Customer Journey Map [free template]

The Customer Journey Map (CJM) is a widely used technique that describes the journey of a user by representing the different touchpoints that characterize their interaction with the service.

It is a diagram that illustrates the journey through a variety of touchpoints that the customer moves through before, during and after making a purchase.

It is very important for identifying weaknesses and opportunities for our products. Not all customers will necessarily interact with all touchpoints.

The customer journey itself does not solve anything, but it provides us with an overview to take actions later.

It helps us to:

• Share a common understanding of the context and use of the service with our workgroup.
• Understand the user's expectations of how the process should work.
• Identify errors or deficiencies in the process to achieve a given objective.

Steps to Build a Customer Journey

1. Choose which moment of the customer's journey you want to map.
2. Identify the stages and interactions of the customer. Understand the before, during, and after, and describe each of those interactions.
3. Uncover the customer's perception to identify the level of experience, emotions, and moments of truth.
4. Identify and prioritize improvement ideas to create your action plan.

Customer Perception

Perception is more emotional than rational; it is what the customer felt and what sensation they will remember. We must understand our customers' perception, as it will help us create our Customer Journey Map.

How to measure customer perception?

• Use information obtained from surveys, observation, interviews conducted with customers.
• Identify other sources of customer insights, such as listening to both sales and after-sales calls.
• Conduct efficient analysis of social media interactions.
• Organize interviews with employees to obtain the internal customer's perception.

Key aspects of a Customer Journey Map

• Stages: Associated stage in the customer lifecycle for the customer interaction
• Interaction: Specific moment experienced by the customer when interacting with the company.
• Description: Describe the customer's actions in each interaction
• Breakdown: Identify problems impacting the experience.
• Level of experience: Very good, Good, Functional, Poor, Very poor.
• Contact Channels: Contact channel in which the interaction takes place
• Moment of truth: Moments in which the customer comes into contact with some aspect of the company and forms an impression.
• Pain point: Negative situations that a customer has experienced at any of the touchpoints with a company.
• Emotions: Describe the emotions and feelings generated in the customer by that interaction.
• Satisfaction elements: Describe all the elements that can generate satisfaction.
• Dissatisfaction elements: Describe all the elements that can generate dissatisfaction.
• Opportunities/Improvement ideas: Identify ideas and recommendations to redesign the experience.

After having a clear Customer Journey Map and proposing improvement plans, it is necessary to prioritize the ideas for improvement.

Key Aspects for Creating the Action Plan

Interaction: Select those interactions where the level of experience was functional, poor, or very poor. Breakdown: Describe the breakdown identified. Proposed Plan: Write down the improvement plan. Investment: high, medium, or low. Budget: Estimate the budget. Implementation Date. Steps to Execute the Plan. Responsible(s). Difficulty: high, medium, or low. Status: Implemented, Not Started, In Progress, or Cancelled. Comments. Priority: 1, 2, or 3.

Perfection is the enemy of progress... The important thing is to start and create a CJM.

You can download a free copy of a Customer Journey Map template [1] from the following links:

CJM template [EN] CJM template [ES]

Bibliography

[1] C. Hugony, “Customer development & Journey mapping,” Crehana, link