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There’s something magical that happens in our brains when we draw. And yet many of us, myself included, don’t see ourselves as talented enough to draw outside of the occasional doodle to see if the pen is working.

Customer experience success relies heavily on understanding our customers. And the low-tech technique of drawing out the experience in a storyboard is often overlooked as a way to understand our customer’s experience.

What is a Customer Journey Storyboard?

Storyboards are simply a collection of still images that represent a sequence of moments in time. They’re often used in film making, advertising, and animation to help visualize what’s needed for each scene in the story, but customer journey storyboards can do the same thing for your customer’s experience. A customer journey storyboard is a sort of visual variation on a customer journey map.

How do you create a customer journey storyboard? It can be as simple as folding a piece of paper to create a grid of squares.

Storyboards can also be created digitally, as some tools even have templates and features to help make this happen. There is a time and place for those more formal storyboards, but I like the process of pen-and-paper storyboarding.

Later this week we’ll be introducing a new customer journey storyboarding template, which you can use digitally (with a tablet and pen), or analog by simply printing it out. To get the template for free as soon as it’s available, as well as many more helpful CX guides, templates, and more, register free for Year of CX here .

Why Is Customer Journey Storyboarding So Effective?

Storyboarding can be highly effective to help with specific parts of the journey that are challenging or just need new thinking. Compared to building a standard customer journey map, the act of drawing out the “scenes” in the journey can tap into new ideas, creative problem-solving, and an awareness of what we know and what we don’t.

I’ve used storyboarding techniques in workshops and consulting because I’ve seen how it leads to new results.

• A cynical construction manager told me afterwards how he realized how many “scenes” he didn’t think about in the customer’s movie until working through a storyboard.
• A fitness executive told me he taped his on the inside of his notebook so he could remember the customer’s story.
• Others simply say “huh, I’ve never thought of it that way before.”

It can seem strange, but the act of drawing – even just stick figures – helps us realize our own misconceptions, improve our memory, and increase our capacity to learn. The National Science Foundation funded a study from 2007 to 2010 involving science students from Harvard, MIT, Duke University and Roxbury Community College, as well as design students. The findings revealed the process of drawing showed student misconceptions better than text. This led to better discussions and instruction to fill in those blanks, which led to better exam results.

Putting down the devices and drawing around the challenge also helps us feel less stress and get into a state of flow. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is shown to go down when people are making art, whether or not they consider themselves an artist, according to a study reported in the Journal of Art Therapy .

This all leads to an openness to new ideas.

And here’s a bonus perk: I’ve found the act of a bunch of leaders drawing together brings a sense of humility that leads to more empathy and understanding, too.

How to Create a Customer Journey Storyboard

Storyboarding is meant to be a quick, organic way to tap into solving a problem, innovating around an idea, or reinforcing ideal scenarios. Don’t get hung up on perfection. The process is the purpose.

1. Know your goal.

What are you using storyboarding to achieve? Keep the story limited to a specific scenario or outcome.

Some goals I’ve seen used in storyboarding:

• Develop better ways to greet customers upon arrival
• Identify opportunities to delight restaurant customers who are picking up orders
• Innovate to a better surgical waiting room experience for caregivers
• Brainstorm ideas to create more meaningful engagement with employees and managers
• Personalize the digital app experience for a bank

Your goal needs to be narrow enough to allow for big thinking. If it’s too complex, it’s easy to get lost in the “what about” and backend processes. This is all about the customer experience and thinking bigger. A narrow goal, ironically, allows you to do that.

2. Get your materials ready.

I like to go somewhere OTHER than my desk when I am focused on storyboards. Reduce your distractions by walking away from your computer, silencing your phone, and writing the goal down somewhere you can see it. (I often use a brightly-colored sticky note on the table.)

If you’re working as a group, even better! Ask everyone to do this at the same time.

While there’s no perfect rule about the number of panels you need in your storyboard, I like to start with 8 panels. This is easy with an 11 x 13 piece of paper:

• Fold the paper in half once length-wise.
• Then fold in half width-wise twice.
• Unfold to reveal eight rectangles.

Use whatever is easy and pleasant for you to work with:

• Like pencil? Go for it.
• Prefer the bold lines of a Sharpie? You do you.
• Want to use a digital device and project it for the whole team to see? Sounds like one productive game of Pictionary to me. Tools like Milanote   can help with storyboarding and sharing across teams.

Just choose whatever you like the best.

3. Define the first step of the story.

Whose story are you telling, and where does their story begin?

A single storyboard doesn’t have to be one-size fits all. You can create storyboards for different:

• Customer personas
• Customer journeys or goals
• Points of view

To continue with my earlier example of personalizing a digital app experience, our first step was to decide if the journey was downloading the app or starting from within the app experience. Since our goal was personalizing the experience itself, we decided to start from opening the app. That’s a different story than if we started at deciding to download the app.

Another storyboard could consider that journey, or even compare the customer and employee perspectives of a single journey. There’s no limit on stories and storyboards we can draw, and each can shed light on something new!

Be clear on your start point, point of view, and goal. Then fill in the scenes from one to the other.

4. Set a time limit.

This isn’t exactly a necessity, but it can spur creative thinking. If you’re working with a group, a time limit is really helpful. I’ve watched leaders sit there, staring at the paper, too intimidated to actually draw anything UNTIL they hear the 2-minute warning. Then they churn out some great ideas!

A time limit can help if this is a step outside of your comfort zone. Coming up with a solution in 8 minutes means 1 minute per panel. Give yourself 3 pieces of paper and 30 minutes and you can have three different plans to consider!

5. Get drawing and writing!

Use both images and words to tell the story. Quotes, thought bubbles, and captions can help tell your story.

Don’t worry about the quality of the images. Sketching out stick figures and adding emotional symbols like frowns or hearts still connects with the story and your brain.

Once You Have Your Customer Journey Storyboard, What’s Next?

Storyboards are fun to share. Use them to help others visualize the story. Or share each one with the larger group if this is a group activity.

Capture the ideas, questions, and challenges identified through this exercise. Then use what you’ve learned to prioritize next steps.

Storyboarding doesn’t have to fit into a perfect place in your customer experience framework. It can be used as a way to shake things up as needed, or to plan from the beginning. You can even use this technique to test if the solution that is defined will work for customers. This fits nicely in as part of journey mapping, but it can also stand alone to solve one specific issue.

And it’s fun! It feels good to play a little.

Get creative! Your customers (and your brain!) will reward you.

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Storyboard Template

Unlock your customer's journey with the storyboard template. Imagine different scenarios and improve your product or service.

Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies

About the Storyboard Template

Storyboarding is a technique that's traditionally used to plan the scenes in a movie, TV show, or commercial, but in recent years it's gained popularity in the business world. You can use the storyboard template to imagine various scenarios and visualize how a customer/user will think, feel, and act.

What is a storyboard template?

A storyboard is a sequence of illustrations used to develop a story. Traditionally, animators and designers have used storyboarding to design scenes for television, video games, or movies. However, many businesses now use storyboarding templates to understand and map customer experiences. Storyboarding is instrumental for aligning your team, pitching an idea, understanding the customer journey, and much more.

How to use the storyboard template in Miro

Select our pre-made storyboarding template, making any changes you'd like to suit your needs.

Here below, you can see some of the steps you can take to write a storyboard for a product with Miro's template:

1. Set the main actor of your storyboard

Discuss with your team who is the main actor of your story. Think of the personas you want to target with your product or business and try to describe their scenario, their needs and key activities. Add details and context to your main actor.

2. Map out your storyboard journey

Draw the journey of your main actor, from what triggered them to discover your product to the end of their experience. Sketch all moments that lead the actor from the initial struggling moment to their happy ending. Show how your solution helps them get there. Add details in each step with the following information: who, where, and what.

3. Understand the main actor

After you map out your actor's journey, it's time to understand how they feel. Is your actor happy? Are their struggles over? Can you visualize how their journey was and draw insights?

Invite team members to join your board and collaborate. Use the @mention or video chat if you need input from others. You can upload other file types such as documents, photos, videos, and PDFs, to store all the relevant information in one place.

When should you use the storyboard template?

Use the storyboard template anytime you'd like to really put yourself in a customer or user's position and understand how they think, feel, and act. This tactic can be especially useful when you know there's a problem or inefficiency with an existing process. You can even go one step further and create a user storyboard.

Another alternative is to create a storyboard of how things are now and how you'd like them to be in the future. Before launching a new product, feature, or service, you might also want to storyboard to anticipate what is likely to happen.

Why should you use a storyboarding template?

The major benefit of using a storyboard template is empathizing with your customers. Storyboarding empowers you to get inside your customers’ heads. What are their challenges? What needs are you filling? What could you do better? How could you make their lives easier? By drawing out your customers’ interaction with your products or services, you can better understand how to reach them.

Another advantage when storyboarding is that you can easily map the customer journey. For many organizations, the customer journey can feel like a black box. They log onto your site...and then what? They open your app...and then what? Use the Storyboard Template to dig into your customers’ step-by-step experience of your product or service and find your customers’ most meaningful moments. Once you've mapped the customer journey, you can find your customers’ most impactful interactions with your product. That helps ensure they get the most delightful and efficient experience possible.

