A field guide to customer journey mapping

Spoiler alert: you can! The secret lies in customer journey mapping.

If that sounds intimidating, don’t worry. We’re here to make it simple and fun. Think of a customer journey map like a treasure map—except the treasure is a delighted customer (and maybe a conversion or two). When done right, it’s a game-changer for understanding your audience and giving them the experiences they’ll rave about.

So, let’s break it down. In this guide, you’ll learn:

• What customer journey mapping,
• Why it’s important to different teams, and
• How to create your very own, step by step

We’ve even got a template that you can download to get you started! (And examples. Lots of examples.)

At its core, a customer journey map is a visual representation of every interaction a customer has with your brand as they work toward a goal. It’s not just about tracking their clicks; it’s about understanding their thoughts, emotions, and pain points along the way.

The main purpose of customer journey mapping is to find out what that customer satisfaction goal is, and whether or not a customer is able to achieve it with your company.

The concept is pretty straightforward, but depending on how many stages a buyer needs to go through and the number of interactions they have with your company’s various touchpoints, customer journey mapping can get real intricate, real fast.

Which is great. Really.

Why? Because the more data you collect on someone, the better you can tweak the user experience to help them reach their goal for customer satisfaction (leading to a conversion a.k.a. achieving your own goal at the same time).

For example, by mapping out the steps and key interactions a user has on your website, you can see how, when, and why they eventually land on the product or service you’re offering:

Why bother? Because mapping the customer journey helps you:

• Spot where things are going smoothly (or not so smoothly)
• Highlight moments where you can go the extra mile
• Get your whole team on the same page when it comes to meeting customer needs

And let’s be clear: it’s not just about making your customers happy (though that’s a big win). It’s about creating experiences that drive conversions and build lasting relationships.

Customer journey mapping will tell you exactly where in your overall user experience (whether it’s your website, initial sales email, or sales call) your prospects are successfully moving forward and where they’re being held back—or dropping off altogether.

By observing and mapping your users’ behavior, you can gain insights into the full customer experience, beyond just where they click. If you do it well, you’ll also be able to figure out their:

• Thoughts and feelings
• Likes and dislikes
• Needs and wants
• Pain points and frustrations
• Goals and motivators
• Questions, hesitations, or concerns
• Expectations
• Deciding factors

This information will empower you to make the improvements necessary to ensure a long-term customer relationship and offer cross-departmental benefits for multiple teams in your company. Your marketing, sales, UX/UI, product and customer success teams (to name a few) can all reap major rewards from customer journey mapping and customer needs being fulfilled.

Why it matters for agency owners and consultants

For agency owners and consultants, understanding the customer journey is your not-so-secret weapon for creating strategies that drive results for clients. Behavioral segmentation lets you craft campaigns that hit the right note at every stage, positioning your services as indispensable. When you can clearly illustrate a prospect’s path to success, you’re not just solving problems—you’re proving your value.

It gives you marketing insights for tailored campaigns

With a solid understanding of the customer journey, your marketing team can create personalized campaigns that feel like they’re speaking directly to the user. Behavioral segmentation allows you to tailor content that resonates at every stage, making nurture programs more impactful—and less likely to end up in the dreaded spam folder.

It strengthens your sale strategies to close deals faster

For sales, journey mapping reveals the motivations behind a prospect’s decision-making process. Knowing these insights enables reps to have more meaningful conversations and close deals with confidence. It’s like having a cheat sheet for understanding what the customer really wants.

It optimizes your client experiences

Your product and UX/UI teams can use journey maps to spot usability issues and design experiences that guide customers seamlessly to their goals. For instance, if analytics show drop-offs during onboarding, that’s your cue to simplify the process. Small tweaks can lead to big wins.

It elevates client retention

With a clear map, customer success teams can proactively address post-purchase pain points, ensuring customer satisfaction and retention. This is especially important in a world where relationships often outweigh features in purchasing decisions.

A huge perk of customer journey mapping is you don’t need any fancy software to create an effective one. A spreadsheet, whiteboard, or some sticky notes will do just fine to get you started.

Also, don’t worry too much about making your customer journey map pretty when following a customer journey map template—just focus on making it as informative as it needs to be.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started on customer journey mapping:

• Step 1: Set clear goals for your customer journey map.
• Step 2: Define your buyer persona(s) or jobs to be done.
• Step 3: Define the different stages buyers go through to achieve their goals.
• Step 4: Create a customer journey map grid. (Template included!)
• Step 5: Fill in your customer journey map grid.

First things first: you need to know why you’re making your customer journey map.

That means answering the following questions:

1. Who is your customer journey map about?
2. What is the scope of your customer journey map?

Who is your customer journey map about?

