7 Tips to Create Customer Journey Maps That Don’t Suck

Sure, customer journey mapping looks pretty simple on the surface. That's what makes it so appealing to such a large group.

The major problem is that most people don't bother to master the journey mapping process and, as a result, create quite superficial maps.

I call that customer journey mapping 1.0.

The reality is that journey mapping on a professional level requires a lot of deliberation and effort.

Yes, anyone can create a journey map.

But it's the professional who creates journey maps that truly impact business and customers.

So, here are seven pro tips that will help you create customer journey maps that don't suck.

2. Share the map as soon as possible.

Building a more customer-centric organization is always a collaborative effort.

The people who get this understand that the journey mapping process is much more important than the actual map.

So, don't focus on producing the best possible journey map. Focus on getting the people around you engaged in the process.

And the way to get people engaged is by sharing the journey map you're working on as early as possible.

Don't be afraid to share early first drafts of your journey map.

If people don't agree with what you've created, you want that feedback sooner rather than later.

You might feel that sharing the map early could slow you down. And yes, it sometimes will.

But if you skip this part and at some point appear out of nowhere to present a "final" journey map, you're bound to run into the not invented here syndrome.

And fixing that will probably take you much longer.

So if you want to be successful, share your maps early and often!

4. Don't go too wide or too narrow.

When people start journey mapping, one of the first questions that they ask is: Where should my journey map start and end?

If your journey map starts at the moment a customer starts interacting with your service, you've likely missed some quite important steps.

The truth is that the journey from the customer perspective probably starts much earlier than you think.

So, when defining the starting point of your journey map, consider when the need arises with your customer. When do they start to think about finding a solution for that need?

But you also don't want to go to the other extreme and start your journey map at the moment someone is born. That's probably a bit too broad.

Mapping moments in the customer journey before a customer interacts with your service is quite important. These moments give you crucial insights about the context and considerations in which a customer decides to engage with your service...or not.

The endpoint of your journey should be the moment in which, from the customer perspective, they have achieved their goal.

Again, it's open for debate how far you want to go as an organization or how much responsibility you want to take.

If you're an airline, you could say that the customer journey ends the moment a passenger arrives at the destination airport.

But you could also extend the journey and say that it ends when your passenger has enjoyed their holiday.

This doesn't mean that you have to do everything at the end of the journey. It just helps you think about opportunities for how you could positively influence the experience.

5. Don't be too detailed.

Let's think of a customer journey map as a movie script for a moment. When you set out to create the script, there are different detail levels on which you can do that.

Are you going to just state the main chapters in the script? Or, are you going to go down to the level of individual lines that the actors will say?

When we apply this analogy to a journey map, the question becomes: How detailed should your journey map be?

The simple answer is that your journey map needs to be detailed enough for you to achieve your goal.

Okay, but what does this mean in practice?

In most journey maps, you can distinguish four detail levels, from very high-level stages in the journey to an almost step-by-step flowchart.

When you are not quite sure yet how detailed your map needs to be, that’s usually a sign that detail level 2 is sufficient for now.

Using a level 2 journey map will enable you to identify the areas of the journey where you need to be more specific.

This way, you won't waste your time mapping parts of the journey that aren't relevant for the goal you're trying to achieve.

So, be pragmatic and only go deep in the map where you really need to.

6. Don't map touchpoints.

Map customer activities and situations instead. This might sound like a subtle difference, but it has major consequences.

A touchpoint is a moment in which a customer directly interacts with your organization.

These are things like when someone orders a coffee at the counter, looks for information on your website, or calls you with a question.

The problem is that when your customer journey is based on touchpoints, you're going to completely miss the customer’s perspective.

In this case, you're basically mapping your internal process and the channels through which you interact with customers. Although that can be very useful information, it's not what a customer journey map is about.

If you want to truly understand what your customer is going through, you'll need to base your journey map on customer activities and situations.

This way, you'll get insights into moments that are important to your customer but where they are not (yet) interacting with your organization.

For instance, what happens at the dinner table when someone is considering signing up for new health insurance? Or, how does your customer feel while waiting for order confirmation?

Understanding that these moments are there and that they influence the customer journey is key to creating a better overall experience.

Sure, it might feel easier to map touchpoints because you have the data. You know when customers interact with your organization. But don't give in to this temptation.

Always base your journey map on what your customer experiences.