Almost 70% of online shoppers abandoned their carts in 2021, according to a study. Would a customer spend hours browsing a store and adding products to their cart just to close the tab seconds later?
The thing is, understanding your customers' minds can be extremely challenging. In spite of your best efforts, every customer's journey from awareness to purchase will always be unpredictable, at least to some extent.
You can still gain a deeper understanding of customer journeys through customer and user experience (UX) journey mapping.
In this 101 guide, you'll learn everything you need to know about customer journey mapping - what it is, how to create one, and how to use it effectively.
What is the customer journey?
The customer journey describes a customer's interactions with a brand, product, or business as they become aware of a pain point and decide to make a purchase. Customer journeys refer to a customer's experience with a company or service, whereas the buyer's journey refers to the general process of making a purchase.
Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey
It might be confusing for you to know the difference between the customer journey and the buyer's journey. From pre-purchase to post-purchase, the buyer's journey encompasses the entire purchasing process. A customer's path from being aware of a pain point to using the product or service is covered.
In other words, buyers don't wake up and decide to buy on a whim. When they consider, evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service, they go through a process.
You will meet your customers at various touchpoints along the buyer's journey as they go through the stages of the buyer's journey. It is your brand's place within the buyer's journey. Creating a customer journey map, which we'll discuss further below, allows you to control every touchpoint along the way, instead of leaving them up to chance.
In HubSpot for example, the typical customer's journey is divided into 3 stages - pre-purchase/sales, onboarding/migration, and normal use/renewal.
HubSpot uses specific touchpoints to meet customers at each stage, such as publishing blog posts to help customers learn about their pain points, then nurturing them towards a paid subscription. Later stages include "moments" like comparing tools, negotiating sales, setting up technical infrastructure, etc.
There is no guarantee that your brand's stage of the customer journey will be the same - in fact, it is likely that your brand will come up with its own unique set of stages. But where do you start? Let's take a look.
Customer Journey Stages
Your next question may be: What are the stages of the customer journey? In general, customers go through 5 phases when interacting with a brand or a product: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Retention, and Loyalty.
1. Awareness Stage
Customers have realized they have a problem and a pain point to solve in the awareness stage. Customers may not yet know that they need a product or service at this point, but they will begin researching it regardless.
At this stage of the customer journey, brands provide educational content to help customers diagnose problems and find solutions. Customers are being helped navigate their new pain point, not encouraged to buy.
The following may be included in educational content:
- - How-to articles and guides
- - General whitepapers
- - General ebooks
- - Free courses
Customer touchpoints can be used to deliver educational content, such as:
- - Your blog
- - Social media
- - Search engines
2. Consideration
A customer who is in the consideration stage has done enough research to realize that a product or service is what they need. Their next step is to compare brands and their products.
A brand's product marketing content helps customers compare different offerings during this stage of the customer journey. In order to move customers toward a purchase decision, we aim to help them navigate a crowded solution marketplace.
Product marketing content may include:
- - Product listicles
- - Product comparison guides and charts
- - Product-focused white papers
- - Customer success stories or case studies
Customer touchpoints may be used to deliver product marketing content, such as:
- - Your blog
- - Your website
- - Search engines
- - Social media
- - Conferences
3. Decision Stage
Customers who are in the decision stage have chosen a solution and are ready to make a purchase.
During this stage, brands provide seamless purchase processes to make buying their products as simple as possible. This stage is all about getting customers to make a purchase - no more educational or product content. Consequently, you can be more direct about your desire to sell.
Decision-stage content may include:
- - Free demos
- - Free consultations
- - Product sign-up pages
- - Pricing pages
- - Product promotions (i.e "Sign up now and save 30%")
Customer touchpoints that deliver decision-stage content include:
- - Your website
- - Search engines
4. Retention Stage
Customers in the retention stage have purchased a solution and stayed with the company they purchased it from.
