Facts for Customer Journey Map

Facts for Customer Journey Map

Daniel AlShriky
3 min readApr 23, 2021

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Customer journey maps are visualization the process that a realistic view of the journey your customers have with your brand, service, or product, and they can be digital, analog, physical, social and so on. In each interaction or touch point, there is an exchange of value or creation of value. Journey maps are actually not proper maps, but diagrams.

  • We need journey maps for (1) Understand the true customer journey. (2) Stress test new products, services. (3) Plan for long-term changes to improve the experience for your customers.
  • Research is the foundation for design insight. If you can back your claims with research, you’re wasting your time, and in the worst case, only strengthen erroneous stereotypes you might have about your users or customers. So we need to base our journey maps on research.

Barbara Fredrickson and Daniel Kahneman did some interesting research on the experience on pain in a hospital setting. There’s a great Ted talk by Kahneman on which I suggest you watch. There is a link in the class description below. Their findings is summarises as the peak and rule, and in short, it basically means that when a person coats his or her experience, the peak emotional experiences and the end experience dictates the memory off the overall experience.

  • The worst thing I see in customer journey mapping is when a lot of effort is put into the process, but a goal is never defined. So at the end you have a map but reap none of the benefits for which it was created.
  • Before creating a user journey map, it’s important to review the goals of your business/service. This knowledge will help you align business and user goals.

Don’t be a navigator without a compass.

  • Customer journey maps starts by actions into a timeline with user thoughts and emotions in order to create a story. This story is short and precise, ultimately leading to a visualization.
  • Very risky to not have the complete picture of pain points in game points clearly mapped out. A good customer journey map has the power to help break down silos and mobilize all your.
  • Looking at experiences from human and users point of view and not from the organization’s point of view.
  • Customer journey maps essential for any company because less than 10% of customers across the board are actually satisfied with the customer experience.
  • People are connected to social, emotional and identity building values at the top of the pyramid. Nail the premium values. Emotion is motivational. There’s tons of research indicating that rationality is constructed after we make choices and that we are very emotionally driven when we make decisions and take action.

Famous quote by Harvard professor Theodore Levitt. People don’t want to buy 1/4 inch drills. They want quarter inch holes. In fact, people don’t want the holes either. They what they really want. It might be a cozy living room with a photo of their Children on the wall. So how do we find these values? Yes, you probably guessed it user research.

  • A customer journey map makes intangible experiences visible and can facilitate a common understanding between team members.
  • Components of a Customer journey map
    Actor: Persona or user who experiences the journey.
    Scenario, and expectations: the situations that the journey map highlights and is associated with an actor’s goal or need and specific expectations.
    Journey stages: Organization the information in the journey map (actions, thoughts, and emotions)
    Actions, Mindsets, and Emotions: These are behaviors, thoughts, and feelings the actor has throughout the journey and that are mapped within each of the journey phases.
    Opportunities: Insights gained from mapping; they speak to how the user experience can be optimized. Insights and opportunities help the team draw knowledge from the map.
  • Tools
    (1) Intangibles: Openness, empathy, and curiosity.
    (2) Tangibles: any tools helps to show and share the output of intangibles result. Like brainstorming, spreadsheet or a pen and paper, Multiple colors of Post-it notes, or even you can hire designers to do attractive sketches.

Here are a few tools and references that can be helpful during user journey mapping:

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