. It focuses on the back stage of the service, which is what the customers do not see or experience. It considers one user persona and functional aspects. What are the steps that the customer takes to complete a specific task or goal within the service? What are the channels and devices that the customer interacts with at each step?

For an immersive dive into customer journey mapping, consider enrolling in the Interaction Design Foundation's specialized course . This course offers hands-on lessons, expert guidance, and actionable tools. Furthermore, to grasp the course's essence, the article “4 Takeaways from the IXDF Journey Mapping Course” sheds light on the core learnings, offering a snapshot of what to expect. These resources are tailored by industry leaders, ensuring you're equipped with the best knowledge to craft impactful customer journey maps.

Answer a Short Quiz to Earn a Gift

Why do designers create customer journey maps?

• To document internal company processes and designer feedback
• To replace other forms of customer feedback
• To visualize customer experiences and identify pain points

In which stage do customers first recognize they have a problem?

What element is essential in a customer journey map?

• Competitor analysis
• Customer's thoughts and feelings
• Empathy maps and user stories

Why are scenarios included in a customer journey map?

• To exemplify the design thinking process
• To list product features
• To show the context and sequence of events

Why should designers iterate and refine customer journey maps?

• To ensure it remains relevant and accurate
• To keep the map visually appealing
• To reduce the number of customer interactions

Better luck next time!

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Literature on Customer Journey Maps

Here’s the entire UX literature on Customer Journey Maps by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Customer Journey Maps

Take a deep dive into Customer Journey Maps with our course Journey Mapping .

This course will show you how to use journey mapping to turn your own complex design challenges into simple, delightful user experiences . If you want to design a great shopping experience, an efficient signup flow or an app that brings users delight over time, journey mapping is a critical addition to your toolbox. 

We will begin with a short introduction to mapping — why it is so powerful, and why it is so useful in UX. Then we will get familiar with the three most common types of journey map — experience maps, customer journey maps and service blueprints — and how to recognize, read and use each one. Then you will learn how to collect and analyze data as a part of a journey mapping process. Next you will learn how to create each type of journey map , and in the final lesson you will learn how to run a journey mapping workshop that will help to turn your journey mapping insights into actual products and services. 

This course will provide you with practical methods that you can start using immediately in your own design projects, as well as downloadable templates that can give you a head start in your own journey mapping projects. 

The “Build Your Portfolio: Journey Mapping Project” includes three practical exercises where you can practice the methods you learn, solidify your knowledge and if you choose, create a journey mapping case study that you can add to your portfolio to demonstrate your journey mapping skills to future employers, freelance customers and your peers. 

Throughout the course you will learn from four industry experts. 

Indi Young will provide wisdom on how to gather the right data as part of your journey mapping process. She has written two books,  Practical Empathy  and  Mental Models . Currently she conducts live online advanced courses about the importance of pushing the boundaries of your perspective. She was a founder of Adaptive Path, the pioneering UX agency that was an early innovator in journey mapping. 

Kai Wang will walk us through his very practical process for creating a service blueprint, and share how he makes journey mapping a critical part of an organization’s success. Kai is a talented UX pro who has designed complex experiences for companies such as CarMax and CapitalOne. 

Matt Snyder will help us think about journey mapping as a powerful and cost-effective tool for building successful products. He will also teach you how to use a tool called a perspective grid that can help a data-rich journey mapping process go more smoothly. In 2020 Matt left his role as the Sr. Director of Product Design at Lucid Software to become Head of Product & Design at Hivewire. 

Christian Briggs will be your tour guide for this course. He is a Senior Product Designer and Design Educator at the Interaction Design Foundation. He has been designing digital products for many years, and has been using methods like journey mapping for most of those years.  

All open-source articles on Customer Journey Maps

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Consumer journey mapping: the complete guide

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What is personalized marketing?

According to recent   Epsilon research , 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if it offers a personalized experience.

This shows that customers not only expect personalization, they value it.

But taking a more tailored approach isn’t just about giving consumers more of what they want, it’s about reacting to complex shifts in consumer behaviors.

Today’s consumers expect personalization, and brands who use data-driven marketing campaigns to deliver this are seeing the results.

What do we know about today’s consumers?

What does this tell us?

These facts tell us more than we think. As digital consumers become more fragmented, and ever-more challenging to reach, they’re also taking more control over the marketing they’re exposed to.

Online consumers are now opting for a multi-device approach to purchasing, which in turn offers another angle to their data and their  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">purchase history , which sites such as  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Amazon , along with various brands use to help determine future purchases, connecting online and  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">mobile app  usage to traditional marketing and in some cases,  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">physical stores .

Using  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">data collection  to understand an individual’s buying behaviors and preferences is a powerful tool in any brand’s armoury, enabling them to target people on the right channels, via the right device, at the right time.

As consumer expectations change alongside behaviors, businesses have a huge opportunity to use the wealth of information at their fingertips.

Using this to tailor their marketing to their audience, this means improving the  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">individual  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;"> loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">customer  experience , increasing engagement, and ultimately, driving ROI.

Chapter 1: Why personalization matters

Demographic data that groups people according to age, gender, household income, location and ethnicity no longer provides enough intelligence to connect with consumers.

Today, brands have access to deep data that quantifies an individual consumer’s attitudes and behaviors, interests and perceptions, allowing them to go far beyond demographics.

The somewhat lazy pigeonholing of ‘millennials’ is a case in point. As marketing professor, Mark Ritson told Marketing Week UK, “The minute marketers start thinking all millennials are the same, they reject the behavioural and attitudinal nuances of a hugely heterogeneous population and collapse them into one big, generic mess.”

While there are key differences that set each generation apart, there are also shared attitudes and interests that bind them.

Smart brands will use deep insights to identify their audiences’ shared interests and attitudes, while pinpointing the differences that make them unique.

With AI and  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">machine learning  forming a key part of how users are targeted these days, this has helped to enable a deeper level of targeting.

Enter micro-targeting.

Micro-audiences came on the scene as a means of segmenting small groups of like-minded individuals to target and influence their thoughts or actions.

It relies on understanding the target audience so well that marketers will also have a very good idea as to how these people will respond.

From first-party insights into what a consumer has searched for on your site to third-party insights that reveal behaviors and perceptions...

Brands can now drill down in as much detail as possible to reach very specific audiences in a microscopic way.

This gives them the tools to deliver content that truly resonates.

