It’s no secret that companies hold a lot of stock in demographics and customer research data, but data often fails to communicate the frustration and experiences of customers. A few methods aim to go deeper and explore how users feel throughout the UX experience; one of them is a journey map.
Customer Journey Maps are a pretty simple concept; a visual representation that details an individual’s perspective of their overall relationship with an organization, service, product, or brand, over time and across channels and touch points. It may focus on a particular part of the process or give an overall view of the experience.
The process of creating a journey map involves detailed research and a meticulous understanding of the user.
How To Research A Customer Journey Map
Because you’re going outside of just data and key demographics, getting the funding for customer research can be tricky. A good place to start is user data that has already been gathered in the empathy stage of the design thinking process. User context and personas give a better understanding of who the customer is and what they want to achieve.
Analytical research: Analytics taken from websites, engagement, and demographics. Social media data, SEO and surveys can all give more insight into who the user is and what they want. Use this type of research with caution because there is always a chance of numbers being read wrong.
Anecdotal research: This is a more personal data that can be gathered through interviews or found on social media. Speaking to frontline staff, the people who interact with customers in one way or another daily, can also be helpful in understanding the customer’s journey. Not every company has the money to conduct this type of research so it’s important to, again, take advantage of what may already be available to you. Online reviews and customer feedback are good online resources that come directly from the customers themselves. Focusing research on the primary audience can also save time and money. You can make educated guesses about secondary audiences (people aren’t the most likely to buy a product or service but are still an important market). Like reading data, be careful with the assumptions you make.
What Makes Up a Journey Map?
Every journey map is unique but they all share similar key elements:
Core Elements:
Personas: The main focus of the map, usually representing a demographic in a more personalized way. Here is where you’ll note their needs, goals, feelings, expectations, and pain points.
Timeline: The amount of time (1 week or 5 years) or variable phases (the purchase funnel) of the process.
Emotion: The feelings of the user throughout the process (frustration, anxiety, happiness, surprise, etc.)
Touchpoints: The customer’s actions and engagement with the organization.
Channels: Where the engagement is taking place and the context of the use.
Supporting Elements:
Moments of Truth: Positive interactions that leave lasting impressions. Usually a response to a user’s pain point.
Supporting characters: individuals who influence the experience in one way or another.
Why Use Journey Maps?
Customer journey maps are a collaborative effort. They bring together parts of a team that don’t usually interact. For a designer, a journey map gives context to who the user is and how you can help meet their needs. For a copy writer, journey maps can help understand what questions users have and how they generally feel. They give an overview of the customer’s entire experience to managers. Journey maps help identify opportunities to enhance the experience.
They help people across the organization keep the user first in everything they set out to do. This is especially valuable in the age of digital products and services.
Here is an example of a journey map I created for a customer looking to buy a new moisturizer from the Kiehl’s skincare website. Buying a product, especially something as iffy as skincare, takes a lot of research and investigating to make sure you are getting the product that is right for you. This map follows Chris’ journey from being aware of a new product through researching it, buying it, and trying it. Along the way we can follow his feelings, touchpoints, and pain points and think of ways we can improve this process.
There is no right or wrong way to illustrate a customer’s journey. The main focus is the customer and highlighting opportunities you may be missing to deliver them the best experience possible. A journey map’s capacity to share the user’s experience in a clear and memorable way makes it a valuable tool in meeting your user’s needs.
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