Brands provide excellent onboarding experiences and ongoing customer service during this stage to prevent churn.
Retention-stage strategies may include:
- - Providing a dedicated customer success manager
- - Making your customer service team easily accessible
- - Creating a knowledge base in case customers ever run into a roadblock
Retention-stage strategies may be delivered via customer touchpoints such as:
- - Your website
- - Live chat
- - Social media
5. Loyalty Stage
In the loyalty stage, customers not only choose to stay with a company — they actively promote it to their family, friends, and colleagues. A loyalty stage can also be called an advocacy stage.
In this phase, brands focus on providing a fantastic end-to-end customer experience from your website content to your sales reps, from your social media team to your product's UX. The most important thing is that customers become loyal when they are successful with your product - if it works, they will likely recommend your brand to others.
Loyalty-stage strategies may include:
- - Websites that are easy to navigate
- - Making sure your product meets customer expectations by investing in your product team
- - Promoting your brand through loyalty and referral programs
- - Perks for long-term customers, such as discounts
Customer loyalty strategies can be delivered through a variety of customer touchpoints, including:
- - Your website
- - Social media
- - Your products
A Net Promoter Score survey can be used to determine if your customers have reached the loyalty stage, since it asks a simple question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?" You can use customer feedback software like Service Hub to conduct this survey.
You need a customer journey map to visualize the different stages of your customers' journey.
The Customer Journey Mapping Process
Customer journey mapping involves creating a visual representation of a company's customer experience. In this process, the customer's experience as they interact with a business is compiled and combined into a visual map.
This data gathering is not solely about accumulating data, but rather about drawing insights that help you understand how your customers experience their journeys and identify potential bottlenecks.
Additionally, most customer journeys do not follow a linear path. It is more common for buyers to take a back-and-forth, cyclical, multichannel journey.
Here are the stages in the customer journey.
1. The Buying Process
Your goal is to accurately chart your customer's path from first to last contact by pulling data from all relevant sources (prospecting tools, CMS, behavior analytics tools, etc.).
The typical buying journey process stages - awareness, consideration, and decision - can be mapped horizontally to create broad categories.
2. Emotions
No matter how big or small the goal is, your customers are trying to solve a problem. It means they're probably feeling something - whether it's relief, happiness, excitement, or worry.
By adding these emotions to the journey map, you can identify and mitigate negative emotions and pain points.
3. User Actions
Customer journey maps detail what customers do at each stage of the buying process. Customers might download ebooks or attend educational webinars during the problem-awareness stage.
The goal is to determine how your customers behave at each stage of their journey and how they move through it.
4. User Research
In the same way as the section, this element describes what or where buyers research when making a decision.
At the awareness stage, the buyer is more likely to use search engines, such as Google, to research solutions. To address their pain points, it's important to pay attention to what they are researching.
5. Solutions
In the final element of your customer journey map, solutions represent potential ways to improve your buying process so that customers encounter less pain points.
What is a touchpoint in a customer journey map?
In a customer journey map, a touchpoint is when your customer forms an opinion about your business. Whenever your business comes into contact with a potential or existing customer, you can find touchpoints.
Customers can interact with a company through a display ad, an employee interaction, a 404 error, or even a Google review.
Considering the different types of touchpoints in your customer journey map will help you uncover opportunities for improving the buying journey and build your brand beyond your website and marketing materials.
Steps for Creating a Customer Journey Map
How To Make An Effective Customer Journey Map In Under An Hour (FREE Templates)
1. Use customer journey map templates
Why create a customer journey map from scratch when you can use a template? You can save time by downloading HubSpot's free customer journey map templates.
There are templates that can help you map out your buyer's journey, a day in the life of your customer, lead nurturing, and more.
By using these templates, your sales, marketing, and customer support teams can better understand your company's buyer personas. Through this deeper understanding, you can improve your product and provide a better customer experience.
2. Set clear objectives for the map
You should ask yourself why you're creating a customer journey map before you begin filling it out.