Last but not least, uncover your customer journey gaps. Just as you can uncover your customers’ meaningful moments, you can also discover gaps in your product or service. Is there something that your customers might want but that you do not provide? Is there a missing element or step that would improve their experience? Storyboarding can sharpen and clarify these points.

Can I collaborate with my team in real time on the storyboard template?

Of course! Miro is specifically designed for effortless collaboration. You can easily invite your team members to join the board, allowing everyone to work together in real time. This means that they can add sticky notes, images, and comments to contribute to the storyboard, fostering teamwork and ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

Can I use the storyboard template for different types of projects?

The storyboarding template is an adaptable tool that can be customized for different creative projects, such as marketing campaigns, product launches, and video productions. Its flexibility makes it a valuable asset for various endeavors, allowing you to tailor the template to your specific needs.

Is the storyboard template available for both free and paid Miro users?

Both free and paid Miro users can access the storyboard template. While some advanced features are exclusive to premium plans, the basic functionality is available to all users.

Get started with this template right now.

Presentation Template

Works best for:.

Presentations, Education

At some point during your career, you’ll probably have to give a presentation. Presentations typically involve speaking alongside an accompanying slide deck that contains visuals, texts, and graphics to illustrate your topic. Take the stress out of presentation planning by using this presentation template to easily create effective, visually appealing slides. The presentation template can take the pressure off by helping your audience stay focused and engaged. Using simple tools, customize a slide deck, share slides with your team, get feedback, and collaborate.

AARRR Template

Marketing, Strategic Planning, Project Planning

Sometimes called “Pirate Metrics” because of the name (go ahead, say it, it’s fun), AARRR is a valuable approach for startups to consider. That’s because AARRR stands for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue—five key types of user behavior that are highly measurable and drive growth. Ask and answer the right questions around each of these five factors, and you’ll be able to establish clear goals and identify the best steps to help reach them.

Customer Journey Map Template

Ideation, Mapping, Product Management

A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of your customer’s experience. It allows you to capture the path that a customer follows when they buy a product, sign up for a service, or otherwise interact with your site. Most maps include a specific persona, outlines their customer experience from beginning to end, and captures the potential emotional highs and lows of interacting with the product or service. Use this template to easily create customer journey maps for projects of all kinds.

Six Thinking Hats Template

Ideation, Brainstorming

The Six Thinking Hats by Dr. Edward de Bono was created as an alternative to argument, it is designed to help teams explore and develop ideas collaboratively. Use this template to boost creative thinking and get different perspectives so you and your team can make better-informed decisions.

Reverse Brainstorming Template

Ideation, Brainstorming, Team Meetings

Reverse brainstorming is a technique that prompts a group to think of problems, rather than solutions. Because we naturally think of problems, it’s a great way to get a group to anticipate problems that may occur during a project. To engage in reverse brainstorming, start by identifying the problem, and then think of things that might exacerbate it. Ask your team to generate ideas around ways in which the problem could get worse. Reverse the problems into solutions again, and then evaluate your ideas.

Buyer Persona Template

Marketing, Desk Research, User Experience

You have an ideal customer: The group (or few groups) of people who will buy and love your product or service. But to reach that ideal customer, your entire team or company has to align on who that is. Buyer personas give you a simple but creative way to get that done. These semi-fictional representations of your current and potential customers can help you shape your product offering, weed out the “bad apples,” and tailor your marketing strategies for serious success.

Customer Journey Maps: How to Create Really Good Ones [Examples + Template]

Updated: April 17, 2024

Published: May 04, 2023

Did you know 70% of online shoppers abandoned their carts in 2022? Why would someone spend time adding products to their cart just to fall off the customer journey map at the last second?

The thing is — understanding your customer base can be very challenging. Even when you think you’ve got a good read on them, the journey from awareness to purchase for each customer will always be unpredictable, at least to some level.

While it isn’t possible to predict every experience with 100% accuracy, customer journey mapping is a convenient tool for keeping track of critical milestones that every customer hits. In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know about customer journey mapping — what it is, how to create one, and best practices.

Table of Contents

What is the customer journey?

What is a customer journey map, benefits of customer journey mapping, customer journey stages.

• What’s included in a customer journey map?

The Customer Journey Mapping Process

Steps for creating a customer journey map.

• Types of Customer Journey Maps

Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices

• Customer Journey Design
• Customer Journey Map Examples

Free Customer Journey Map Templates

Free Customer Journey Template

Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free templates.

• Buyer's Journey Template
• Future State Template
• Day-in-the-Life Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

The customer journey is the series of interactions a customer has with a brand, product, or business as they become aware of a pain point and make a purchase decision. While the buyer’s journey refers to the general process of arriving at a purchase, the customer journey refers to a buyer's purchasing experience with a specific company or service.

Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey

Many businesses that I’ve worked with were confused about the differences between the customer’s journey and the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is the entire buying experience from pre-purchase to post-purchase. It covers the path from customer awareness to becoming a product or service user.

In other words, buyers don’t wake up and decide to buy on a whim. They go through a process of considering, evaluating, and purchasing a new product or service.

The customer journey refers to your brand’s place within the buyer’s journey. These are the customer touchpoints where you will meet your customers as they go through the stages of the buyer’s journey. When you create a customer journey map, you’re taking control of every touchpoint at every stage of the journey instead of leaving it up to chance.

For example, at HubSpot, our customer’s journey is divided into three stages — pre-purchase/sales, onboarding/migration, and normal use/renewal.

1. Use customer journey map templates.

Why make a customer journey map from scratch when you can use a template? Save yourself some time by downloading HubSpot’s free customer journey map templates .

This has templates that map out a buyer’s journey, a day in your customer’s life, lead nurturing, and more.

These templates can help sales, marketing, and customer support teams learn more about your company’s buyer persona. This will improve your product and customer experience.

2. Set clear objectives for the map.

Before you dive into your customer journey map, you need to ask yourself why you’re creating one in the first place.

What goals are you directing this map towards? Who is it for? What experience is it based upon?

If you don’t have one, I recommend creating a buyer persona . This persona is a fictitious customer with all the demographics and psychographics of your average customer. This persona reminds you to direct every aspect of your customer journey map toward the right audience.

3. Profile your personas and define their goals.

Next, you should conduct research. This is where it helps to have customer journey analytics ready.

Don’t have them? No worries. You can check out HubSpot’s Customer Journey Analytics tool to get started.

Questionnaires and user testing are great ways to obtain valuable customer feedback. The important thing is to only contact actual customers or prospects.

You want feedback from people interested in purchasing your products and services who have either interacted with your company or plan to do so.

Some examples of good questions to ask are:

• How did you hear about our company?
• What first attracted you to our website?
• What are the goals you want to achieve with our company? In other words, what problems are you trying to solve?
• How long have you/do you typically spend on our website?
• Have you ever made a purchase with us? If so, what was your deciding factor?
• Have you ever interacted with our website to make a purchase but decided not to? If so, what led you to this decision?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easily can you navigate our website?
• Did you ever require customer support? If so, how helpful was it, on a scale of 1 to 10?
• Can we further support you to make your process easier?

You can use this buyer persona tool to fill in the details you procure from customer feedback.

4. Highlight your target customer personas.

Once you’ve learned about the customer personas that interact with your business, I recommend narrowing your focus to one or two.

Remember, a customer journey map tracks the experience of a customer taking a particular path with your company. If you group too many personas into one journey, your map won’t accurately reflect that experience.

When creating your first map, it’s best to pick your most common customer persona and consider the route they would typically take when engaging with your business for the first time.

You can use a marketing dashboard to compare each and determine the best fit for your journey map. Don’t worry about the ones you leave out, as you can always go back and create a new map specific to those customer types.

5. List out all touchpoints.

Begin by listing the touchpoints on your website.

What is a touchpoint in a customer journey map?

A touchpoint in a customer journey map is an instance where your customer can form an opinion of your business. You can find touchpoints in places where your business comes in direct contact with a potential or existing customer.

For example, if I were to view a display ad, interact with an employee, reach a 404 error, or leave a Google review, all of those interactions would be considered a customer touchpoint.

Your brand exists beyond your website and marketing materials, so you must consider the different types of touchpoints in your customer journey map. These touchpoints can help uncover opportunities for improvement in the buying journey.

Based on your research, you should have a list of all the touchpoints your customers are currently using and the ones you believe they should be using if there’s no overlap.

This is essential in creating a customer journey map because it provides insight into your customers’ actions.

For instance, if they use fewer touchpoints than expected, does this mean they’re quickly getting turned away and leaving your site early? If they are using more than expected, does this mean your website is complicated and requires several steps to reach an end goal?

Whatever the case, understanding touchpoints help you understand the ease or difficulties of the customer journey.

Aside from your website, you must also look at how your customers might find you online. These channels might include:

• Social channels.
• Email marketing.
• Third-party review sites or mentions.