Picture your ideal client—who are they? Are they the stressed-out marketing manager desperate to crush their next campaign? Or maybe they’re the overwhelmed business owner who’s finally decided it’s time to fix their broken processes?

To nail this down, you’ll create a buyer persona. It’s basically your cheat sheet for understanding your clients. Include the basics (industry, job role, challenges) and the juicy stuff (their goals, what keeps them up at night, and why they’d love working with you). We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of how to do this in Step 2, so stay tuned.

What’s the scope of your customer journey map?

Now let’s talk about the big picture vs. zoomed-in focus. Are you mapping the entire client experience, from that first “Hi, can you help us?” email all the way to a glowing testimonial? Or are you keeping it tight and tackling just one piece, like onboarding or project kick-off?

For example, if you’re running an agency, you could go all out and map the whole process, from their initial inquiry to delivering that show-stopping campaign. Or, maybe you just want to focus on the onboarding journey to make sure every new client feels like an A-lister from day one.

If you’re a consultant, you might map the full journey—from the discovery call to the grand finale where your clients are raving about the results. Or maybe you want to zoom in on the post-project follow-up to make sure your recommendations actually stick.

Here’s the deal: neither option is better. It all depends on your goals. Want a bird’s-eye view? Go big. Looking to refine one touchpoint? Zoom in. Whatever you choose, your map will be the ultimate tool to level up your client experience.

Let’s break down buyer personas in a way that feels approachable, not overwhelming. Think of them as detailed snapshots of your “average customers,” built from data that sheds light on their behavior, goals, and motivations. These personas help everyone across your company—whether it’s sales, marketing, or customer success—better understand and serve your audience.

Here’s how to build them:

Step 1: Analytical Research

Start with the data you already have. If you’re using a CRM (like Copper), you’re sitting on a treasure trove of insights. This data can show you everything from a customer’s job title to the industry they work in and even where they’re located.

Why it matters: Analytical research gives you a high-level view of what’s working and what isn’t. For example:

• Are users finding what they need on your website?
• Which pages move them down the sales funnel, and which ones cause them to hit the “back” button faster than you’d like?
• What reasons pop up most often for lost opportunities?

Data like this can reveal trends and guide your strategy, but here’s the thing—it only tells part of the story. To really understand your customers, you need a human touch. That’s where anecdotal research comes in.

Step 2: Anecdotal Research

Data is great, but it doesn’t tell you why customers make the choices they do. For that, you need to hear from the people who’ve actually walked the path: your customers.

Reach out to them through:

• Surveys
• Interviews
• Feedback requests
• User testing
• Customer service records

Pro tip: Sweeten the deal! Offer a discount or credit in exchange for their time and insights.

Questions to Ask Your Customers

Make it easy for them to share valuable feedback. Here are some starter questions to ask:

1. How did you first hear about us?
2. What drew you to our product or service?
3. What were you trying to achieve, and did we help you get there?
4. How easy was it to understand and use our product?
5. How much research did you do before choosing us?
6. Were you considering competitors? If yes, what made you pick us?
7. What was the one thing that made you say, “Yes, this is the one”?
8. Have you contacted customer support? If so, how would you rate the experience on a scale of 1-10?
9. What’s one thing we could do to improve your experience?

The answers will reveal your customers’ motivations, frustrations, and ultimate goals—everything you need to create meaningful personas.

Alternative Approach: The Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) Framework

If buyer personas feel a little old-school to you, there’s another way: the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) framework.

Instead of focusing on “who” your customers are, JTBD hones in on what they need to achieve. It’s all about understanding the tasks your customers are trying to complete and the challenges they face while doing so. With this perspective, your sales team can craft strategies that directly address those needs.

Curious to learn more? Dive deeper into the JTBD approach and see how it stacks up against traditional buyer personas. Either way, the goal is the same: to better serve your customers by truly understanding what drives them.

Now that you’ve established who your customer journey map is for with defined buyer personas as well as exactly which part of the journey you’ll be mapping, it’s time to identify the different stages a customer would go through to get from one end of the map to the other.

These stages will probably look something like this:

• Discovery
• Research
• Purchase
• Delivery
• After sales

These stages might vary a bit depending on your unique product or service. You could have more stages than this, or less. That’s totally okay. Just name the stages and order them in a way that makes sense for your company.

If you’re stumped, refer back to your buyer personas to give you an idea of just what steps they’d need to go through to achieve their goals, from their first interaction with your company, to eventually buying something, to their experience after the sale.

Next, we’ll go over the details of what happens at each of these stages.

It’s time to build out the framework of your customer journey map. The best way to do this is by creating a “customer journey map grid.”

In the top row of this grid, put each of the stages you defined in the previous step.