What are the goals you are aiming for with this map? Who is it specifically about? What experience is it based upon?
You should create a buyer persona based on this information. It represents your average customer's demographics and psychographics based on a fictitious customer.
By defining a clear persona, you can keep all aspects of your customer journey map in mind.
3. Profile your personas and define their goals
The next step is to conduct research.
User testing and questionnaires are great ways to get valuable customer feedback. You should only contact actual customers or prospects.
If you are interested in purchasing your products or services, you want feedback from people who have either contacted your company or plan to do so.
Here are some examples of good questions to ask:
- - 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?
- - When you visit our website, how long do you typically spend there?
- - Have you ever purchased from us? What influenced your decision?
- - Have you ever interacted with our website to make a purchase but ended up not doing so? Why did you make this decision, if so?
- - On a scale of 1 to 10, how easily can you navigate our website?
- - Have you ever needed customer support? On a scale of 1 to 10, how helpful was it?
- - Is there anything we can do 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
Identifying the customer personas that interact with your business will help you narrow your focus.
If you group too many personas into one journey, your map won't accurately reflect the customer's experience with your company.
Your first map should focus on your most common customer persona and the route they would typically take when engaging with your business for the first time.
Using a marketing dashboard, you can compare each and determine which is best suited for your journey map. You can always create a new map for the types of customers you left out if you want.
5. List out all touchpoints
Begin by listing the touchpoints on your website.
You should have a list of all the touchpoints your customers are currently using and those they should be using based on your research.
You need this information to create a UX journey map because it gives you insight into what your customers do.
Does this mean they are quickly getting turned away and leaving your site early if they use fewer touchpoints than expected?
Does this mean your website is complicated and requires several steps to reach the end goal if they are using more than expected?
In any case, understanding touchpoints can help you understand the ease or difficulty of the customer journey.
Aside from your website, you also need to look at how your customer might come across you online. These might include:
- - Social channels
- - Paid ads
- - Email marketing
- - Third-party review sites or mentions
You can find all the pages that mention your brand by running a quick Google search. You can verify these by checking Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from.
Select the touchpoints that are most likely to result in an action from your list.
Your UX journey map should include the following touchpoints.
Customer Actions
Keep a record of your customers' actions throughout their interaction with your brand. You might be searching for keywords on Google or clicking on an email.
It's okay if you wind up with a long list of actions. Later, you'll be able to rationalize your information.
Recognizing when customers are required to take too many actions is important. In order to increase conversion rates, reducing the number of steps a customer has to take may seem risky, but it pays off in the long run.
Customer Emotions & Motivations
All marketing is a result of cause and effect. Likewise, every action your customers take is motivated by emotion. Your customers' emotions will change depending on where they are in their journey.
The emotional drive behind your customer's actions is usually a pain point or a problem. By understanding this, you can provide the right content at the right time to smooth your customer's emotional journey.
Customer Obstacles & Pain Points
Discover what roadblocks are preventing your customers from taking the desired action.
One common obstacle is cost. A customer might love your product, but abandon their cart when they discover unexpectedly high shipping costs.
Your customer journey can be mitigated by highlighting these potential obstacles. You might provide an FAQ page that answers common questions about shipping.
6. Determine the resources you have and the ones you'll need
Nearly every aspect of your business will be covered by your customer journey map. All the resources that go into creating the customer experience will be highlighted in this way.
You must take inventory of your resources and the ones you'll need to improve the customer's journey.
Perhaps your map shows that your team lacks the tools to properly follow up with customers. By using your map, you can advise management to invest in tools to help your team manage customer demand.
You can accurately predict how these new tools will impact your business and drive outsized value by including them in your map. By doing this, you will be able to convince gatekeepers and decision-makers to invest in your proposal much easier.
7. Take the customer journey yourself
Your work isn't done once you've designed your map. Analyzing the results is the most important part of the process.