This kind of in-depth targeting is nothing new, but ready access to complex  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">customer data  is changing how it’s done.

Chapter 2: Knowing your audience

Understanding segmentation.

Customer segmentation is about dividing your customer base into groups of individuals that share certain preferences and characteristics. 

This was once the starting point for every brand striving to better understand their target audience, whereby consumers were split into designated groups based on demographic data to drive more targeted campaigns.

But times have changed.

With the help of global  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">data collection  and platforms that track consumer behaviors and motivations on a massive scale, it’s now possible to create custom audiences within seconds, and build accurate audience profiles.

These go far beyond demographics, encompassing lifestyles, attitudes, self-perceptions and interests.

The steps that matter

1. Stop segmenting, start profiling

Audience profiling is now the most effective way to define, segment and target consumers in the more per sonalized  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">digital marketing  space.

With insights that quantify not only the what, but the why behind consumer behaviors, it’s easier than ever to deliver the right message, to the right audience, in the right way.

This kind of profiling - analyzing interests, attitudes, behaviors and perceptions - is what makes personalization possible.

This ensures campaigns are highly targeted and brands are well positioned to make the most of their ROI, informing  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">marketing strategy  from end to end.

2. Creating real-life personas

Buyer personas are fictitious representations of your consumers, created using in-depth insights into your target audience.

These are used by marketers in every sector and can take various forms, helping to put a face and a personality behind the consumers they want to target, painting a more accurate picture of their lives, needs and wants.

Real-life personas add the emotional and behavioral component, helping brands to determine an end goal for each target consumer.

This empowers marketers with the knowledge they need to get inside the minds of their target audience and build the radical empathy that’s needed to make real connections.

loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Third-party data  is invaluable for building o ut these personas and backing your assumptions with hard facts.

3. Map the consumer journey

The  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">customer journey  is a combined set of behaviors that customers display when they meet your brand, which grows ever more complex with increasing fragmentation across devices, channels and behaviors.

Customers and  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">potential customers  interact with brands in numerous different ways, via many different touchpoints, depending on their needs.

Our latest research , for example, reveals that over half of digital consumers are now following brands on  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">social media , and social networks are now the top product research channel among consumers aged 16-24.

This shows how  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">social media  is now playing a key role in the different stages of the consumer journey, but there are far more touchpoints to be identified by analyzing the buying process of each consumer group.

Many brands will identify and map several different journeys to get a complete understanding of the touchpoints that matter. To identify these journeys, deep insights are used to pinpoint the moments, dev ices and channels that offer the most potential to put personalization into practice.

Understanding this link between data and communications is the key to building connections that last.

As Mahesh Kolar, Director of Mobility Applications at NTT DATA says: “We believe that  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">customer journey  mapping is vital for giving organizations the ‘Aha’ moment when it comes to understanding their digital possibilities.”

Chapter 3: Working with data

Audience profiling.

The first step in achieving personalization lies in understanding your target audience. This means going far beyond demographics to take an in-depth look at their interests, attitudes, perceptions and behaviors.

Audience profiling is about gathering the insights needed to do this.

This is where robust consumer data that quantifies consumer behaviors and perceptions come into play, guiding your brand every step of the way to ensure you stay as close to your consumers as possible.

With tools like GlobalWebIndex that eliminate the need for guesswork, a  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">marketing strategy  can meet consumer demand for audience-centric content that’s targeted, personalized and responsive.

This can be applied to your entire  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">marketing strategy  from end to end in the following ways:

Personalized marketing proves a brand’s dedication to their consumers. It shows they’ve gone the extra mile to get to know who this person is. In today’s massmedia world, this is an essential step in making real connections." Tom Smith, CEO and Founder, GlobalWebIndex

Turning data into insight

Creating personalized messages that resonate starts with understanding the perceptions and behaviors you want to shift.

Using audience profiling to quantify the perceptions that are blocking or powering repeat purchasing gives you the tools to know what to say.

Brands have access to a wealth of data, but giving this data the leverage it needs to drive meaningful creativity lies in the creation of insight. After all, a fact, a finding or a data point without context is worthless.

The path to identifying an actionable insight that will drive sales lies in matching your consumers to your objectives, and asking the right questions.

Here’s how it’s done.

  How to do it

1. Quantify current perceptions of your brand. How can I split my audience into targeted groups that align with my goals? 2. Validate the perception changes that will drive revenue. Identify the perceptions that will drive or block repeat purchasing.

3. Create a message that will change perceptions. Define and test a message that will successfully change perceptions among your target audience.

4. Package this message into engaging formats Turn your messaging into engaging campaigns that will have impact.  

Questions your data should answer

To put marketing that works into practice, you need data that will answer the right questions.

• Am I targeting the right audience?
• What defines this audience?
• What matters to them?
• What motivates them?
• What interests them?
• Who and what do they follow?
• Where and when can we reach them?
• What are their perceptions of our brand?
• Which perceptions drive or block purchasing?
• How are they interacting with us?
• What does their purchase journey look like?
• What are the touchpoints that matter?
• What trends can we identify with these consumers?

Chapter 4: Getting personal

Tactics that work.

Once you have access to the data you need to create a pen portrait of your audience, you can start putting personalization to the test. While many tactics and tools are used to make this work, some stand out above the rest.

1. Content marketing

loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Content marketing  is defined by the  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Content Marketing  Institute (CMI) as ‘a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive action.’

The institute’s research shows that  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">content marketing  has become an almost universal tactic, with 90% of companies using it in 2016, and even more utilizing it in 2017.

Successful  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">content marketing  not only carefully considers the target personas in question, it relies on both  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">real-time  analytics and  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">third-party data  to understand what, when, where and how will resonate best.

Not only this, today’s consumers expect  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">personalized content . Surrounded by the likes of  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Amazon ’s  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">product recommendations  for related purchases, Netflix’s ‘what to watch next’, and Spotify’s ‘Discover Weekly’ service, these brands are setting the standard when it comes to content.

Consumers value content that is useful, relevant and entertaining to them, so the more tailored it is, the better it will perform. 

Consumers value content that is useful, relevant and entertaining to them, so the more tailored it is, the better it will perform.

Many brands are seeing a stronger ROI thanks to their  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">personalization efforts  overall.

2. Email marketing

loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Email marketing  isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s playing a more important role than ever in delivering against marketing and wider business targets thanks to a more  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">personalized  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;"> loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">email  marketing  approach.

