The best Customer Journey Mapping courses in 2020

Find the course you need to take your journey mapping skills to the next level.

Published in: Journey Mapping / Last update: November 2020

Best Courses to Learn Customer Journey Mapping in 2020

So you want to get up to speed on that thing called customer journey mapping?

Or, maybe you already understand how to create a journey map and want to learn how to use them effectively in your organization?

Well, it's easy to spend all day on Google searching for the right bits and pieces of information...just to stumble on some articles or videos that turn out to be a waste of your time.

And if you do find something that looks interesting, it's often just a small piece of the puzzle.

This guide will help you quickly find the right customer journey mapping course that fits your needs so you can focus on improving your actual skills rather than spending your time on Google.

This overview is constantly being updated, so if you're missing a course in the list, make sure to drop me a message.

COVID-19 update

Some of the courses in this overview were added prior to the global pandemic. It goes without saying that the offline courses have come to a halt. Nevertheless you'll still find them in the overview for future reference.

- Marc

Introduction

Online Courses vs. Offline Training

Sometimes, you'll want a course that you can start right away and follow at your own pace, while other times, it's more effective to have a coach who guides you through the process.

So, the overview here is split up into online courses and offline training.

What about service blueprints, experience maps, and user stories?

Visualizations like service blueprints, experience maps, and user stories are closely related to customer journey maps. You can find more on that in the Practical Guide to Customer Journey Mapping.

The knowledge you gain on customer journey mapping is also quite fundamental when you want to create one of these other visualizations.

The courses in this overview primarily focus on customer journey mapping, but you'll find them overlapping with the other topics as well.

Online Courses

Customer Journey Mapping Essentials Masterclass

This is a short course that will get you up to speed on the fundamentals of customer journey mapping.

After taking this masterclass, you'll know what is really important in regards to customer journey mapping and what things you can easily ignore.

Learn more about the Customer Journey Mapping Essentials Masterclass

Learn more: https://www.servicedesignshow.com/courses/customer-journey-mapping-essentials/

Journey Mapping workshop

If you're looking for a real-life example of how to quickly create a journey map than this online workshop might just be the thing for you.

In this workshop you'll see how you take a business challenge and step-by-step create a useful journey map around.

Learn more about the Journey Mapping workshop
  • Price: €49
  • Level: Beginner
  • Format: 90-minute video
  • Instructors: Marc Fonteijn

Learn more: https://www.servicedesignshow.com/courses/journey-mapping-workshop/

The Perfect Map

This course teaches you the step-by-step process of how to create a useful customer journey map from scratch.

It's aimed at customer experience professionals who want to use journey maps as a practical tool within the organization to drive sustainable customer-centric innovation (rather than a one-time overview that loses its value after a project).

As a bonus with the course, you'll get one month of Custellence Team membership for free (Custellence is a professional journey mapping tool), so you can start creating your journey maps in a professional tool right away.

Learn more about The Perfect Map - Journey Mapping Course
  • Price: €197
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Format: 7 video lessons (20 to 45 minutes each), includes exercises & worksheets
  • Instructors: Marc Fonteijn & Daniel Ewerman

Learn more: https://www.servicedesignshow.com/courses/customer-journey-mapping-guide/

Journey Map Ops

One of the big challenges around journey mapping is how to turn them into a tool which your organisation uses on a daily basis drive customer centric innovation. That is exactly the focus of this Journey Maps Ops course.

This is a course aimed at professionals who are already familiar with individual journey maps and now need to solve challenges like: How do you to keep your maps up-to-date, how do you maintain a repository of multiple maps and how do you turn journey maps into CX dashboards.

As this course includes coaching and peer feedback it starts on specific dates. Check the course website to see when the next course round starts.

  • Price: €799
  • Level: Advanced
  • Date: starts November 11 2020
  • Format: 6 online classes, interactive workshops, coaching and peer feedback
  • Instructors: Marc Stickdorn

Learn more: https://www.thisisdoing.com/product/journey-map-operations

Intro to Practical Service Blueprinting

Although this course focuses on service blueprints, it deserves a spot in this overview.

In this course you'll not only learn what a service blueprint is and how to create one but also how to plan a service blueprint project and facilitate a service blueprint session.

I've reviewed the service blueprint that you'll be creating through this course in my customer journey map templates guide.

  • Price: $149

  • Level: Beginner

  • Format: 22 video lessons (30 sec to 30 min) spread across six modules

  • Instructors: Erik Flowers & Megan Miller

Customer Journey Fundamentals

This course is offered by UXPressia, which is one of the tools we've discussed in the customer journey mapping tools review.

The primary focus of this course is the basics of a journey map itself. You'll learn about key terms like stages, channels, touchpoints, and moments of truth—definitely important knowledge for anyone who is totally new to customer journey mapping.

You can get an overview of all the lessons inside the course in the curriculum.

Where most courses offer video lessons to teach, this course is a bit different. You're guided through the theory by a series of questions from a virtual coach.

Customer Journey Fundamentals
When you sign up for this course, you'll get one month of UXPresia PRO membership for free.
  • Price: $50

  • Level: Beginner

  • Format: Interactive lessons in the form of dialogue with a virtual coach

  • Instructors: Yuri Vedenin & Nick Efimov

Learn more: https://www.academy.uxpressia.com/cjm-fundamentals

Creating Customer Journey Maps from Scratch

This is an 30-minute introductory course to Customer Journey Mapping. The course covers the why and how of journey maps. You'll also learn how a journey map relates to other design models. 

Learn more about the Creating Customer Journey Maps from Scratch course on Skillshare

The course has a practical focus and to put the theory into practice you'll get an exercise project to work on as you go through the lessons.