Run a quick Google search of your brand to see all the pages that mention you. Verify these by checking your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from. Whittle your list down to those touchpoints that are the most common and will be most likely to see an action associated with it.

At HubSpot, we hosted workshops where employees from all over the company highlighted instances where our product, service, or brand impacted a customer. Those moments were recorded and logged as touchpoints. This showed us multiple areas of our customer journey where our communication was inconsistent.

The proof is in the pudding — you can see us literally mapping these touch points out with sticky notes in the image below.

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Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free customer journey map templates.

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The User Journey Map Begins With Epic Storytelling

Storytelling is an excellent way to describe anything because stories conjure detailed images. Once you create a visual association, cognitive processes leap into action to make the story in the user journey map a reality that is easy to track.

This is what the customer journey map (CJM) is all about—epic storytelling that involves comprehensive planning to capture the design process and deliver a unique customer experience.

Creating a customer journey map (also called the user journey map) involves planning a project from the user’s point of view and using personas, epics, features, user stories, and tasks. This visualization process also involves several stakeholders as user personas on the road to planning perfection.

By the end of the project, your CJM should help achieve business goals and exceed customer expectations with enough touchpoints along the way to motivate satisfaction. The process is a little like rubbing Aladdin's lamp to manifest your deepest wishes.

What is the user journey map?

In contrast to the flat backlog, the customer journey map makes the vision for your project come alive in real-time. You get to use creative storytelling to generate a magical customer experience through visual representations.

Project team members accomplish this by developing an empathy map to an almost-perfect plan from the customer’s perspective. User journey mapping captures the customer’s emotional state, which helps identify touchpoints and pain points. Teams then use these points to elevate the customer experience.

Unlike rubbing a genie’s lamp for results, you get to use convenient software to develop a service blueprint where design thinking reflects a shared vision between stakeholders.

The starting point is to anticipate customer interactions with the mobile app or other e-commerce project development story. That’s why user research is another vital element in developing the customer journey map template.

This customer journey map template should also draw valuable information from the empathy map and the experience map. An in-depth understanding of the KPIs and metrics that go into storytelling helps direct product usability through appreciating customer interactions with the product.

Customer interactions generate feedback, which leads to understanding customer's needs. Additional touchpoints can then be included or modified to build on the overall project outcomes.

Essentially, you use hierarchical storytelling on a magical customer journey map template to meet real-life expectations that resonate with the customer experience.

The customer journey mapping hierarchy

When beginning the journey to create the ideal customer experience, team members should visualize the project from the user’s current state. Once you capture the essence of the current customer perspective, you can better understand what needs to change and improve.

A simple example may be a travel app that encompasses services such as travel agent services, flight bookings, and accommodation in a geographical area (present state). The client wants to create a future state app which contains tourist activities to augment the customer experience. The basic process will then look like this:

For app customers who want a value-add experience with our travel app which is a helpful resource that provides tips on local tourist activities.

Your user journey map hierarchy involves four building blocks to meet customers’ needs:

• Understanding user personas or buyer personas
• Developing themes and epics to address touchpoints
• Using steps or features to support epics and the narrative flow
• The stories in the customer journey map

1. Understand user personas or buyer personas

The user journey map starts with defining the user personas or buyer personas as vital stakeholders in project development. These customer personas represent the top of the hierarchy, which is the starting point of the customer journey map.

A detailed visual reflection of the user persona is vital to getting your final product right. To deliver this, you need to walk through the story mapping journey from the customer’s perspective. This helps avoid the nasty consequences of inadequate planning that results in sub-optimum deliverables and unhappy teams and customers.

To understand user personas, you need to identify the various potential touchpoints in the journey and customer pain points through use cases and feedback. You’ll need to anticipate as many potential scenarios as possible from the buyer persona’s perspective.

Although the “who,” “what,” and “why” are instrumental in defining the user story, it all begins with visualizing user personas and thinking about customer behaviors, demographics, needs, and goals.

Once you define who your customer personas are, you can follow up with themes and epics to deliver on customer expectations. The epics are the heroes or heroines in this story visualization method.

2. Develop themes and epics to address touchpoints

The customer journey map positions epics at the top of the storyboard because they are vital to creating a great project.

Team leaders must consult with the client and relevant stakeholders to develop an overarching project theme, to translate into epics. Epics flow through this theme from left to right. These epics show large bodies of work broken down into smaller features which can meet continuous delivery value.

Epics are also strategic directives that begin with the current state of an issue and move the situation into a desirable future state. This epic future state is built on tactics, or features and tasks, which team members use to clarify project requirements and move toward that magical future state of project success.

Before team members can move forward, they need to get the epics right. Epics cover three fundamental foundations: user persona, product, and design requirements, which reflect visually on the user journey map.

The epics should meet several foundational requirements:

• Follow through by aligning the overall business goals with detailed buyer personas and demographics
• Broadly outline the user persona’s needs
• Meet specific customer needs by addressing touchpoints and pain points
• Include specific functions, features, and benefits
• Produce a future state ideal project

After designing your heroic epics to cover the project's primary goals, you can start breaking these into steps that integrate with the overall narrative flow of the user story.

3. Use epics for highlighting the narrative flow

Once you clearly define your epics, it’s time to generate narrower steps or features.

As your epics move from left to right, you must define each of the necessary steps to accomplish business goals. This customizable process uses epics to relay the user journey over the project duration to reflect project outcomes.

The customer journey map template also forms the basis of the ideal user story as you transition from epics to features. The features originate from the epics, which is why the epics are the heroes in this story. They “save” customers with excellent planning and deliverables. 

At its most basic level, features should include the following elements:

• Deliverables that add value and support epics completion
• Generate business value by considering KPIs, metrics, customer acquisition, and retention
• Demonstrate sufficient definition for team members to follow through on time estimates and complete tasks within one to three sprints
• Team members must be able to test the results of their features
• Establish test criteria for each feature to set acceptable quality standards that meet customer expectations before moving to the next step

In short, the user acceptance criteria (UAC) in the user journey map should include a brief item value description, a feature benefit explanation, and the feature quality completion points that team members must achieve.

Only once you nail these details can you tell the user stories from the customer's perspective. Similarly, only once you complete these three fundamental building blocks in the customer journey map can you focus on user stories and business goals that include customer satisfaction and retention.

4. Begin storytelling through the user journey map

After the third step in the hierarchy of the user journey map, the actual user stories begin. This is the final step in design thinking related to the visualization of epics into manageable stories and tasks.

To state the buyer persona case, team members must understand the “who,” “what,” and “why” of the customer experience. Understanding and defining the customer personas forms the basis of user story creation, enabling delivery of the most acceptable product possible.

Developing the best story relies on creating user stories that highlight the customer experience and use cases that highlight the finer details of system performance.

In the story creation phase, team members assume the customer’s perspective to define requests. Team members can consider exploring social media to understand customer behavior and experiences to use as story inputs. User stories can also include enabler tasks to augment feature completion.

Team members typically write their user stories to complete these in short sprints. Sprint completion involves task completion for release before completing one epic and moving to the next, except where concurrent work is possible.

Ultimately, the user journey map must tell the customer’s story of how their need will be met by creating or modifying a product, process, service, or system feature. New developments must follow through on the formula of “as a…” “I want…” “so that...”

As a new Agile team member , I want to understand my and other team member's roles so that I am clear about my tasks and the responsibilities of other team members.

After generating user stories, team members can break tasks into even smaller parts to facilitate work deliverables and reduce potential churn that negatively impacts customer retention.

As the user journey map progresses, the stories should clearly outline the activities for completion, always linking these back to buyer persona goals. The smaller, granular tasks then relate to user behaviors, and the outcomes link to each step of the process to reinforce what deliverables will meet customer needs within set timeframes.

During the customer journey map, stories can be split further to accomplish greater clarity.

Bottom line: The customer journey map

Through the customer journey mapping process, you should capture the primary epics of the user journey in the story map visualization.

You will need to develop the user story map holistically and interrupt it with additions and subtractions in an iterative fashion. This iterative user story mapping process helps minimize churn as you continue to update your story as you move forward.

Once the project is done, you need to test the product on potential customers, gather customer feedback, and improve the user journey map.

The benefits of carefully planning the customer experience through a visual format are exponential.

Tell your project story with Easy Agile User Story Maps for Jira

The customer journey should highlight the ideal user experience. To do this, the user story map should incorporate the project from user personas to achieve stories with valuable touchpoints as markers along the way.

Once the visual representation is done, it should validate the service blueprint for the customer journey mapping process through the current and future states of the project.

Throughout the project, your team should create a unique user journey that delivers the ultimate customer experience and exceeds customer expectations.

Try Easy Agile TeamRhythm and Personas today to make your customers' stories come alive with magic.

Why User Story Mapping?