But the kind of  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">email marketing  that works for today’s consumers is evolving fast.

Research by The Direct Marketing Association , shows segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue.

Improved segmentation and targeting enables you to have a more personalized approach and, in turn, drive revenue via conversion and improved  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">open rates , while increasing  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">customer loyalty  over time.

3. Retargeting

For many, only 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit to your website. Retargeting is a tactic designed to help brands reach that 98% who don’t convert right away, and attr act  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">prospective customers .

Content retargeting means serving customers with content specific to their needs, interests and journey stage. Tactics can include campaign mirroring, retaining past searches and reengaging through blogs.

Aligning your content in a personalized way allows you to streamline the customer’s experience of your brand throughout their online journey, whether the goal is to sign up, visit, download something or make an  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">ecommerce  transa ction.

But while retargeting can prove effective when done right, using unreliable data - solely tied to cookies as opposed to real people - can have a detrimental impact on your brand.

Chapter 5: The authentic factor

Keeping it real.

The continuous rise of consumer power and increased demand for transparency means brands are under increasing pressure to be authentic.

Social media has led the way in forcing companies to be more up front, to be real, and to listen to their customers.

This shift has forced brands to think again, and at the heart of being authentic is being able to demonstrate that you know what your customers think and feel, and that you can anticipate their needs.

By matching their brand experiences to your data, you can show that you care about what they want. This not only boosts loyalty, but offers a human - or authentic - face to the brand experience.

As Ashley Deibert, Vice President of Marketing at iQ Media says: “Those that have embraced authenticity and transparency (Dove, Airbnb) find consumers will do the marketing for them.

Those that have fought it (Uber, Pepsi) continue to struggle to regain footing with an audience who will watch their every move, waiting to pounce when the first signs of negativity arise.”

As reported in Creative Review , people no longer want to be sold to, they want to feel part of a brand’s story. Data that taps into people’s perceptions and behaviors makes this possible.

For example, some brands try publicity stunts and influencer marketing on  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">social media  in an effort to achieve huge reach, but those that use data and apply insights can cleverly create laser-focused content and messages, tailored to a targeted group of people.

This audience will respond much more favorably to content they see as genuine, valuable and on-brand. This in turn creates  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">lifetime value  with the consumer, as they become more loyal customers that enjoy and interact with the brand's content. 

As reported in Creative Review, people no longer want to be sold to, they want to feel part of a brand’s story. Data that taps into people’s perceptions and behaviors, this current form of  loading..." data-placement="top" data-boundary="window" data-original-title="consumer journey research" title="consumer journey research" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">marketing personalization  is what makes this possible.

Not sure where to begin? Start by analyzing your target consumers’ interests and online behaviors in GlobalWebIndex. From here, you can identify the tactics, topics and influencers that will have the most impact.

The reason authenticity is so important today is because people will simply no longer buy from inauthentic brands. The art of spin is becoming more and more redundant." Sue Unerman, Chief Transformation Officer, MediaCom UK

  Personalized marketing checklist

Five key considerations when creating personalized marketing campaigns.

• Know who you’re targeting by interrogating complex data.
• Use consumer data to build out real-life personas of key members of your target audience, and personalize your communications for each group.
• Use dynamic content to personalize the customer experience based on customer interests or browsing behaviors.
• Find out what your audience wants on social media by using data to discover when they’re likely to be online and what kind of content they engage with.
• Bring all your data together to create a single customer view, enabling you to deliver a consistently personalized experience, regardless of touchpoint.

Personalized marketing is only as good as the data it uses, yet many brands are relying on unreliable or inaccurate data to achieve this, wasting budget and tarnishing the practice.

To get it right, there’s a pressing need for a more comprehensive understanding of your consumers - from how they interact with your brand to the bigger picture concerning their interests, attitudes, perceptions and behaviors.

With this knowledge, you can deliver tailored marketing that resonates with the individuals you’re targeting, ultimately impacting your bottom line.

Your next steps...

Most marketers are already using audience profiling tools to get more personalized. We hope this guide has given you some actionable tips on what to do next.

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The complete guide to customer journey stages.

12 min read If you want to turn a potential customer into a lifetime one, you’ll need to get to know every step of the entire customer journey. Here’s why the secret to customer retention lies in knowing how to fine-tune your sales funnel…

What is the customer journey?

What do we actually mean when we talk about the customer journey? Well, the simplest way to think about it is by comparing it to any other journey: a destination in mind, a starting point, and steps to take along the way.

In this case, the destination is not only to make a purchase but to have a great experience with your product or service – sometimes by interacting with aftersale customer support channels – and become a loyal customer who buys again.

And, just like how you can’t arrive at your vacation resort before you’ve done you’ve found out about it, the customer journey starts with steps to do with discovery, research, understanding, and comparison, before moving on to the buying process.

“Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20% but also lift revenue up by 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%”

– McKinsey, The Three Cs of Customer Satisfaction

In short, the customer journey is the path taken by your target audience toward becoming loyal customers. So it’s really important to understand – both in terms of what each step entails and how you can improve each one to provide a maximally impressive and enjoyable experience.

Every customer journey will be different, after all, so getting to grips with the nuances of each customer journey stage is key to removing obstacles from in front of your potential and existing customers’ feet.

Free Course: Customer Journey Management & Improvement

What are the essential customer journey stages?

While many companies will put their own spin on the exact naming of the customer journey stages, the most widely-recognized naming convention is as follows:

• Consideration

These steps are often then sub-categorized into three parts:

• Sale/Purchase

It’s important to understand every part of the puzzle, so let’s look at each sub-category and stage in turn, from the awareness and consideration stage, right through to advocacy:

Customer journey: Pre-sale

In the pre-sale phase, potential customers learn about products, evaluate their needs, make comparisons, and soak up information.

Awareness stage

In the awareness stage, your potential customer becomes aware of a company, product, or service. This might be passive – in that they’re served an ad online, on TV, or when out and about – or active in that they have a need and are searching for a solution. For example, if a customer needs car insurance, they’ll begin searching for providers.

Consideration stage

In the consideration stage, the customer has been made aware of several possible solutions for their particular need and starts doing research to compare them. That might mean looking at reviews or what others are saying on social media, as well as absorbing info on product specs and features on companies’ own channels. They’re receptive to information that can help them make the best decision.

Customer journey: Sale

The sale phase is short but pivotal: it’s when the crucial decision on which option to go with has been made.