How many people click on your website and then leave before making a purchase? What can you do to better support your customers? With your finished map, you should be able to answer these questions.
By analyzing the results, you can determine where the customer's needs aren't being met.
With this approach, you can ensure that people are getting a valuable experience and that your company can assist them with their problems.
In the end, mapping the customer journey remains a hypothetical exercise until you try it for yourself.
You can follow the journey of each of your personas by reading their social media activity, reading their emails, and searching online for information about them.
8. Make the necessary changes
Analyzing your data will help you determine what you want your website to be.
These goals can then be achieved by making changes to your website. In order to clarify the purpose of each product, it may be necessary to add more specific call-to-action links.
It doesn't matter how big or small the changes are, they will directly relate to what customers listed as their pain points.
Instead of blindly making changes, feel confident that they will improve customer experiences.
And, with the help of your visualized customer journey map, you can ensure those needs and pain points are always addressed.
How often should you update your customer journey map?
It is important to keep your map up-to-date.
By reviewing it monthly or quarterly, you will be able to identify gaps and opportunities for further streamlining your customer journey. To find any roadblocks, use your data analytics and customer feedback.
Make sure all stakeholders are involved in this process, which is why you should consider using a collaborative tool such as Google Sheets to visualize your maps.
Furthermore, consider having regular meetings to analyze how new products or offerings have impacted customer journeys.
With HubSpot's free customer journey map template, you can visualize the buyer's journey in no time. With it, you can get a better understanding of your customer's experience and how your product can help them.
You can also use the customer journey map template to identify areas in which your product, marketing, and support processes can be improved.
A free, editable customer journey map template is available for download.
Types of Customer Journey Maps and Examples
There are four customer journey maps, each with its own benefits. The type of map you choose will depend on its specific purpose.
Current State
Customer journey maps are the most commonly used type. When your customers interact with your company, they are able to visualize the thoughts, emotions, and actions they are experiencing. Customer journeys can be continuously improved by using them.
Day in the Life
Your customers experience these customer journey maps in their daily activities, whether or not your company is involved.
Having a broader view of what your customers' lives are like and what their pain points are gives you a better understanding of them.
Unmet customer needs can be addressed through day-in-the-life maps before they are even aware they exist. When exploring new market development strategies, your company may use this type of customer journey map.
Future State
In future interactions with your company, your customers will experience these actions, thoughts, and emotions.
Your business will fit into their current experience based on their current experience.
Maps like these are best used for illustrating your vision and setting clear, strategic goals.
Service Blueprint
The customer journey maps below begin with a simplified version of one of the above map styles. They then layer on the factors responsible for delivering that experience, including people, policies, and technologies.
The purpose of a service blueprint is to identify the root causes of current customer journeys or the steps needed to achieve a desired future customer journey.
Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices
1. Set a goal for the journey map
Decide whether you want to improve the buying experience or launch a new product. An UX journey map can prevent scope creep on a large project like this by telling you what you need to know.
2. Survey customers to understand their buying journey
There can be a huge difference between what you think you know about the customer experience and what the customer actually experiences. Make sure you speak directly to your customers so you can get an accurate understanding of their journey.
3. Ask customer service reps about the questions they receive most frequently
Customers aren't always aware of their specific pain points, and that's when your customer service representatives come in.
By filling in these gaps, they can translate customer pain points into business terms you and your team can grasp.
4. Consider UX journey mapping for each buyer persona
There's a tendency to assume that each customer works the same way, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
Customer demographics, psychographics, and even the length of time someone has been a customer can influence how they interact with your business and make purchases.
Construct a UX journey map for each buyer persona based on overarching themes.
5. Review and update each journey map after every major product release
Your customer's buying process changes every time your product or service changes. Adding an extra field to a form can become a major roadblock, even with only a slight tweak.
A customer journey map needs to be reviewed before and after changes have been implemented.