Anatomy of an Agile User Story Map

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How to Use Storyboards for Product Development

It’s a common scene at many tech companies today:

Marketer Mary has an idea for a new product. Mary thinks this product will be a huge winner and goes to tech to have them build it. Developer Diane hears Mary’s idea and tells her she will start working on it. As Diane continues to build out functionality, she realizes that the product will actually be much more efficient if she combines some of the parts and cuts out others. Diane finishes building the product and sends it over to Creative Chris. Chris meets with Mary to discuss the product’s UI, where Mary explains her ideas. Chris gets to work. He starts to incorporate Mary’s ideas but quickly realizes that he has a much better and more interesting UI concept in mind, and eventually completes the product that way. Once the project is complete, Mary is upset. The product has neither the functionality she asked for, nor does the UI allow the user to navigate the product properly. All three departments go back to the drawing board to redo the product, and a significant amount of time and money has been wasted.

This situation is no one person’s fault:

• Mary should have explained to Diane and Chris her clear end goal of the product and let them create it with the goal in mind.
• Diane and Chris should have understood that Mary was asking for specific functionalities and UI for a reason. They should have worked together to create a concept that works for everyone.

An underutilized tool for solving these issues is storyboards.

Communication and consensus is key to successful product development.

What is a Storyboard?

A storyboard is a collection of cells that each depicts an image and together narrate a story or journey. Historically, storyboards were most commonly used in media or film production but product developers are now incorporating storyboarding into their processes. Creating a storyboards forces product developers to think through a process in a step-by-step manner allowing them to design streamlined user experiences.  

Why Use Storyboards?

Traditionally, storyboards have been used in media and film to plan out video shots before investing time and resources into the actual production. The use of storyboards for product development and UX design is not that much different. Storyboards allow product designers to easily and inexpensively test multiple product visions, customer journey maps, and UX product flows until a clear final product design is created and understood by all departments.

Storyboards can be an empathetic tool to describe the user’s problem.

Start with the product vision. This is a simple statement, story, or example of how you want the product to function and what objective you want it to achieve. The vision helps the product developer understand the user’s journey as they interact with the product and design the product around the user’s needs.

Creating a few product visions and working across departments is an essential first step to developing a product. Use this step to communicate the product goals to the development team and to create a realistic timeframe for feature development and market release. A storyboard allows for a clearer understanding from the start of how the product is intended to be built and minimizes the chances for miscommunications as the development process continues.

Use storyboards to quickly show differences between the user and buyer of the product.

Next, storyboarding helps create customer journey maps of your target personas. It’s important to remember that your product users and your product purchasers may not be the same people, and therefore you will have to cater both your product design and marketing efforts differently depending on which audience you’re trying to reach. Work with your team and narrow down a few key buyer personas. Step into their shoes and walk through what you think their process would be, step-by-step, when it comes to realizing what problem they have, looking for a solution, purchasing your product, and finally seeing positive results from the product implementation. Creating a customer journey map storyboard allows developers to experience the product discovery and purchasing process, which in turn can maximize your conversion rate.

Finally, it’s time to dig into the actual UX/UI of the product. When developing a product’s functionality and flow, it’s easy to either miss essential steps that we chalk up in our own heads as “automatic” or do the opposite and get carried away and create superfluous user required actions. Creating a storyboard allows product developers to easily walk through a sample UX step-by-step. The exercise points out holes and problems, where a user might get lost in the process or wasteful steps that may decrease conversion rate.

Much like low-fidelity prototyping tools, storyboards can show product screens and key user flows.

Storyboards are a low investment activity and are easy to iterate, manipulate, and pivot based on feedback from coworkers or user testing. It’s easy to create a few UX examples and work with the product design team to decide which one is the simplest, most streamlined, and will lead to the highest possible conversion rate.

How to Get Started

Here are some guiding questions to help you create storyboards for each of the three essential product development milestones:

Creating a product vision:

• What problem are my target users currently experiencing?
• What would help alleviate this problem?
• How will my product provide this form of problem alleviation?
• What does a “happy user” look like?

Creating a customer journey map for key user personas :

• Who would be buying my product? How old are they? What is their professional background? What are their motivations (both personal and professional)?
• What problem are my buyers currently experiencing?
• How would they come across my product as a solution?
• What problems would they face when either trying to purchase my product, or implement it in their business?
• What would success from our product look like from our buyer’s perspective?

Creating a user experience flow:

• Where do you want your users to land?
• What is the “hook” that will stop them from bouncing on your page?
• Do you need different landing pages for different types of users?
• How can you capture their contact info so your sales team can follow up on a lead?
• Are all the steps necessary? Can you cut any out to streamline the flow and increase conversion rate?
• Is there a clear and obvious way for the users to purchase the product?

Keeping these guiding questions in mind, it’s time to start creating. Create a storyboard from scratch or use a premade template like the one below to help you get started. Play around with different ideas and discuss with coworkers across departments. Iterate your storyboards until consensus has been reached and everyone clearly understands the action items for starting the product development process. Make sure to keep your storyboards handy and constantly update them throughout the design process. As ideas change and grow so should your storyboards!

Get started by using a template .

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Free Storyboard Images for Customer Journey Map

Visualization is what lies at the basis of customer journey mapping. In order to get your point across to your clients or company’s management, you should make sure your artifact has a proper visual representation of your customer journey. Otherwise, your pitch is likely to fall short.

Visualizing your customer journey and experience was one of the key goals we aimed at when creating the UXPressia CJM tool . However, visualization in journey maps is something you can never get enough of. To give you a little more help with it, we now make UXPressia storyboard images available for download.

What is storyboard

A storyboard is a number of pictures that help you get a better understanding and translate to others what exactly your customers experience or go through at each stage of their journey. We offer 18 sets of storyboards for 18 different businesses, from video games and to health institutions.

Here is what storyboard looks like on a customer journey map.

How to use customer journey map storyboard

You can insert images in any text section on your journey map using the Text Formater or simply by dragging them from your computer on the CJM. In order to get a full visual representation of the customer journey, make sure each stage of the journey map has its own image.

Moreover, you can use images from different folders for various journey maps if they make sense there. For example, the picture for the research stage from the “Template for travel” folder will fit into almost any journey map that implies some prior research.

Download the archive and save your designer from drawing storyboard from scratch. Use images to reflect all your customer journey’s smallest details that can’t be put into words.

ENTER YOUR DETAILS TO GET THE IMAGES:

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The basics of customer journey mapping

A customer journey map is an end-to-end visualization of your customers' experience. In this article, you learn how this method can help you to better understand your customers' expectations and needs, and how to use these insights to significantly increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

• The customer journey
• The customer journey map
• Why create a customer journey map
• How to create a customer journey map
• Elements of a customer journey map
• 6 Tips for advanced journey mappers

Additional learning resources

Key take aways, what's the customer journey.

The customer journey is the process that a person goes through when interacting with a brand, product, or service, from their initial awareness and consideration to the eventual purchase and post-purchase experience. It encompasses all touchpoints and interactions a customer has, both online and offline, and is vital for understanding their behavior, needs, and satisfaction levels. Analyzing the customer journey helps businesses optimize their strategies to create a seamless and satisfying experience that fosters customer loyalty.

A few examples of customer journeys are:

• Experience of a website or an app
• Employee experience during the recruitment process
• Journey of a patient admitted to a hospital
• Customer experience in different sectors, like banking , tourism , education , etc.

Sometimes the customer journey is called user journey; basically it's the same concept, but with a different focus persona : a user persona focuses on a person who is actually using a service or product. This might differ from a person buying , following , or owning a product or service. Thus, most concepts from the customer journey are valid for other focus personas too.

➡️ Tip: Here's a in-depth guide on user journey mapping that is focusing on digital user journeys.

What is a customer journey map?

Let's start with a clear definition:

A customer journey map (CJM) is a diagram that visualizes the sequence of steps a person takes when interacting with your company, product, or service. It includes evidences of all touchpoints along the customer journey, from awareness through purchase and post-purchase stages. A customer journey map typically includes information like interactions with channels of communication (social media, live chat, emails, etc.) and customer satisfaction evaluation for each experience.

A customer journey map is like a movie: It tells the story of a protagonist in a sequence of scenes. It can illustrate the experiences of different people.

Sometimes you will also hear other terms describing the concept: customer journey map, user journey map, customer experience map, or consumer journey map – basically it's all the same kind of visualization, just with a different focus on a different actor.

This is an example of a customer/user journey map:

The goal is to understand what they experience along the way, and to ensure a seamless experience at all touchpoints and across channels. A journey map helps to ensure every customer (or any other actor) is going through your service journey over the path that you have prepared for them. Furthermore it also helps to align the contribution of stakeholders that help to make the journey happen.

... and what is customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a journey map of a customer or any other main actor. It involves creating a visual representation of the customer's experience, which helps you to understand their interactions with a product, service, or brand.

Customer journey mapping helps businesses understand the customer’s perspective. These maps put the customer needs at the center of the design & innovation process, which makes them strong tools for a human-centered approach.

Nowadays, customer/user journey mapping is more and more involved as an ongoing customer journey management process: it's used to orchestrate improvements in customer satisfaction.

Watch this 4-minute video on the What & Why of journey mapping:

Why create a customer journey map?

Let’s imagine a company is struggling with retaining customers, which is crucial for the company’s growth.

Mapping out the SaaS customers' journeys could help the company identify the small and big moments that influence customers’ decisions and get to the bottom of the problem. For instance, customers may churn because of poor onboarding, bad web interface or low-quality support.