  • Price: included in a Skillshare membership ($15 p/m)
  • Level: Beginner
  • Format: 9 short video lessons
  • InstructorsPontus Wärnestål

Learn more: https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Creating-Customer-Journey-Maps-from-Scratch/238293019 (affiliat link)

An introduction to journey mapping

This online course is unique in the sense that it's delivered live and split up 3 over 3 days. On day 1 you'l get a general introduction to journey maps. Day 2 is about digital journey mapping and on day 3 you get the chance to ask Marc Stickdorn everything you want about journey maps.

So oven though this is an online course it's hosted on specific dates. Make sure to check the course page to see when the next edition is scheduled.

An introduction to journey mapping course by More Than Metrics

The course includes learning resources (journey map templates and cheat sheets) as well as a free full-featured account of Smaply (see a review) for one month so you can practice what you've learned.

Learn more: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/course-an-introduction-to-journey-mapping-tickets-107672715992

Offline Courses

Nielsen Norman: Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs

The journey mapping course by Nielsen Norman is a full-day, hands-on training organized as part of the larger multiday UX conferences they regularly host.

"The focus of this course is the actual practice of creating and using research-based journey maps to evaluate UX, better understand customer needs and envision optimized future experiences. It will help you design a holistic and integrated user experience around the users’ needs, no matter whether this experience is split across channels or happens entirely on a single device."

The term UX might scare some people off, as you might think that it's only focused on digital interfaces and interactions (which true UX is not). But based on the agenda, I'd say that it looks like a really well balanced training.

What's appealing about this course is that you won’t only learn how to create the actual journey map. You'll also learn how to set yourself up for success and what to do with the map once you have it.

Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs

The course is hosted multiple times per year, primarily in the US.

  • Price: Early bird starts at $931 (depends on conference)
  • Location: Primarily US
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Format: Full-day workshop
  • Instructor(s): Differs

Learn more: https://www.nngroup.com/courses/journey-mapping/

The Academy: Customer Journey Mapping Essentials

If you're based in Ireland and want to get up to speed on customer journey mapping, this is probably the best training out there.

Part of this course is an introduction to service design, stakeholder mapping, and personas. This will help you understand the broader context in which customer journey maps are created and used.

The great thing about this course is that you'll actually go outside to do some hands-on field research. Good research is the lifeline of the journey mapping process, and unfortunately, most courses fail to expose people to this. So, I’m happy to see it's part of this training.

  • Price: €260

  • Location: Belfast, Ireland

  • Level: Beginner

  • Format: Full-day training

  • Instructor: Gerry Scullion

Learn more: https://www.theacademy.ie/courses/customer-journey-mapping-essentials-belfast/

DesignThinkers Academy: One-Day Customer Journey Mapping Training

The DesignThinkers Academy hosts a wide range of courses. In this one-day training, you'll learn the basics of customer journey mapping.

You'll learn how journey maps help you step into the shoes of your customers and see how they interact with your service.

In the training you'll start by mapping layers of the customer journey, and then slowly dive deeper and deeper into the organizational structures and context.

Design Thinkers Academy Journey Mapping Course

This training is primarily hosted in Amsterdam.

  • Price: €395 (early bird starts at €315)

  • Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  • Level: Beginner

  • Format: Full-day training

  • Instructor(s): Unknown

Learn more: https://www.designthinkersacademy.com/course-catalogue/customer-journey-mapping-course-2/

More than Metrics: Customer Journey Mapping Essentials

If the name More than Metrics sounds familiar, it's probably because they are the company behind the journey mapping tool called Smaply (which has been reviewed here).

Their essentials training is aimed at teams "who want an overview of journey mapping, stakeholder maps and personas."

It's a two-day in-person training that is facilitated on-demand. You also have the option to take this course via three online workshops. In order to sign up, you'll need to reach out to them.

Journey Mapping training by Smaply

There's little additional information about the training on the site, but judging by the people who are running it, you probably can't go wrong here.

  • Price: €7900 (in person) / €4900 (online)

  • Location: unknown

  • Level: Beginner/intermediate

  • Format: Two-day training

  • Instructor(s): Unknown

Learn more: https://www.smaply.com/training.html

Other Learning Resources

Courses are great if you're looking for a structured and guided approach to learning customer journey mapping.

But there are other resources out there that can also help you level up your journey mapping skills. Here's a list of some of the most helpful resources to get you started right away:

Customer Journey Maps Done Right

This is a YouTube playlist with practical tips and tricks to help you create better journey maps.

Customer Journey Q&A with Daniel Ewerman

In this series of videos, Daniel Ewerman (founder of Custellence) answers real-life questions from journey mappers like you who are going through the Perfect Map course.

Smaply Journey Mapping Toolkit

Next to offering training options, Smaply also provides a toolkit that contains "cheatsheets, case studies and more for everybody wanting to get started with service design."

Journey Mapping toolkit by Smaply

The toolkit goes beyond journey mapping, but I'm sure you'll be able to pick and choose the things that are relevant to you.

You can find the toolkit over here: https://blog.morethanmetrics.com/toolkit-journey-mapping/

Custellence Knowledge Base

The people at Custellence know a thing or two about journey mapping. And the great thing is that they share a lot of their knowledge openly in their Help Center.

Journey Mapping tips by Custellence

If you're looking for a collection of helpful articles to get you going on your journey mapping journey, make sure to browse through the articles shared by the Custellence team.

Check out all the articles here: https://help.custellence.com/en/

Conclusion

This overview is constantly being updated. If you know a course that's missing in the overview, please send me a message.

Feeling overwhelmed by the number of courses?

My advice would be to just start with the one-hour journey mapping masterclass and take it from there.