What a Customer Journey Map?

A Customer Journey Map is a diagram that shows the journey a customer or persona takes when going through your process with a particular focus on positive and negative points in their experience. A customer empathy map is an excellent technique to use in conjunction with this technique.

Think about the Customer Journey Map as an Empathy map that meets a process flow. Internal stakeholders or external customers can use this diagram, and it is frequently used in User Experience (UX) design. You can gather the data for this diagram by observing customer interactions with your process or even surveying your customers to find out what they don't like.

Start with the "Happy" path. The happy path is where everything the customer experiences goes perfectly. It's usually the typical way a customer will interact with your product or service. Take a look at the empathy map you created for your customer personas. Does your customer see the path you laid out positively? What does the customer see as unfavorable in your typical "Happy" path?

Next, look at the typical path again, but think of areas in that path where things go wrong. These are emails and help desk tickets of common or frequent error messages. Observe your customer going through the process and see where they run into problems. Try to see where in your process a customer's experience could go negative. Ask the question, "What could go wrong at this step?" If the step is shipment and delivery of a product to c customer's doorstep, think about all the things that could go wrong such as the product delivery being delayed, lost shipments, damaged shipments, or the customer never gets their package.

Chart the customer sentiment line. Steps in the process that go well would be seen as a positive point and are represented as a point above the sentiment line. Steps that go negatively would be seen as a negative point and represented as a point below the sentiment line. If the step is neither positive nor negative, plot it on the customer sentiment line. For extra credit, you can plot positives and negatives higher or lower on the customer sentiment line depending on the intensity of the reaction from the customer.

Look at the graph. Does the customer sentiment line look like a sawtooth with lots of ups and downs? That should be an indicator you need to get the low points on the customer sentiment line fixed and focus on making the positive points even higher on the customer sentiment line by making your current success even more significant.

Is the line flat or nearly flat? Does the customer sentiment never really get high above the customer sentiment line to indicate they are incredibly excited about your product? A flat line shows an average and not-so-exciting experience with your product. Customers will have a tough time buying from you again or even supporting your product with others. It just works okay. Focus on getting the points on the customer sentiment line higher above the customer sentiment line. For every negative point on the customer sentiment line, ask yourself, how can I turn this negative into a fantastic positive?

Does your graph show everything below the customer sentiment line? Ouch. That's a red flag on the play, and a clear sign the customer's experience needs a huge overhaul.

Remember, good process flow design is still in play. Eliminate unnecessary steps or obstacles that make your customer's experience cumbersome. Example: Asking for your customer's phone number 3 times during the customer's experience because the system can't remember it from screen to screen.