There are manifold business cases for customer journey mapping – let's summarize a few possible reasons to start with journey mapping.

When to start with customer journey mapping?

• When being confronted with low customer satisfaction, to understand the current flaws
• When creating product roadmaps, to successfully prioritize features
• When founding new businesses, to make sure you're truly meeting customer needs
• When working on service blueprints, to balance it out with a customer-centered perspective

As we see, customer journey mapping provides value and benefits in many different situations. Therefore, almost every moment is right to start with journey mapping –it will always help you to better understand the current-state experience.

➡️ Tip: Allocate sufficient resources to journey mapping; especially if you make it a team project, make sure everybody can invest a decent amount of time.

What's the ROI of customer journey mapping – is it worth it?

Customer journey mapping doesn’t only matter from the revenue perspective for business or e-commerce – it is relevant in various niches, like healthcare or civil service.

• Companies with a customer experience mindset drive revenue 4-8% higher than the rest of their industries
• 81% of companies view user experience as a competitive differentiator
• 96% of customers say customer service is important in their choice of loyalty to a brand
• Brands with superior customer experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than competitors that lag in customer experience
• Companies with initiatives to improve their customer experience see employee engagement increase by 20% on average

Check out a larger collection of CX statistics on Forbes.

How to create a customer journey map ?

Customer journey maps vary depending on their goal, context, detail, etc. User journeys can cover omnichannel journeys or focus on a single step. Regardless of their size or design, good journey maps are made up of similar components.

Here’s an example of what a journey map can look like—

For more customer/user journey examples, have a look at our example journey map collection .

No time to read?

We’ve got you covered –

Watch this video, it sums up the most important steps for building a customer journey map. If you want to dive deeper into the topic scroll down and read the article.

Step 1: Define the scope of your journey map

When you’re creating a customer journey map, the first and most important step is to define its scale and scope based on your journey challenge .

For example, high-level journey maps provide an overview of an end-to-end experience. You can use them to plan your research, manage multiple projects and teams, or to align different detailed journeys.

If you want to focus on one step of a higher-level journey, build a more detailed journey map . If your goal is to work on a specific idea or a challenge, concentrate on customer needs and how your idea connects with them.

In other words, the first step to making an effective customer journey map is to decide how far you want to zoom in or out of the experience you are illustrating.

If you’re unsure how detailed a journey map should be and how many steps it should include, start with a high-level journey map to get an overview of the entire journey. ‍ – Marc Stickdorn, Co-Founder & CEO of Smaply

After that, it’s easier to zoom in on single steps of a journey. Just ask yourself: What happens in step X? How does the persona actually get there?

Step 2: Choose a persona to focus on

A journey map is usually based on a specifying persona that represents the behavioral traits and needs of your average customer. Personas are fictional characters that represent groups of people with similar behavioral patterns, needs, interests, and goals. Developing personas provides a deeper understanding of your customers and helps create a realistic journey map. Furthermore, using personas ensures you put your customer’s perspective at the center and create empathy for your customer.

Sometimes it makes sense to combine various perspectives on one map – this is where multi-persona maps come into the game. For example, you can compare the experiences of different customer groups or map out employee experience while at the same time mapping the customer’s experience.

I recommend to use core personas during the journey map design process but to test it with extreme cases because different sets of skills and expectations will have high impact on the actual experience. For example, usually elderly people experience digital services much different from young folks ‍ – Marc Stickdorn, Co-Founder & CEO of Smaply

The persona strongly influences the overall outcome of mapping customer journeys. So take your time to define and understand who you’re making the map for and why. Start with a basic outline that includes age, gender, education, occupation, income, and location. Next add psychological criteria, such as attitudes and aspirations.

Here's a more detailed guide on creating a persona .

➡️ Tip: If you’re building a journey map or creating a persona with pen and paper, the results are often forgotten or neglected. The reason is simple — it is too difficult to visualize them and make changes to them afterward.

You can now convert your offline notes into an online customer journey map and edit it when needed. This way, teams have presentable exports within a few minutes and can collaborate in a digital environment.

You can use this to compare different experiences, to understand pain points of different customer groups, of different segments. It’s also interesting to see how two personas interact with each other. ‍ – Marc Stickdorn, Co-Founder & CEO of Smaply

You can use a free persona generator and connect it to your organization’s customer journey map.

➡️ Tip: Learn more about embedding personas in organizations .

Step 3: Collect data and insights

Researching customer experience is a crucial phase in the customer journey mapping process. It involves gathering a wealth of information from various sources, such as customer feedback, surveys, analytics, and market research, to gain a deep understanding of customer behaviors, preferences, pain points, and motivations.

This data provides the foundation upon which the customer journey map is built, allowing businesses to identify key touchpoints, moments of delight, and areas where improvements are needed.

Through the collection of relevant and accurate data, organizations can make informed decisions, tailor their strategies, and ultimately create a more personalized and satisfying customer experience that resonates with their audience.

Step 4: Create the customer journey map

Now it's time to actually build the customer journey map; depending on your team setup, you can do so either alone with a simple pen-and-paper template , or invite your team to a customer journey workshop .

Creating a journey map describes the activity of visualizing all the CX data that you have gathered in a well-structured map. A common visualization of a customer journey map is in the form of a matrix:

• Each step, or experience, gets its own column.
• Row, or lanes are optional elements that enhance the journey map. They offer room for extra information about backend and frontend activities.

Here are some common lanes you can add to the map you’re building:

Steps and touchpoints

Steps in a journey map represent a customer's activities along their journey to reach a goal (e.g. a purchase).

To be more precise, we usually differentiate between steps and touchpoints: The difference between steps and touchpoints is that a touchpoint is a direct interaction with a brand, whereas a step includes every experience a customer has along the journey.

Steps describe every experience a customer has along the journey. Steps can include customers doing research, experiencing waiting time or getting to the store by bus. So you can’t always influence every step that your customer experiences.

Touchpoints refer to interactions between a customer and a company that either strengthen or weaken their trust. These interactions can take various forms, such as reading an ad, reaching out to customer service, or using a product. Touchpoints encompass all experiences that the customer or main persona encounters, whether they involve human interaction, machines, or digital interfaces.

Hence, every touchpoint is a step, but not every step is a touchpoint. So don’t forget to add both types of interactions to your journey map. You can’t directly influence every step; but you can influence every touchpoint.

When you create a customer journey map, describe each step/touchpoint in one horizontal row. Give each one a short title to sum up your persona’s experience and activity.

‍ ➡️ Tip: Before you start adding touchpoints to your map, decide what the key part of the experience is. Then ask yourself what happens before and after this experience. It will help you plan out each touchpoint.

➡️ Tip: Avoid creating journey maps with too many steps – you’ll likely lose focus then. In the beginning, try not to exceed 20 steps per journey.

Stages divide the customer journey timeline and help structure it. For example, a simple journey map can consist of three stages: pre-service, service, and post-service. A more complex map can include further detailed stages, such as gathering information, buying, setting up, using, support, etc.

The example journey map above shows the five touchpoints for Tess in her favorite café. We categorized them into two stages: ‘Pre-coffee at home’ and ‘Heading to Café Bean’.

Here are some examples of  customer/user journey map stages in different industries:

• Travel: research, booking, arrival, stay, return
• Restaurant: arrival, ordering, meal, payment, leaving
• Online shopping: research, evaluation, ordering, delivery, returns
• Airport: pre-boarding, boarding, flight, exit

Storyboards

A storyboard is a visual representation that depicts the various experiences. Storyboarding offers more than just visualization and empathy-building. By representing specific moments, it allows detailed exploration of each scene, offering diverse perspectives on the persona's journey and facilitating the creation process. Finally it also aids in efficiently navigating extensive customer journey maps.

A storyboard is really valuable for a customer journey map:

• It visualizes the situation holistically
• It provides context for each situation
• It gives a comprehensive overview of the whole journey
• It makes it easier to empathize with the persona
• It makes large maps easy to navigate

On a storyboard, you can use the following kinds of visuals:

• ‍ photos of real-life situations
• screenshots of interfaces
• scribbles visualizing specific situations

You can even sometimes create a comprehensive and engaging customer journey map with just touchpoints and a storyboard.

Text and descriptions

You can also elaborate on each step of your CJM with text descriptions. Text lanes can describe the persona’s pain points or include verbatim customer quotes to articulate what they are experiencing.

If needed, you can add additional lanes for user wants and needs , wishes, your own ideas, KPIs, etc.

When you create a customer journey map, extra information allows you to describe the customer's experience better or to add other types of information, such as:

• Pain points
• Jobs to be done
• Thinking and feeling
• Ideas for improvement
• Key learnings
• Opportunities
• .... and many more

Channels of communication

Your customers interact with your company via different channels, switching between online and offline channels, using different devices and media. Journey mapping can help you get an overview on these channels: Adding channel lanes to your customer journey map shows how people interact with your brand or product. It's especially useful for high-level maps to fill in gaps in cross-channel experiences.