6. Make the customer journey map accessible to cross-functional teams
Siloed customer journey maps aren't very useful. Creating a journey map, however, is a convenient way for cross-functional teams to provide feedback.
After that, make a copy of the map available to each team so they are always aware of the customer's needs.
Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping
"This doesn't seem necessary for my company or me. We understand our customers' needs and pain points." This is true on the surface.
The key to maximising customer success is to break down the customer journey phase by phase, align each step with a goal, and restructure your touchpoints accordingly.
Ultimately, everything you do should be geared toward solving customer problems and helping them achieve long-term success. Below are some other benefits.
1. You can refocus your company with an inbound perspective
With inbound marketing, you can find your customers instead of trying to discover them through outbound marketing.
In outbound marketing, tactics are used to target generalized or uninterested audiences by interrupting their daily routines. The cost of outbound marketing is high and it is inefficient. Customers and prospects are annoyed and deterred by it.
The goal of inbound marketing is to create helpful content that customers are already looking for. The first thing you need to do is grab their attention, then you can focus on the sales.
When you map out the customer journey, you can see what interests and helps your customers and what turns them away from your company.
It is possible to create content that will attract them to your company and keep them there.
2. You can create a new target customer base
To understand your customers' demographics and psychographics, you need to understand their journey.
Targeting too broad an audience instead of people who are actually interested in your product is a waste of time and money.
Researching the needs and pain points of your typical customers will give you a good picture of the kinds of people who are trying to achieve a goal with your company. In this way, you can target your marketing to a specific audience.
3. You can implement proactive customer service
Customer journey maps are like roadmaps for customers' experiences.
The data shows you when people experience delight and when they may face friction. Having this knowledge ahead of time allows you to plan your customer service strategy.
Your brand will also appear more reliable if you provide proactive customer service. You anticipate a surge in customer service around the holidays, for instance.
Send a message to your customers telling them about your team's adjusted holiday schedule.
Tell them about additional support options if your team is unavailable and what to do if an urgent issue needs immediate attention.
Customers won't be surprised if they have to wait a little longer than usual on hold. In the event they need a faster solution, they can choose from alternative options such as a chatbot or knowledge base.
4. You can improve your customer retention rate
By having a complete view of the customer journey, you can identify areas for improvement. By doing so, customers will experience fewer pain points, leading to fewer people leaving your brand in favor of your competitors.
Just one poor experience will lead to 33% of customers considering switching brands.
The UX journey map can help identify individuals on the path to churn. It is possible to spot these customers before they leave your business if you log the common behaviors they display.
Even if you don't save them all, it's worth a try. A 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25%-95%.
5. You can create a customer-focused mentality throughout the company
It can be difficult to coordinate all the departments to be as customer-focused as your customer service, support, and success teams.
It is common for them to set marketing and sales goals that are based on things other than what real customers want.
Your entire organization can benefit from a clear customer journey map. These maps show every single step in the customer journey, from initial attraction to post-purchase support.
And, yes, this concerns marketing, sales, and service.
Based on this rationale, you can't deny the importance of a customer journey map. In order to help your company and customers prosper, we have created the following steps.
Customer Journey Mapping Examples
A company's goal is to deliver its customers from point A to point B.
The business or organization determines what the goal is, but it typically involves purchasing a product or service. This journey must be guided for potential clients and customers.
The following examples will help you develop a customer journey map that will guide your business in the right direction.
1. HubSpot's Customer Journey Map Templates
With HubSpot's free Customer Journey Map Templates, companies can better understand their customers' experiences.
The offer includes the following:
- - Buyer's Journey Template
- - Current State Template
- - Lead Nurturing Mapping Template
- - Future State Template
- - A Day in the Customer's Life Template
- - Customer Churn Mapping Template
- - Customer Support Blueprint Template
By using these templates, organizations can gain new insights into their customers and improve their product, marketing, and customer service.
Download them today to start working on your customer journey map.