Then, on the left column, put the following:

• Actions
• Touchpoints
• Experience/Emotions
• Pain points
• Solutions or Opportunities

Now, fill in the boxes in order:

Actions

These are the actions that a user takes that leads them to your brand. For example, in the Awareness/Discovery phase, these actions could be:

• Does an online search which brings up your company as a search result
• Talks to a friend about their problem who refers them to your solution
• Sees an ad for your business on social media

Touchpoints

A “touchpoint” is any place that a user might come into contact with and interact with your company through. Some examples of touchpoints are:

• Your website
• Social media
• Paid ads
• Email marketing
• Cold calling
• Third party website

Pro-tip: Did you know you can actually get a bunch of valuable insights about your user touchpoints from Google Analytics? The Behavior Flow Report and Goal Flow Report are great places to start.

Or, just use your CRM to see where your opportunities are coming fro3m.

Emotions and motivations

Emotions are the driving force behind every customer journey—they influence decisions, shape perceptions, and turn casual shoppers into loyal fans.

Think about it: in the awareness stage, your customer might be feeling curious, frustrated, or even overwhelmed. If your brand can tap into those emotions and show you understand them? That’s how connections are built. In the consideration phase, every positive interaction—like a smooth website experience or empathetic customer service—adds to the trust factor.

And when it’s time to buy, emotions like excitement or last-minute jitters are running high. A seamless, reassuring process at this stage can turn hesitation into a confident “yes!”

The key is knowing how your buyers feel at every step of their journey. Thoughtful follow-ups, helpful resources, and proactive support can transform a good experience into a great one. When you connect with customers emotionally and meet them where they are, you’re not just selling a product—you’re building a relationship that lasts.

Pain points

Are there any obstacles in the journey keeping the prospect from achieving their goal or finding the information they’re looking for?

Similar to the previous point, knowing this information will help you improve or replace your existing content and make adjustments to your user experience to alleviate these pains.

Opportunities

Based on all the details above this box, what are the areas you can improve on to help make those emotions more positive, ensure those motivations are met, and pain points are reduced?

For example, if you find a lot of people are stopping at the checkout page and contacting your company at that point to clarify things they’re not sure of, you could conclude your website isn’t doing a good job communicating all the details a user needs to make a confident purchase.

The opportunity here might be to add an “FAQs” page to your site. This would not only prevent drop off (not everyone is going to bother contacting you) but also reduce the cost of acquisition as having FAQs is cheaper than paying a rep to answer the same questions over and over.

Here are some questions to ask when looking for opportunities in each stage of the customer journey…

• Are there any gaps or pain points in the flow? Is it clear what the user must do to move forward? Is the user experience confusing?
• Does the user achieve their goal in this stage?
• If the user doesn’t achieve their goal, what stopped them? What are the barriers?
• How can any pain points or barriers be alleviated in the future?

Once you’ve completed your grid and use the customer journey map template, congratulations—you now have a customer journey map and already have some ideas for improvement (e.g. your opportunities section).

Don’t dedicate all that time and energy into creating an awesome, accurate customer journey map just to stick it a file cabinet or folder on your computer.

If your team’s all in one office, blow it up and hang it up somewhere everyone can see it. Otherwise, create another format (or formats) that will work for everyone at your company.

Keep in mind that customer journey mapping isn’t meant to be a one-and-done thing. Things are going to change—make sure your customer journey map gets updated when they do.

To ensure it stays updated, you can pre-schedule meetings with stakeholders once every quarter, for example, to go over it. If you’re updating it on your own or with a small team, or your customer journey is changing more rapidly, you may want to update it once a month.

Customer journey maps are never going to be perfect, but they should be close enough to real life that you can make decisions based off them with confidence. Keeping them updated ensures you can do that.

Here are some examples of customer journey maps. As you’ll see, there’s more than one way to create a customer journey map. Over time, you’ll find what works best for you and your company.

Enjoy!

Customer journey maps aren’t static, and honestly, they shouldn’t be! Think of them as a living, breathing document that evolves alongside your customers and business goals. Schedule regular reviews to keep it fresh and relevant. Maybe it’s monthly, maybe quarterly—whatever works for you—just make sure it’s on your radar.

Customer behavior and expectations shift faster than trends on TikTok, so staying on top of it ensures you’re always ahead of the game.

When you consistently update and refine your customer journey map, you’re not just tweaking for the sake of it. You’re proving your agency or consultancy’s worth in spades. You’re showing your clients that you’re invested in their success and have the chops to drive real, lasting results.

It’s not just about fixing hiccups; it’s about creating experiences that wow, delight, and keep their customers coming back. And honestly? That’s how you build unshakable partnerships and ensure long-term success.