The channel lane gives you a comprehensive overview of journey maps, especially high-level ones. Specifying the channel (e.g. face-to-face, telephone, online, etc.) at each touchpoint informs stakeholders about cross-channel experiences and potential gaps in cross-channel CX.

Compare experiences between different channels and ensure you align them online and offline. Remember that your customers see your company as one entity so you might want to create an omnichannel customer journey map . For example, buying a ticket online is different from buying it in person.

➡️ Tip: even if you're providing a digital service – don't forget about non-digital channels!

Emotional journey

The emotional journey is the core of your map. An emotional journey reveals obvious gaps within a persona’s level of satisfaction at each step. You can use a simple 5-point Likert scale from very negative (-2) to neutral (0) to very positive (+2) to describe a persona’s experience.

For example, a standard customer service might be neutral but a very kind service can result in high satisfaction and add 1 or 2 points on a scale.

• Dramatic arc

The dramatic arc is a graph that shows a persona’s engagement or the importance of a particular step. It is useful to analyze the existing experience as well as map out a future concept or a desired engagement.

Dramatic arcs help you to reflect on the pace and rhythm of an experience. You can use them to analyze an existing experience or to plan a future concept along a desired dramatic arc.

You can again use a 5-point scale – this time from very low (+1) to very high (+5).

Remember though that there are moments of thrill (high engagement) and chill (low engagement), and both can be either positive or negative. How so? A low dramatic arc when purchasing a few standard pencils is acceptable – but a low dramatic arc when sitting on a rollercoaster is definitely not. Marc Stickdorn, co-founder and CEO of Smaply

In summary, the more details (lanes) you add, the more realistic is the map you create. When you arrange all the data, focus on the right content and make the format easy to understand for everyone involved. The choice of lanes you use in your map depends on the type of journey map you create and the scope of your project.

➡️ Tip: customize your journey map according to your audience's interests!

There’s no right or wrong way to create a map, but customer journey map tools like Smaply help you organize it for free. It’s important to tailor it to your product and business.

Optimize customer journey maps: 6 tips for great insights

To optimize your first drafts of journey maps, we recommend the following tips and tricks:

1. Use customer journey metrics and data

You should never base a decision on assumptions, and therefore you need to back up your journey maps with real data. Current-state customer experience measures will give you a solid foundation for all the decisions that follow.

Mix qualitative and quantitative approaches when designing journey maps!

On the one hand, you can use customer journey metrics to track and evaluate the customer experience performance. A few common customer journey metrics are:

• Customer lifetime value
• Customer acquisition cost
• Customer satisfaction scores
• Conversion rates
• Return rates

Beyond these quantitative customer journey metrics, you can also use qualitative journey insights to better understand your customer experience. Examples for such qualitative data are:

• Customer interview recordings and transcripts
• Video documentations
• Insights gained from observations

These insights from experience research will make your customer journey map a living boundary object with relevant information for many different people/departments. Furthermore, this will make the journey map a hub for your CX insights.

2. Look at backstage activities

A journey map should always be based on the persona’s experience. However, that does not mean you should not consider backstage processes that influence the journey.

A backstage lane shows internal activities that are mostly invisible to the customer. These internal activities are however crucial in delivering the product or service.

They also illustrate the resources an organization needs to invest in to maintain a certain quality of service.

Let's take an example from digital customer service : a customer is calling an organization’s service center. The customer might only experience personal interaction with the agent, and how well a problem is solved. The organization, however, will have several other steps while they handle the call. Steps like: the digital client database, the logistics department, an external transport supplier, and so forth.

By the way, one common type of backstage lanes you might have heard of are service blueprints .

3. Visualize the customer journey network and create a journey management system

Including planned and ongoing projects that impact the customer experience helps you to manage the overall experience. As a first step it is useful to create a journey map repository – starting on a high level and then breaking the customer journey down to more detailed maps.

Effective customer journey management is vital for businesses to remain competitive and relevant in today's market. It helps to optimize every step of the customer journey and thus ensuring customer satisfaction, building brand loyalty, and driving revenue growth.

4. Collaborate on journey maps

Don’t be the lone wolf working on the journey map!

First, do your research. Your customers, users, citizens, patients, and clients can help you at every step of your project, contribute their knowledge, and share their perspectives.

Also, invite your immediate team to give feedback on your journey map. The members of your broader team are a source of high-quality insights. Ask the customer service team and sales representatives about their opinion, talk to the IT and legal departments, and inquire about the need for specific processes. Maybe they can be adapted to make your customer’s life easier.

You can also invite external and internal stakeholders to pen-and-paper design thinking workshops .

Furthermore, presenting journey maps to each other – to your team, boss, client – helps everybody wrap their heads around the topic.

5. Create journey maps for long-term usage

Don’t just create your customer journey map and forget about it afterwards. Customer expectations change overtime and therefore effective journey mapping requires updating maps on a regular basis.

An insightful journey map requires reliable data and regular maintenance. Iterate on them, and make them a living document! By continuously identifying the most crucial pain points, and fixing them you will be a step ahead of your competition.

Check out this article about current-state and future-state journey maps to learn more about how to build maps with such a focus.

Make use of journey maps you’ve created earlier to feed into the journey map you’re currently working on, and use your journey map repository to build future projects upon your insights from other projects. The more knowledge you can build upon from other projects, and other journey maps, the easier and more insightful future journey maps will be.

For this sake, it’s best practice to use software like Smaply to digitize journey maps; this way, teams can easily access and update the maps.

6. Make your journey visually appealing

There are numerous ways to make a professional journey map, it very much depends on your specific use case. Using visual clues to make a journey map more comprehensible however, is always recommendable.

Illustrate processes by using pictograms

Not all journeys are linear, and process visualizations help viewers to grasp the concept of a journey that has multiple options, or one that goes in loops.

Stress the emotions of a persona through colors

Emotions are important to understand in your customer’s journey, and our brains can quickly grasp the meaning of a color. Therefore, it’s recommendable to stress the emotions of a person through colors.

Use emoticons for visualizing ratings

Using emoticons to illustrate ratings and feelings can help to make a journey map more comprehensible and enhance the empathy.

Show stakeholders' influence on your journey map

Stakeholders play a crucial role in a journey map, don’t forget that. Make dependencies obvious, because smooth collaboration is essential to deliver seamless customer experience.

In general, knowing the basics of stakeholder mapping and combining the insights of the two tools is highly recommended for great journey maps.

Cheat sheet

This cheat sheet summarizes the most important details, or lanes, of a journey map. For example, channel lane, storyboards, dramatic arc, and more. There are many more details you can add to a journey map, always keep your individual case in mind. Use the cheat sheet as an introduction to the topic – or as a reminder to put on your desk.

Download the cheat sheet (free)

Learning cards

These journey mapping learning cards are helpful reminders of the aspects to consider when analyzing a journey map , or when you're trying to express a journey map you've played a role in creating.

There are different categories or aspects and in some cases multiple cards for each category.

Use them as you like – print them, bring them to a workshop, keep them by your desk, or share them with a friend.

Download the card deck (free)

If you want to create your first customer journey map with pen and paper, we've got you covered: we've prepared a printout for you to use for your first draft. Of course you can also create your customer journey map online with Smaply .

Get the pen-and-paper template

Example journeys

If you are a visual learner, we've prepared a large collection of helpful journey map examples.

Customer journey mapping case studies

There’s no service field where journey mapping isn’t relevant – that’s why the variety of projects is huge. Here are a few great case studies from different sectors that show how journey maps helped improve people's experiences in different industries and contexts.

Journey mapping in telecommunications

Case study: How Deutsche Telekom embedded journey mapping into the organization

The company promoted internal CX navigators to take care of shifting the culture. A bunch of willing employees, empowered with new tools and mindsets, supported from the top down, helped infuse the company culture with service design.

Journey mapping in healthcare and social services

Three case studies about journey mapping that resulted in social impact

In this article we showcase some of these great examples where service design tools and approaches are being used to create positive ripples that impact individuals, communities, and even whole countries. It covers three case studies from New Zealand, the Netherlands and Zambia.

Journey mapping in public services

Case study: How Chile’s government improved citizen and employee experience.

This case shows how a consultancy agency together with a local governmental institution in Chile worked to improve the customer & employee experience.

By including both the internal and external view, they succeeded in visualizing service gaps within the user journeys. This allowed them to implement change within the organization.

For more inspiration, check out our collection of CX case studies .

Creating a customer journey map is essential if you care about your customers' experience.

• A customer journey map visually represents customer journeys and tells the story of customers' experiences with your brand across different channels and touchpoints.
• Customer journey maps are important if you'd like to address low customer satisfaction scores because they shift the focus from processes to customers.
• Before you start with customer journey mapping, think of a persona you want to design for.
• Customer journey maps usually consist of elements such as stages, steps, and extra lanes that divide the timeline and describe various interactions the persona has with your brand; however each journey map is different and depends on the use case.

If you want to create a customer journey map, these are the steps that you can follow:

And here are some elements (lanes) that compose your customer journey map:

• Text and description
• Communication channels
• Emotional values

Tools like Smaply can simplify the process, offering a user-friendly interface and guidance throughout.