2. B2B Customer Journey Map Example
This customer journey map clearly outlines the five steps Dapper Apps believes customers go through when interacting with them.
As you can see, it goes beyond the actual purchasing phase by incorporating initial research and post-purchase needs.
This map is effective because it helps employees get into the customers' minds by understanding the typical questions they have and the emotions they're feeling.
As a result of these questions and feelings, Dapper Apps can take incremental action steps that will help it solve all the current problems customers are experiencing.
3. Ecommerce Customer Journey Map Example
Using this fictitious customer journey map, you can see what a day-in-the-life map looks like.
It outlines all the actions and emotions that a typical customer experiences on a daily basis, rather than just focusing on their interactions with the company.
By measuring the level of freedom a customer experiences from certain stimuli, this map measures their state of mind.
It helps a company understand what its target customers are stressed about and what problems they might be facing.
4. Future B2C Customer Journey Map Example
An example of a future state customer journey map can be found in this one, which is designed for Carnegie Mellon University. This document outlines what the university hopes students will think, feel, and do.
For each phase, CMU proposed specific changes and even outlined example scenarios based on these goals.
Visualizing the company's vision and understanding where each department fits into building a better user experience is made easy with this diagram.
5. Retail Customer Journey Map Example
Using fictitious restaurant interactions as an example, this customer journey map illustrates the customer's journey from beginning to end.
This map is clearly more comprehensive than the others. A customer's front-of-stage (direct) and back-of-stage (non-direct) interactions with the company, as well as support processes, are included.
Every action involved in the customer experience is shown here, including the actions of the customer, employees serving diners directly, and staff working behind the scenes.
It is possible for a company to identify the root cause of a mishap and solve it in the future by analyzing how each of these factors influences the customer journey.
Free Customer Journey Map Templates
To get your business from point A — deciding to focus on customer journeys — to point B — having a journey map — a critical step to the process is selecting which customer mindset your business will focus on.
You will use one of the following templates based on your mindset.
1. Current State Template
You may use this template to represent the search, awareness, consideration of options, purchasing decision, and post-purchase support phases for a B2B product.
For instance, in the Dapper Apps example, its phases were research, comparison, workshop, quote, and sign-off.
2. Day in the Life Template
This template reflects everything a customer thinks, feels, does, needs, and experiences throughout their entire daily routine - whether or not your company is involved - so you should organize it chronologically.
By doing this, you will be able to identify the best times of day to offer support.
Get an interactive day in the life template.
3. Future State Template
They may also resemble the current state template in terms of search, awareness, consideration of options, and purchasing decision, as well as post-purchase support.
You can customize these phases based on what you'd like the customer journey to look like in the future, rather than what it is now.
Get an interactive future state template.
4. Service Blueprint Template
The customer journey in this template is more in-depth, so certain phases are not followed.
Instead, it's based on physical evidence, usually multiple people, places, or objects at a time, which can give a sense of the quality and price of the service.
As an example, in the fictitious restaurant described above, physical evidence includes everything from the staff to the tables to the decorations, cutlery, food, and menus.
For each physical evidence, you would then list the appropriate customer actions and employee interactions.
Plates, cutlery, napkins, and pans are examples of physical evidence. The customer gives their order, the front-of-stage employee (waiter) takes it, the back-of-stage employee (receptionist) processes it, and the support personnel (chefs) cook it.
Get an interactive service blueprint template.
5. Buyer's Journey Template
Your customer journey map can also be designed using the classic buyer's journey - awareness, consideration, and decision.
Get an interactive buyer's journey template.
Charter the Path to Customer Success
It is possible to delight your customers at every stage of their buying journey when you fully understand their experience with your business.
There are many factors that can influence this journey, including customer pain points, emotions, and the touchpoints and processes in your company.
If you want to improve your customer's journey or explore new business opportunities to serve unrecognized needs, a customer journey map is the most effective way to visualize this information.
You can use the free templates in this article to map the future of customer success in your business.