Decision stage

The customer has all the information they need on the various options available to them, and they make a purchase. This can be something that’s taken a long time to decide upon, like buying a new computer, or it can be as quick as quickly scouring the different kinds of bread available in the supermarket before picking the one they want.

Customer journey: Post-sale

Post-sale is a really important part of the puzzle because it’s where loyal customers , who come back time and again, are won or lost.

Retention stage

The retention stage of the customer journey is where you do whatever you can to help leave a lasting, positive impression on the customer, and entice them to purchase more. That means offering best-in-class customer support if they have any issues, but it also means being proactive with follow-up communications that offer personalized offers, information on new products, and rewards for loyalty.

Advocacy stage

If you nail the retention phase, you’ll have yourself a customer who not only wants to keep buying from you but will also advocate on your behalf. Here, the customer will become one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal, in that they’ll actively recommend you to their friends, family, followers, and colleagues.

What’s the difference between the customer journey and the buyer’s journey?

Great question; the two are similar, but not exactly the same. The buyer’s journey is a shorter, three-step process that describes the steps taken to make a purchase. So that’s awareness , consideration, and decision . That’s where things stop, however. The buyer’s journey doesn’t take into account the strategies you’ll use to keep the customer after a purchase has been made.

Why are the customer journey stages important?

The short answer? The customer journey is what shapes your entire business. It’s the method by which you attract and inform customers, how you convince them to purchase from you, and what you do to ensure they’re left feeling positive about every interaction.

Why this matters is that the journey is, in a way, cyclical. Customers who’ve had a smooth ride all the way through their individual journeys are more likely to stay with you, and that can have a massive effect on your operational metrics.

It’s up to five times more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing customer, but even besides that: satisfied customers become loyal customers , and customer loyalty reduces churn at the same time as increasing profits .

So companies looking to really make an impact on the market need to think beyond simply attracting potential customers with impressive marketing, and more about the journey as a whole – where the retention and advocacy stages are equally important.

After all, 81% of US and UK consumers trust product advice from friends and family over brand messaging, and 59% of American consumers say that once they’re loyal to a brand, they’re loyal to it for life.

Importantly, to understand the customer journey as a whole is to understand its individual stages, recognize what works, and find things that could be improved to make it a more seamless experience. Because when you do that, you’ll be improving every part of your business proposition that matters.

How can you improve each customer journey stage?

Ok, so this whole customer journey thing is pretty important. Understanding the customer journey phases and how they relate to the overall customer experience is how you encourage customers to stick around and spread the news via word of mouth.

But how do you ensure every part of the journey is performing as it should? Here are some practical strategies to help each customer journey stage sing…

1. Perform customer journey mapping

A customer journey map takes all of the established customer journey stages and attempts to plot how actual target audience personas might travel along them. That means using a mix of data and intuition to map out a range of journeys that utilize a range of touch points along the way.

One customer journey map, for example, might start with a TV ad, then utilize social media and third-party review sites during the consideration stage, before purchasing online and then contacting customer support about you your delivery service. And then, finally, that customer may be served a discount code for a future purchase. That’s just one example.

Customer journey mapping is really about building a myriad of those journeys that are informed by everything you know about how customers interact with you – and then using those maps to discover weaker areas of the journey.

2. Listen like you mean it

The key to building better customer journeys is listening to what customers are saying. Getting feedbac k from every stage of the journey allows you to build a strong, all-encompassing view of what’s happening from those that are experiencing it.

Maybe there’s an issue with the customer sign-up experience, for example. Or maybe the number advertised to contact for a demo doesn’t work. Or maybe you have a customer service agent in need of coaching, who only makes the issue worse. By listening, you’ll understand your customers’ issues and be able to fix them at the source. That customer service agent, for example, may just feel disempowered and unsupported, and in need of the right tools to help them perform better. Fixing that will help to optimize a key stage in the customer journey.

The key is to listen at every stage, and we can do that by employing the right technology at the right customer journey stages.

Customer surveys, for instance, can help you understand what went wrong from the people who’re willing to provide that feedback, but conversational analytics and AI solutions can automatically build insights out of all the structured and unstructured conversational data your customers are creating every time they reach out, or tweet, or leave a review on a third party website.

3. Get personal

The other side of the ‘listening’ equation is that it’s worth remembering that each and every customer’s journey is different – so treating them with a blanket approach won’t necessarily make anything better for them.

The trick instead is to use the tools available to you to build out a personalized view of every customer journey, customer journey stage, and customer engagemen t, and find common solutions.

Qualtrics Experience iD , for example, is an intelligent system that builds customer profiles that are unique to them and can identify through AI, natural language processing , and past interactions what’s not working – and what needs fixing.

On an individual basis, that will help turn each customer into an advocate. But as a whole, you’ll learn about experience gaps that are common to many journeys.

Listening to and understanding the customer experience at each customer journey stage is key to ensuring customers are satisfied and remain loyal on a huge scale.

It’s how you create 1:1 experiences, because, while an issue for one person might be an issue for many others, by fixing it quickly you can minimize the impact it might have on future customers who’re right at the start of their journey.

Free Course: Customer Journey Management Improvement

Related resources

Customer Journey

Buyer's Journey 16 min read

Customer journey analytics 13 min read, how to create a customer journey map 22 min read, b2b customer journey 13 min read, customer interactions 11 min read, consumer decision journey 14 min read, customer journey orchestration 12 min read, request demo.

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4 Strategies to Simplify the Customer Journey

• Richard L. Gruner

Making things easy is harder than you think.

While it may be tempting to offer your customers a never-ending array of products, customizations, and information, research shows that simplicity is almost always the best option for boosting both company value and customer loyalty. But what does it take to build a customer experience that’s smooth and simple from end to end? In this piece, the author offers four strategies to ensure simplicity is baked into every aspect of the customer’s journey: identify and communicate what simplicity means to your organization, look beyond product development to find ways to simplify throughout the customer journey, embrace internal complexity to achieve external simplicity, and remember that while simplicity is often necessary, it isn’t always the answer.

The modern consumer faces hundreds — if not thousands — of choices every day. What to read. Where to shop. What to buy. And each of those decisions takes a mental toll.