Feeling ready to get your hands dirty?

Start creating your own journey maps with Smaply! This tool will guide you through the process of journey map creation. Besides that, you can also create personas and stakeholder maps to back up your work. It's free, forever.

Antonia Cramer

Antonia keeps her eyes open for questions people interested in service design are looking to answer, and helps us provide resources to support their learning ambitions. With her background in digital communication she has great knowledge on how to create content that is easy to access and understand.

Related articles

What is Customer Journey Management and how to get started?

Beyond words: How to present a customer journey map that gets you buy-in

Volunteer journey mapping: managing experiences with NGOs

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Storyboarding: Communicating UX Insights in a Humane Way

Good UX design demands lots of empathy, and fortunately, there’s a wide array of techniques that allow designers to learn and understand their end-users’ aspirations, fears, and desires. This article will revolve around one of them. 

Storyboards allow UX specialists to better understand how their products improve users’ lives, thus allowing to empathize with them. Similarly, they enable designers to contextualize a product by placing it into a real-life scenario. As a result, this provides companies with a wealth of insight into the expectations users may have and the features they might find desirable. 

Let’s take a closer look at the value that storyboards offer, how you should go about creating one, and why designers should use them.

What is storyboarding?

A storyboard is a graphical and sequential representation of a story. This technique originates in the animation industry. The first organization documented to have used it was Walt Disney studios —they used it to outline the plot of a film they were working on.

Many decades later, this practice was adopted by UX professionals, acting as a sort of experience mapping that helps uncover the intricacies of a person’s interaction with a product. 

Storyboards are commonly created using sketches, illustrations, or photos of people using a product in a setting that is natural to them. To provide more context, every image is accompanied by a caption that outlines what the user is attempting to do, where they are, how they’re feeling, and other essential parameters that designers will find helpful. 

Storyboards vs. customer journey maps

There is a set of similarities between storyboards and customer journey maps , which may lead to a certain element of confusion between the two. Despite this massive overlap, their differences make these techniques useful in different contexts and for different groups of people. 

As we mentioned previously, storyboards are visual representations of how a user interacts with a product. Its goal is to facilitate the discussion around potential use cases and some critical industry-specific problems that need to be addressed by the product at hand. Storyboards are traditionally used by UX teams.

An example of a storyboard with no captions

On the other hand, customer journey mapping is a tool that allows the broader company to see the product’s “big picture.” It’s a much more detailed and “bird’s eye” view on the customer’s path from the moment they’ve learned about the product to the moment where they’ve developed a sense of loyalty to it due to a satisfying experience .

An example of a customer journey map

Storyboards are much more situational; they act as an exercise that helps us leverage empathy for the people we design for. Customer journey maps are blueprints of some sort—they’re much more detailed and act as a guide towards the product’s success. 

Why use a storyboard in UX design?

Since storyboards are typically created in the earliest stages of the UX process , they become a valuable source of insight that will inform further activities or summarize prior ones. Here are a few of them:

Journey maps—storyboards can significantly improve journey maps by visualizing a user’s interaction with their device, the environment they’re in, and other vital parameters that will enable the team and stakeholders to design with them in mind, providing for excellent UX;

Usability testing—storyboards can be much more informative when done after usability testing since the captions used in frames come from actual users . Such an approach doesn't leave any room for arbitrary interpretations;

Prioritization—insight into people’s experiences allows teams to better understand what the most important features in a product are. As a result, this provides a clear roadmap for the product’s development, ensuring that the essential functionalities are created first;

Ideation—storyboards can act as a method of ideation . Given that they’re often created while imagining a person’s experience with a product, they act as a means of dialog for UX teams;

What are the benefits of storyboards?

While storyboarding may seem like a straightforward technique, it comes with a vast spectrum of benefits. This way, UX specialists can:

Get a better understanding of a user journey—a well-crafted user journey is substantial for a more streamlined and coherent design process. Storyboards provide journeys with much more context and granularity;

Build a product strategy—empathizing with users via storyboards allows the UX team to preempt a wide array of issues that need to be eliminated from the product’s experience. This is a crucial part of informing a product’s strategy;

Communicate ideas to investors—storyboards are an excellent medium for communicating complex ideas and experience-related arguments. Humans are very passionate about storytelling—it helps them connect emotionally to other people. Storyboards, as a form of storytelling, allow expanding on the customer's pain points and the transformation they seek via the product;

Minimize miscommunication—storyboards facilitate “pitch and critique” sessions—where team members can suggest ideas, which are then provided with feedback. The storyboarding technique allows the pitched ideas to be more grounded in user-centric thinking;

How do you create a storyboard in UX design?

Storyboards are fairly simple to create. Typically, a pen and a sheet of paper should do.

That said, there’s now a wide array of tools that make the process even simpler—we’ll touch on one of them in a bit. 

Now, let’s take a look at the process of creating one:

Gather data—while storyboarding does often rely on our imagination, the process of creating one should always be backed by some empirical data. The better we understand our users beforehand, the more realistic and useful the board will be;

Choose fidelity level—like prototypes , storyboards have degrees of fidelity. Bear in mind that hi-fi drawings won’t necessarily convey more meaning, but they are vital in a variety of industries;

Create visuals—if you’re creating a lo-fi storyboard, go as basic as you can and stick to the essentials. Every frame needs to have a central character, a setting, and a product they’re interacting with. With higher fidelity drawings, you can focus on color and props;

Add a caption to each frame—make sure to provide captions for each frame; this will allow you to complement your basic drawings with some vital context; 

A storyboarding tool: Boords

While storyboarding doesn’t always demand a substantial amount of time and effort, we wouldn’t really mind getting better images while spending less time doing it. Tools like Boords help you do just that. With products like these, you can craft quick and informative frames and share them with your team or clients. More importantly, most of the tools of this sort allow you to animate your frames, providing for a more immersive and realistic experience.

It makes sense to invest in such software if storyboarding is an integral part of your workflow. Otherwise, you might be better of with a piece of paper and a pencil.

How Airbnb approached storyboarding

We really enjoyed how Airbnb approached storyboarding—they’ve created a series of frames that emphasize the most important and emotional moments their customers experience while interacting with the service. This use of storyboarding allowed them to learn that their product isn’t the website service per se , but rather the moments that happen in or around the listings they offer. This is quite a mindset shift.

Parting thoughts

Design isn’t easy, by any means, but there are plenty of ways to make it more straightforward and efficient—and storyboarding is definitely one of them. It allows us to have a better understanding of the product our users need and helps us create fewer iterations in doing so. 

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Unraveling the Retail Customer Journey: A Comprehensive Guide to Effective Mapping

Customer journeys are the lifeblood of retail. Understanding the unique steps customers take from discovery to purchase is crucial.

In this article, we delve into the intricacies of retail customer journey mapping and its significance in today's rapidly evolving marketplace.

Let's embark on this enlightening voyage.

What Is A Retail Customer Journey Map?

A retail customer journey map is a visual story of your customers' interactions with your brand. It's a depiction of the path customers take from initial contact through to a long-term relationship.

It's a vital tool for understanding customer experience. By capturing all touchpoints and phases in the buying process, it enables businesses to identify opportunities and pain points.

The journey begins when a customer first becomes aware of your brand. This could be through advertising, word of mouth, or a search engine result.

The journey then continues as they gather information, make a decision to buy, and finally make a purchase.

After the purchase, the journey doesn't stop. How does the customer feel after buying? What's their experience with your after-sales service ? These questions form the final parts of the journey map.

By mapping the retail customer journey, brands can empathize better with their customers. It highlights where the customer's experience is smooth and where it's not.

This insight drives improvements in the overall shopping experience.

So, a retail customer journey map is more than a diagram. It's a catalyst for creating a better, more customer-centric business.

5 Phases Of The In-Store Customer Journey

Customers navigate various stages when interacting with a retail store.

Understanding these distinct phases is key to improving their shopping experience.

Let's delve into the five crucial stages of the in-store customer journey: Pre-visit, Entrance, Exploration, Purchase, and Post-Purchase.

Pre-visit Phase

The Pre-visit phase marks the beginning of the customer journey. It's when customers become aware of your brand and what it offers.

This could occur through online research, advertisements, or word-of-mouth recommendations.

During this phase, potential customers form their initial impressions of your brand.

They might visit your website or social media pages, read online reviews, or browse through your online catalog.

In essence, they're gathering information to decide whether your store meets their needs. This phase sets the tone for the customer's future interactions with your brand.

Ensuring a positive pre-visit experience is key to attracting potential customers to your physical store.

Also Read: Customer Journey Optimization

Entrance Phase

The Entrance phase begins when customers step into your physical store.

First impressions matter immensely, and this stage sets the tone for the entire shopping experience.

Here, customers form opinions about your store's ambiance, cleanliness, layout, and staff availability.

Factors like lighting, music, and in-store marketing materials can influence their overall perception.

Customers also start to gauge the level of customer service. They notice if staff members are welcoming and ready to assist.

They may also look for clear signage to guide their shopping journey.