• RG Richard L. Gruner  holds a PhD in marketing from the University of Melbourne and is Senior Lecturer (A/Prof) at the University of Western Australia. His work has been published in many top ranked peer-reviewed international journals, and he has a professional background in the media industry. One of his main research interests lies at the intersection of consumer psychology and digital tools.  Find out more about Richard’s experience .

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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Customer Journey Mapping Is at the Heart of Digital Transformation

November 4, 2015 • 12 min read.

Companies that carefully map out customer buying “journeys” are better prepared to transform their businesses, say experts from Wharton and NTT DATA.

Digital technologies such as analytics, mobility, social networks, cloud computing and the Internet of Things are making old ways of working redundant and forcing companies to transform. According to Raman Sapra, senior vice president and global head of NTT DATA’s digital business services, the best way to leverage digital is to take a comprehensive rather than a piecemeal approach. And a key tool to achieve this is customer journey mapping, where powerful new data collection and analytics tools are helping to provide deeper insights to fuel performance. In this paper, experts from Wharton and NTT DATA examine how this mapping is at the heart of digital transformation.

Companies such as Uber, Spotify and Airbnb are disrupting their industries. Take Uber. The popular taxi-hailing app does not own any vehicles and yet provides transportation to some 8 million users. Music-streaming service Spotify lets music lovers listen to a wide range of artists, yet it does not own a radio station. And Airbnb, a provider of accommodations with more than a million listings across the globe, does not own any lodgings.

These startups are leveraging new technologies to disrupt their industries while making life easier for users. But digital transformation goes deeper than simply improving the customer experience. It is also increasingly used to transform business processes and interactions within a company to keep it relevant in the digital age.

“Typically, digital is associated only with providing a superior customer experience. But digital can also help create new business models, drive operational excellence and enhance employee engagement,” says Raman Sapra, senior vice president and global head of NTT DATA’s digital business services.

“Typically, digital is associated only with providing a superior customer experience. But digital can also help create new business models, drive operational excellence and enhance employee engagement.” –Raman Sapra

New digital tools are extending information collection and then helping to turn an otherwise overwhelming flood of information into actionable knowledge. For instance, telecom providers can use data analytics to help predict data loss or network deterioration, as well as prevent service disruptions. More generally, companies can use social media to connect better with their employees. Or, they can tap data analytics to make decisions faster and bring operational efficiencies.

But before embarking on a digital transformation, organizations need to first identify their business imperatives and priorities, Sapra says. They need to understand what their customers, employees, partners and other stakeholders desire. They also must identify the digital possibilities in their industry. Using these benchmarks as a foundation, organizations can tailor a digital strategy and roadmap, and then proceed to build their digital initiatives.

There is one critical tool for successful digital transformation — smart customer journey mapping. “It is at the heart of digital transformation,” says Sapra. Adds Mahesh Kolar, director of mobility applications at NTT DATA: “There are many different ways, like focus groups and surveys, to understand the customer journey. But we believe that customer journey mapping is vital for giving organizations the ‘Aha’ moment when it comes to understanding their digital possibilities.” And new digital tools are now making it possible to create a much deeper understanding of the journey.

Identifying Digital Touchpoints

What exactly is customer journey mapping? “It is the definitive first step in the process of converting a current ‘as-is’ state to a future state that promises an enhanced customer experience,” says Siddharth Gaikwad, practice head of digital experience at NTT DATA. The term “customers,” he adds, does not only refer to end-users; it could be any stakeholder — such as employees or partners.

“A journey map is an illustrated representation of a customer’s expectations, experiences and reflections as it unfolds over time across multiple stages and touchpoints while using a product or consuming a service.”

“A journey map is an illustrated representation of a customer’s expectations, experiences and reflections as it unfolds over time across multiple stages and touchpoints while using a product or consuming a service.” –Siddharth Gaikwad

Take the booking of an airline ticket. Here, the journey mapping starts from the time the customer realizes the need to travel. It captures the customer’s various expectations at that stage. It then maps their actual experience of buying the ticket and even the emotions felt after the purchase. Expectations are thus benchmarked against actual experience.

By capturing the current “as is” state of a customer’s journey — in this case, the booking of an airline ticket — the map amplifies various pain points along the purchase path. For experience designers, questions that arise around the journey include the following: Do we know the customer’s context? Is the information about the various options adequate or even relevant? Are there too many details to be filled out multiple times? Is the whole exercise too time-consuming? Capturing the “as is” state can also predict likely future behavior.

Thereafter, in collaboration with domain experts across different parts of the organization and its extended eco-system, and using design methods like storytelling and card sorting, the map findings are converted into insights. Storytelling, the art of overlaying context, perspective and imagery around a user’s journey, combined with card sorting, the technique of identifying mental models or patterns, become important tools in rendering the “to-be” future-state. In creating the map, the organization can use the rapidly evolving elements of digital — analytics, mobile, social, the cloud and Internet of Things — to enhance the customer experience.

“By overlaying the digital possibilities upon customer journey maps, organizations are able to better visualize which aspects of their business they should focus on, which of the new technologies they should embrace and what new business models they can create,” says Gaikwad. “It helps them to realign their investments, technologies and business models so they can engage more effectively with customers, employees and partners.”

Patti Williams, a Wharton professor of marketing, points out that journeys help companies understand consumer decision-making. It reveals the types of information, sources, emotions and other factors that can influence them and their choices, she says.

Williams agrees that customer journey mapping is an important tool for transforming a business. “Journey mappings are deep, embedded consumer insights.” Developing a multilayered understanding of consumers and how they make choices in a contextual setting “offers companies the opportunity to change practices in a way that reflects the reality of consumer decision making.” Consumer journey mapping, she adds, “is at the center of all consumer-focused organizations and can transform many businesses.”

“Consumer journey mapping is at the center of all consumer-focused organizations and can transform many businesses.” –Patti Williams

And as Gaikwad points out, “very few non-consumer-focused organizations remain out there, and they will change very soon. Consumerization of the enterprise is driving that change.”

Overly simple customer journey models, however, will likely fall short, says Jerry (Yoram) Wind, a Wharton professor of marketing. It is crucial that mapping be dynamic. “Mapping is very difficult given the heterogeneity of all markets and [also because] the same consumer may have a totally different journey at different times because of different contexts.” In the airline case, for instance, consumers could be traveling for various reasons, such as a vacation, business trip or family emergency. “Thus, most maps, unless they are dynamic and include context, can be quite misleading.”