The goal during the Entrance phase is to create a positive, inviting atmosphere. It's about making customers feel comfortable and eager to explore what you have to offer.

Exploration Phase

The Exploration phase is the heart of the in-store shopping experience . This is where customers dive into your product offerings and evaluate their options.

During this phase, customers browse through your store, interact with products, and compare different items.

The organization of your merchandise, the quality of the product displays, and the ease of finding desired items all play crucial roles.

In-store staff can greatly influence this stage. Their product knowledge, helpfulness, and ability to cater to customer needs can enhance the shopping experience.

The goal here is to provide a seamless and enjoyable exploration experience.

When customers feel well-served and find what they're looking for easily, they're more likely to make a purchase.

Also Read: Customer Journey Metrics

Purchase Phase

The Purchase phase is the pivotal moment when a customer decides to buy.

This stage revolves around the checkout process and the final steps that lead to a successful transaction.

Here, customers evaluate their chosen products one last time before making the final decision. They consider factors like price, quality, and perceived value.

The ease of the checkout process also plays a significant role.

At this point, friendly and efficient customer service can make a substantial difference.

Quick checkout lines, multiple payment options, and proactive assistance can help seal the deal.

The goal in the Purchase phase is to make the transaction as smooth as possible. Any hiccups at this stage could deter a customer from completing their purchase.

Post-Purchase Phase

The Post-Purchase phase happens after customers have made their purchase and left your store.

It's about fostering a long-term relationship with them, ensuring they're satisfied, and encouraging them to return.

This phase includes elements like customer service support, return or exchange policies, and feedback collection.

Your engagement with the customer during this time can greatly affect their overall perception of your brand.

Remember, a positive post-purchase experience can turn one-time shoppers into loyal customers.

It can also lead to positive word-of-mouth marketing, boosting your brand's reputation.

The goal here is to leave a lasting impression, ensuring that the customer feels valued and appreciated.

It's about turning a single transaction into an ongoing relationship.

How To Build A Retail Customer Journey Map

Creating a retail customer journey map is a strategic process. It involves data collection, identifying touchpoints, and ongoing revisions.

In the following section, we'll guide you through a step-by-step process to create your own customer journey map, helping you to better understand and enhance your customer's experience.

Also Read: Customer Analytics

Creating a retail customer journey map begins with setting a clear goal.

Your goal could be improving customer service, reducing churn rate, increasing customer loyalty, or optimizing in-store experiences.

Decide what part of the customer journey you want to focus on. Are you interested in the entire journey, or do you want to concentrate on specific touchpoints or stages?

You could also tailor the map to a particular customer persona or demographic group.

This initial goal-setting step provides direction for your journey mapping project. It guides the kind of data you'll collect and the insights you're hoping to gain.

A clear goal ensures your map is focused and relevant. It steers the development of strategies to improve your customer's experience in line with your business objectives.

Remember, a well-defined goal is the foundation of a successful customer journey map.

Keep Tracking & Analytics Tools Ready

With your goal set, the next step is to prepare your tracking and analytics tools.

These are vital for gathering data about your customers and their interactions with your brand.

Your tracking tools could include a website analytics tool like Google Analytics, which provides insights into how customers interact with your online platforms.

Heat mapping tools can also be beneficial for understanding on-page customer behavior.

In-store, consider using tools like customer feedback surveys, mystery shopping, and point-of-sale data analysis.

Technologies like Wi-Fi analytics or people counting cameras can also provide data about in-store customer behavior.

These tools help you gather quantitative data, such as how many people visited your store or website, what they purchased, and how much time they spent.

Having your tracking and analytics tools ready ensures you have reliable data to build your customer journey map.

Collect Data

Once your tools are set up, it's time to collect data. Your goal here is to gather as much information as possible about your customers and their shopping behavior.

Start by gathering demographic data. Who are your customers? What are their ages, genders, locations, and income levels?

This information can help you understand who you're serving and what they might expect from your brand.

Next, collect behavioral data. What are customers buying? When are they visiting your store or website? How much time are they spending? This can reveal patterns in shopping behavior.

Don't forget about attitudinal data. How do customers feel about your brand?

You can gather this information through surveys, feedback forms, or social media sentiment analysis.

The more comprehensive your data collection, the more detailed and accurate your customer journey map will be.

Understanding your customer's behaviors, attitudes, and demographics is key to crafting an effective map.

Identify All The Possible Touchpoints

After collecting data, the next step is to identify all the possible touchpoints.

Touchpoints are the various ways customers interact with your brand, from initial discovery to post-purchase.

These might include your website, social media platforms, email newsletters, in-store interactions, customer service, and even word-of-mouth referrals.

Remember to consider both online and offline touchpoints.

Examine each touchpoint from your customer's perspective. What are they experiencing at each stage? Are there any obstacles or frustrations they encounter? What moments delight them?

Mapping out these touchpoints gives you a comprehensive view of your customer's journey.

It highlights areas where you're providing excellent service and where you might be falling short.

Identifying all possible touchpoints is crucial to building an accurate customer journey map.

It's the step that brings your map to life, illuminating the path your customers follow when interacting with your brand.

Plan The Journey Map

With your data and touchpoints identified, it's time to plan your journey map.

This visual representation of your customer's experience will help you see their path through their eyes.

Start by plotting out the stages of the customer journey we discussed earlier: pre-visit, entrance, exploration, purchase, and post-purchase.

Then, populate each stage with the relevant touchpoints.

Use the data you collected to depict what happens at each touchpoint. Highlight areas of customer friction and delight. Include customer thoughts, feelings, and expectations.

Your map could be a simple flowchart, a storyboard, or an intricate infographic. Choose a format that suits your needs and preferences.

Remember, the purpose is to facilitate understanding of your customer's experience.

Creating a journey map is like piecing together a puzzle. Each touchpoint, each piece of data, adds to the overall picture of your customer's journey with your brand.

Take Feedback & Revise The Map

Once your customer journey map is drafted, it's essential to seek feedback and be ready for revisions.

Your map should be a living document, continually updated as you gain new insights and as your customers' behaviors evolve.

Share the map with your team, especially those who interact directly with customers. Their frontline experience can offer valuable insights.

Are there touchpoints they feel have been overlooked? Do they have suggestions for improving customer experiences at specific stages?

Next, seek feedback from your customers. Use surveys or interviews to understand if your map aligns with their actual experiences.

They are the ultimate source of truth about the customer journey.

Finally, use the feedback to revise your map. Make necessary adjustments to reflect the most accurate customer journey.

Remember, creating a customer journey map is an ongoing process, not a one-time task. Regular revisions ensure your map stays relevant and valuable.

The Best Examples Of Retail Customer Journey Maps

Zara's customer journey starts with creating a buzz around its fast-fashion model.

Through social media platforms and window displays, Zara attracts customers with their fresh, trendsetting styles.

Once in-store, customers are greeted by well-organized, frequently updated merchandise that encourages exploration.

The purchase phase is expedited by helpful staff, clear price tags, and multiple payment options.

After purchase, Zara keeps customers engaged through email newsletters, featuring new collections and fashion tips.

The seamless integration of online and offline channels enhances Zara's customer journey.

2. Starbucks

The Starbucks journey begins with its strong brand presence and enticing aroma. The entrance phase is about welcoming customers into a comfortable, cozy space.

During the exploration phase, customers choose from a wide range of beverages and food items, with staff readily available to assist.

The purchase phase includes an easy, efficient payment process and the Starbucks rewards program.

Post-purchase, Starbucks engages customers through the mobile app, offering personalized deals and rewards for loyal customers.

IKEA's journey starts with its catalog and website showcasing stylish, affordable furniture.

In-store, customers enter a well-planned route displaying various room setups, sparking inspiration.

During the exploration phase, customers interact with the products in home-like settings.

At the purchase phase, customers are guided to the warehouse to pick up flat-packed products, with staff available for assistance.

Post-purchase, IKEA provides detailed assembly instructions and customer service for any issues, reinforcing IKEA’s commitment to customer satisfaction.

Understanding the retail customer journey is paramount in today's competitive marketplace.

By mapping this journey, brands can uncover key insights to improve customer experiences and drive loyalty.

It's an ongoing process that requires continuous tracking, analysis, and improvement. Start your journey mapping today and unlock a new level of customer-centric success.

Full insight into the customer journey. No SQL required.

Get started with Woopra for free to see who your customers are, what they do and what keeps them coming back.

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Journey mapping vs. story mapping.

Summary:  How does a user story map differ from a customer journey map? A journey map is from the perspective of the person's experience, whereas a story map is from the perspective of the product and what it takes to deliver the user experience.

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Mapping User Stories in Agile

User-story maps help Agile teams define what to build and maintain visibility for how it all fits together. They enable user-centered conversations, collaboration, and feature prioritization to align and guide iterative product development.

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Anna Kaley is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Prior to joining NN/g, Anna worked for more than 10 years in user experience architecture and digital strategy. She conducted complex user research, service, and experience design for healthcare, agriculture, finance, tourism, retail, and engineering clients.

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Storyboard Text

• User Starts Day Normally
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• Finds Potential Solution
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