Customer journey mapping requires design, domain and facilitation skills. Typically, a customer journey map is created by using data from primary research, such as personal interviews, focus group sessions, brainstorming and shadowing, as well as secondary research such as gathering and collaborating over information from databases within the organization, websites, social media and so on. Many digital tools are growing rapidly in sophistication and usefulness, and enhancing the value of gleaned insights.

The first step is to define the exact area — for instance, product, service and task — where the organization wants improvement, and identify the “consumer.” For example, a hotel may want to improve its front desk service. Here, the “consumer” would be the customer-relations employees manning the front desk. But, if the hotel wants to enhance the self-check-in experience, the “consumer” would be the guests.

With the consumer defined, the user experience team then creates a “persona” based on the customer’s demographic and psychographic profile. This would include age, socioeconomic background, value systems, opinions, attitudes, lifestyle, likes and dislikes, and so on. Thereafter, this persona’s journey — comprising expectations, experience and reflections — is mapped across a specific task. These insights are then converted into touchpoints –where the organization literally makes a connection to the customer, whether via desktop or mobile, or through a web site or social media.

“The curious case of the touchpoint is that it does not work without context of the consumer,” says Gaikwad. This is where the new digital tools add a new dimension of value. “What better time than this digital age to mine that context — it’s available on the cloud, in the devices and all over social media,” he says.

In the case of guest check-in, some touchpoints suggested through journey mapping could be self-check-in hotel lobby kiosks. Based on the guests’ persona and their context, the kiosk could dispense personalized, magnetic access cards with QR codes (the quick response bar code), which, when scanned, could offer personalized suggestions.

“Mapping is very difficult given the heterogeneity of all markets and [also because] the same consumer may have a totally different journey at different times because of different contexts.” –Jerry (Yoram) Wind

Value Proposition For instance, if the guest is a child, the access card could recommend relevant kid-friendly activities. For business travelers, it could offer details about convention centers and other business-related information. Kolar notes: “The key is to see how much personalization you can provide and how much of it you can contextualize around a given customer in a way that delights them, but at the same time is not intrusive.”

Thus, a series of connected maps covering each phase in the customer lifecycle can give an organization complete control over their capability to deliver a product or a service, Gaikwad says. In the hotel example, there could be different maps for check-in, housekeeping, concierge service, food and beverage service, and checkout. Typically, an accurate map takes up to a couple of weeks to create based on the persona, and “if done properly, it can have a shelf life of a couple of years, even in the current market where paradigm shifts are happening so regularly,” he adds.

The Way Forward

Williams believes customer journey maps should be updated frequently and often can involve an ongoing investment. Creating a journey map is an intensive process influenced by time and materials, so “budgets influence how frequently they can realistically be done. But as changes occur, they should be updated.” Williams adds that “different customer segments will have different journeys, so journeys should be understood at a segment level” as well.

One of the biggest challenges, as with so many initiatives, is getting senior management’s commitment. Successful customer journey mapping takes time and close collaboration. The effectiveness of a map depends in part on how well managers engage in the map creation process and how far into the future they can project as they analyze customer insights.

While converting journey map findings into actionable insights about digital touchpoints requires senior members across functions to brainstorm together, this is often easier planned than executed. Busy executives typically are preoccupied with operations, and many organizations work in silos — so the all-important coordination can be challenging. Storytelling and card sorting come handy to motivate, incentivize and create stickiness among diverse groups to help keep on track.

While the value of traditional journey maps is widely accepted, there remains the issue of setting metrics for the return on investment (ROI) for the latest, digital approaches. At present, “I don’t know if there is a sure way of defining a clear return on investment for customer journey mapping,” says Kolar. “We think it is a powerful tool to understand the context of the users and to take them from their current state to a heightened state of customer delight.” The new digital tools are helping. “With advanced analytics, the value, effectiveness and cost of an investment can be understood early on and course corrections can be made to minimize impact.”

Kolar believes digital customer journey mapping is here to stay. Because of the tremendous reach of social media, a single vocal customer or employee can have a big business impact. This makes it all the more important for organizations to be on top of their game.

“My sense is customer journey mapping will become a mandatory tool for digital transformation. Enterprises will begin to do customer journey mapping as the first part of their planning activities.”

Adds Sapra: “Most customer journeys of today are rendered as static maps. As digital tools advance even further, “I think they will become a lot more dynamic. They will become a current document that will get updated in real time in this connected world. That’s when the map will become even more valuable.”

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The consumer decision journey

If marketing has one goal, it’s to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions. That’s why consumer electronics companies make sure not only that customers see their televisions in stores but also that those televisions display vivid high-definition pictures. It’s why Amazon.com, a decade ago, began offering targeted product recommendations to consumers already logged in and ready to buy. And it explains P&G’s decision, long ago, to produce radio and then TV programs to reach the audiences most likely to buy its products—hence, the term “soap opera.”

Marketing has always sought those moments, or touch points , when consumers are open to influence. For years, touch points have been understood through the metaphor of a “funnel”—consumers start with a number of potential brands in mind (the wide end of the funnel), marketing is then directed at them as they methodically reduce that number and move through the funnel, and at the end they emerge with the one brand they chose to purchase (Exhibit 1). But today, the funnel concept fails to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the explosion of product choices and digital channels , coupled with the emergence of an increasingly discerning, well-informed consumer. A more sophisticated approach is required to help marketers navigate this environment, which is less linear and more complicated than the funnel suggests. We call this approach the consumer decision journey. Our thinking is applicable to any geographic market that has different kinds of media, Internet access, and wide product choice, including big cities in emerging markets such as China and India.

In the traditional funnel metaphor, consumers start with a set of potential brands and methodically reduce that number to make a purchase.

We developed this approach by examining the purchase decisions of almost 20,000 consumers across five industries and three continents. Our research showed that the proliferation of media and products requires marketers to find new ways to get their brands included in the initial-consideration set that consumers develop as they begin their decision journey. We also found that because of the shift away from one-way communication—from marketers to consumers—toward a two-way conversation, marketers need a more systematic way to satisfy customer demands and manage word-of-mouth. In addition, the research identified two different types of customer loyalty , challenging companies to reinvigorate their loyalty programs and the way they manage the customer experience.

Finally, the research reinforced our belief in the importance not only of aligning all elements of marketing—strategy, spending, channel management, and message—with the journey that consumers undertake when they make purchasing decisions but also of integrating those elements across the organization. When marketers understand this journey and direct their spending and messaging to the moments of maximum influence, they stand a much greater chance of reaching consumers in the right place at the right time with the right message.

How consumers make decisions

Every day, people form impressions of brands from touch points such as advertisements, news reports, conversations with family and friends, and product experiences. Unless consumers are actively shopping, much of that exposure appears wasted. But what happens when something triggers the impulse to buy? Those accumulated impressions then become crucial because they shape the initial-consideration set: the small number of brands consumers regard at the outset as potential purchasing options.

The funnel analogy suggests that consumers systematically narrow the initial-consideration set as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products. Then, the postsale phase becomes a trial period determining consumer loyalty to brands and the likelihood of buying their products again. Marketers have been taught to “push” marketing toward consumers at each stage of the funnel process to influence their behavior. But our qualitative and quantitative research in the automobile, skin care, insurance, consumer electronics, and mobile-telecom industries shows that something quite different now occurs.

Actually, the decision-making process is a more circular journey, with four primary phases representing potential battlegrounds where marketers can win or lose: initial consideration; active evaluation, or the process of researching potential purchases; closure, when consumers buy brands; and postpurchase, when consumers experience them (Exhibit 2). The funnel metaphor does help a good deal—for example, by providing a way to understand the strength of a brand compared with its competitors at different stages, highlighting the bottlenecks that stall adoption, and making it possible to focus on different aspects of the marketing challenge. Nonetheless, we found that in three areas profound changes in the way consumers make buying decisions called for a new approach.

The decision-making process is now a circular journey with four phases: initial consideration; active evaluation, or the process of researching potential purchases; closure, when consumers buy brands; and postpurchase, when consumers experience them.

Brand consideration.

Imagine that a consumer has decided to buy a car. As with most kinds of products, the consumer will immediately be able to name an initial-consideration set of brands to purchase. In our qualitative research, consumers told us that the fragmenting of media and the proliferation of products have actually made them reduce the number of brands they consider at the outset. Faced with a plethora of choices and communications, consumers tend to fall back on the limited set of brands that have made it through the wilderness of messages. Brand awareness matters: brands in the initial-consideration set can be up to three times more likely to be purchased eventually than brands that aren’t in it.

Not all is lost for brands excluded from this first stage, however. Contrary to the funnel metaphor, the number of brands under consideration during the active-evaluation phase may now actually expand rather than narrow as consumers seek information and shop a category. Brands may “interrupt” the decision-making process by entering into consideration and even force the exit of rivals. The number of brands added in later stages differs by industry: our research showed that people actively evaluating personal computers added an average of 1 brand to their initial-consideration set of 1.7, while automobile shoppers added 2.2 to their initial set of 3.8 (Exhibit 3). This change in behavior creates opportunities for marketers by adding touch points when brands can make an impact. Brands already under consideration can no longer take that status for granted.

The number of brands added for consideration in different stages differs by industry.

Empowered consumers.

The second profound change is that outreach of consumers to marketers has become dramatically more important than marketers’ outreach to consumers. Marketing used to be driven by companies; “pushed” on consumers through traditional advertising, direct marketing, sponsorships, and other channels. At each point in the funnel, as consumers whittled down their brand options, marketers would attempt to sway their decisions. This imprecise approach often failed to reach the right consumers at the right time.

In today’s decision journey, consumer-driven marketing is increasingly important as customers seize control of the process and actively “pull” information helpful to them. Our research found that two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven marketing activities, such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, as well as in-store interactions and recollections of past experiences. A third of the touch points involve company-driven marketing (Exhibit 4). Traditional marketing remains important, but the change in the way consumers make decisions means that marketers must move aggressively beyond purely push-style communication and learn to influence consumer-driven touch points , such as word-of-mouth and Internet information sites.

Two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven activities such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family.

The experience of US automobile manufacturers shows why marketers must master these new touch points. Companies like Chrysler and GM have long focused on using strong sales incentives and in-dealer programs to win during the active-evaluation and moment-of-purchase phases. These companies have been fighting the wrong battle: the real challenges for them are the initial-consideration and postpurchase phases, which Asian brands such as Toyota Motor and Honda dominate with their brand strength and product quality. Positive experiences with Asian vehicles have made purchasers loyal to them, and that in turn generates positive word-of-mouth that increases the likelihood of their making it into the initial-consideration set. Not even constant sales incentives by US manufacturers can overcome this virtuous cycle.

Two types of loyalty

When consumers reach a decision at the moment of purchase, the marketer’s work has just begun: the postpurchase experience shapes their opinion for every subsequent decision in the category, so the journey is an ongoing cycle. More than 60 percent of consumers of facial skin care products, for example, go online to conduct further research after the purchase—a touch point unimaginable when the funnel was conceived.

Although the need to provide an after-sales experience that inspires loyalty and therefore repeat purchases isn’t new, not all loyalty is equal in today’s increasingly competitive, complex world. Of consumers who profess loyalty to a brand, some are active loyalists, who not only stick with it but also recommend it. Others are passive loyalists who, whether from laziness or confusion caused by the dizzying array of choices, stay with a brand without being committed to it. Despite their claims of allegiance, passive consumers are open to messages from competitors who give them a reason to switch.

Take the automotive-insurance industry, in which most companies have a large base of seemingly loyal customers who renew every year. Our research found as much as a sixfold difference in the ratio of active to passive loyalists among major brands, so companies have opportunities to interrupt the loyalty loop. The US insurers GEICO and Progressive are doing just that, snaring the passively loyal customers of other companies by making comparison shopping and switching easy. They are giving consumers reasons to leave, not excuses to stay.

All marketers should make expanding the base of active loyalists a priority, and to do so they must focus their spending on the new touch points. That will require entirely new marketing efforts, not just investments in Internet sites and efforts to drive word-of-mouth or a renewed commitment to customer satisfaction.

Aligning marketing with the consumer decision journey

Developing a deep knowledge of how consumers make decisions is the first step. For most marketers, the difficult part is focusing strategies and spending on the most influential touch points. In some cases, the marketing effort’s direction must change, perhaps from focusing brand advertising on the initial-consideration phase to developing Internet properties that help consumers gain a better understanding of the brand when they actively evaluate it. Other marketers may need to retool their loyalty programs by focusing on active rather than passive loyalists or to spend money on in-store activities or word-of-mouth programs. The increasing complexity of the consumer decision journey will force virtually all companies to adopt new ways of measuring consumer attitudes, brand performance, and the effectiveness of marketing expenditures across the whole process.

Without such a realignment of spending, marketers face two risks. First, they could waste money: at a time when revenue growth is critical and funding tight, advertising and other investments will be less effective because consumers aren’t getting the right information at the right time. Second, marketers could seem out of touch—for instance, by trying to push products on customers rather than providing them with the information, support, and experience they want to reach decisions themselves.

Four kinds of activities can help marketers address the new realities of the consumer decision journey.

Prioritize objectives and spending

In the past, most marketers consciously chose to focus on either end of the marketing funnel—building awareness or generating loyalty among current customers. Our research reveals a need to be much more specific about the touch points used to influence consumers as they move through initial consideration to active evaluation to closure. By looking just at the traditional marketing funnel’s front or back end, companies could miss exciting opportunities not only to focus investments on the most important points of the decision journey but also to target the right customers.

In the skin care industry, for example, we found that some brands are much stronger in the initial-consideration phase than in active evaluation or closure. For them, our research suggests a need to shift focus from overall brand positioning—already powerful enough to ensure that they get considered—to efforts that make consumers act or to investments in packaging and in-store activities targeted at the moment of purchase.

Tailor messaging

For some companies, new messaging is required to win in whatever part of the consumer journey offers the greatest revenue opportunity. A general message cutting across all stages may have to be replaced by one addressing weaknesses at a specific point, such as initial consideration or active evaluation.

Take the automotive industry. A number of brands in it could grow if consumers took them into consideration. Hyundai, the South Korean car manufacturer, tackled precisely this problem by adopting a marketing campaign built around protecting consumers financially by allowing them to return their vehicles if they lose their jobs. This provocative message, tied to something very real for Americans, became a major factor in helping Hyundai break into the initial-consideration set of many new consumers. In a poor automotive market, the company’s market share is growing.

Invest in consumer-driven marketing

To look beyond funnel-inspired push marketing, companies must invest in vehicles that let marketers interact with consumers as they learn about brands. The epicenter of consumer-driven marketing is the Internet, crucial during the active-evaluation phase as consumers seek information, reviews, and recommendations. Strong performance at this point in the decision journey requires a mind-set shift from buying media to developing properties that attract consumers: digital assets such as Web sites about products, programs to foster word-of-mouth, and systems that customize advertising by viewing the context and the consumer. Many organizations face the difficult and, at times, risky venture of shifting money to fundamentally new properties, much as P&G invested to gain radio exposure in the 1930s and television exposure in the 1950s.

Broadband connectivity, for example, lets marketers provide rich applications to consumers learning about products. Simple, dynamic tools that help consumers decide which products make sense for them are now essential elements of an online arsenal. American Express’s card finder and Ford’s car configurator, for example, rapidly and visually sort options with each click, making life easier for consumers at every stage of the decision journey. Marketers can influence online word-of-mouth by using tools that spot online conversations about brands, analyze what’s being said, and allow marketers to post their own comments.

Finally, content-management systems and online targeting engines let marketers create hundreds of variations on an advertisement, taking into account the context where it appears, the past behavior of viewers, and a real-time inventory of what an organization needs to promote. For instance, many airlines manage and relentlessly optimize thousands of combinations of offers, prices, creative content, and formats to ensure that potential travelers see the most relevant opportunities. Digital marketing has long promised this kind of targeting. Now we finally have the tools to make it more accurate and to manage it cost effectively .

Win the in-store battle

Our research found that one consequence of the new world of marketing complexity is that more consumers hold off their final purchase decision until they’re in a store. Merchandising and packaging have therefore become very important selling factors, a point that’s not widely understood. Consumers want to look at a product in action and are highly influenced by the visual dimension: up to 40 percent of them change their minds because of something they see, learn, or do at this point—say, packaging, placement, or interactions with salespeople.

In skin care, for example, some brands that are fairly unlikely to be in a consumer’s initial-consideration set nonetheless win at the point of purchase with attractive packages and on-shelf messaging. Such elements have now become essential selling tools because consumers of these products are still in play when they enter a store. That’s also true in some consumer electronics segments, which explains those impressive rows of high-definition TVs in stores.

Sometimes it takes a combination of approaches—great packaging, a favorable shelf position, forceful fixtures, informative signage—to attract consumers who enter a store with a strong attachment to their initial-consideration set. Our research shows that in-store touch points provide a significant opportunity for other brands.

Integrating all customer-facing activities

In many companies, different parts of the organization undertake specific customer-facing activities—including informational Web sites, PR, and loyalty programs. Funding is opaque. A number of executives are responsible for each element, and they don’t coordinate their work or even communicate. These activities must be integrated and given appropriate leadership.

The necessary changes are profound. A comprehensive view of all customer-facing activities is as important for business unit heads as for CEOs and chief marketing officers. But the full scope of the consumer decision journey goes beyond the traditional role of CMOs, who in many companies focus on brand building, advertisements, and perhaps market research. These responsibilities aren’t going away. What’s now required of CMOs is a broader role that realigns marketing with the current realities of consumer decision making, intensifies efforts to shape the public profiles of companies, and builds new marketing capabilities.

Consider the range of skills needed to manage the customer experience in the automotive-insurance industry, in which some companies have many passive loyalists who can be pried away by rivals. Increasing the percentage of active loyalists requires not only integrating customer-facing activities into the marketing organization but also more subtle forms of organizational cooperation. These include identifying active loyalists through customer research, as well as understanding what drives that loyalty and how to harness it with word-of-mouth programs. Companies need an integrated, organization-wide “voice of the customer,” with skills from advertising to public relations, product development, market research, and data management. It’s hard but necessary to unify these activities, and the CMO is the natural candidate to do so.

Marketers have long been aware of profound changes in the way consumers research and buy products. Yet a failure to change the focus of marketing to match that evolution has undermined the core goal of reaching customers at the moments that most influence their purchases. The shift in consumer decision making means that marketers need to adjust their spending and to view the change not as a loss of power over consumers but as an opportunity to be in the right place at the right time, giving them the information and support they need to make the right decisions.

David Court is a director in McKinsey’s Dallas office, Dave Elzinga is a principal in the Chicago office, Susie Mulder is a principal in the Boston office, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik is a principal in the Oslo office.

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Mary Ellen Coe, Jonathan Doogan, Ewan Duncan, Betsy Holden, and Brian Salsberg.

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