Customer journey mapping is what creates clarity across the key touchpoints your customers hit when interacting with your brand — and helps you pinpoint and fix problem areas.
Do you know what they go through on the way to making a purchase?
How and where do they hear about your products or services?
What takes them from awareness to a buying decision?
Do you really know?
In today’s world, where attention spans are short and everyone’s competing for a few seconds of that gold, understanding and optimizing the customer’s journey is the key to building strong, loyal relationships with your users and buyers.
A customer journey map is your key to unlocking that understanding.
In this guide, we’ll take you through the essential steps of building customer journey maps with a detailed, but fictional, customer journey map example — GlowUp Fitness. On top of that, we’ll show you how understanding and responding to emotional and psychological cues at each stage can transform occasional visitors and one-time users into your most loyal brand advocates.
What is customer journey mapping? Find out in this quick Q&A
Before we jump into how GlowUp handles the customer journey mapping process, let’s roundhouse kick some important questions.
What is customer journey mapping?
Customer journey mapping is a method of visualizing and analyzing the path a customer takes when interacting with a company.
It outlines every step of a customer’s experience, from the first point of awareness to consideration and onward to purchase decision and advocacy, highlighting what they feel, think and do at each touchpoint in order to improve the overall experience.
Very similar to, but not exactly the same as a user journey.
For GlowUp, and every other company, journey mapping isn’t just a tool—it’s a strategy that strengthens customer relationships by identifying potential friction points and opportunities for added value.
The customer experience Jamie — the user persona we’ll introduce in a sec — has with GlowUp is a testament to how mapping aligns services with customer needs to skyrocket satisfaction.
Why is a customer journey map crucial for business?
Customer journey mapping is essential for any business that’s aiming to build lasting relationships and stay competitive…which should be every business.
By visualizing each stage of a customer’s interaction, you can identify gaps, reduce friction and level up customer satisfaction. Journey mapping helps companies tailor their approach, making each touchpoint more meaningful and better aligned with customer expectations.
For the granular movements through your site or app, you’ll want to create detailed user flow diagrams.
All of this together leads to stronger customer retention, increased loyalty and a stronger brand reputation.
For GlowUp Fitness Studio, meticulously mapping the journey allows them to understand the unique needs of their clientele, like Jamie, ensuring that their services cater specifically to busy professionals seeking a seamless and personalized fitness experience.
How does journey mapping drive loyalty?
A journey map digs into the emotional and logical pathways that lead to loyalty.
For GlowUp, understanding Jamie’s journey means recognizing the touchpoints that matter most to her—whether it’s the friendliness of staff, the clarity of class options or the follow-up communication that makes her feel valued. We’ll cover all of those in depth below.
Customer journey mapping ensures that no detail is overlooked, transforming what might be a mere gym membership into a valued part of her daily routine. Turn a transactional service, like a gym membership, into something filled with emotional connection that provides personalized, value-added experiences.
What are the customer journey stages?
The stages, or phases, are the macro-level of a customer journey map.
They help you define the purpose of each scenario on the map and are vital for organizing information and insights.
Typically you’ll find stages broken down into a timeline with these categories:
Awareness
The customer journey begins at the awareness stage, where potential customers first learn about a brand or service, sparking initial interest and curiosity.
Consideration
During the consideration stage, customers actively evaluate options, comparing products or services to see which best meets their needs and expectations.
Purchase
The purchase stage is when a customer commits to a decision and completes the transaction, transitioning from prospect to paying customer.
Retention
In the retention stage, the focus shifts to nurturing the customer relationship through ongoing engagement and quality service to encourage repeat business.
Advocacy
The advocacy stage involves turning satisfied customers into brand ambassadors who recommend the product or service to others, amplifying word-of-mouth marketing.
How to create a customer journey map: Step-by-step
Welcome to the big show. The meat and potatoes.
In the next section, you’ll learn the customer journey stages and the finer points of how this tool helps you increase customer satisfaction and build loyalty.
Step #1: Start with a customer journey map template
Sure you can make these puppies from scratch for each of your buyer personas but why waste the time?
While there are plenty of customer journey map templates out there to use, we think ours is pretty slick, no pun intended.
No matter the goal or the target customer personas you’re making a customer journey map for, you can use our journey map template to get going each time.
Step #2: Define your business goals and identify key collaborators
Remember: the point of going through this customer journey mapping process is to achieve a business-related goal.
So before diving into creating a customer journey map, it’s imperative to set clear business goals and define the scope of the mapping process.
Maps are only useful when there’s a final destination after all.
This initial step helps ensure that the journey map aligns with strategic objectives and effectively addresses key business needs aka your destination.
You’ll also want to assemble your customer journey mapping team at this point aka the team members you’ll be working with to get the details of each stage. Generally that’ll include someone from departments like sales, marketing, operations, tech and product.
Business goal alignment for GlowUp
For GlowUp Fitness Studio, the primary goal they’ve set is to increase new customer retention by 15% within the next six months.
This clear objective guide will now guide the entire mapping process, shaping decisions about which touchpoints and interactions to prioritize.
By narrowing the scope, GlowUp can focus on the most impactful parts of Jamie’s journey, such as her onboarding and first few visits, where customer loyalty is built or lost.
Unique insight
The reason GlowUp, and your business, would define the business goal and scope first is that it allows them to allocate resources efficiently.
For instance, if they identify that a significant number of potential clients abandon the booking process online, they know to focus on optimizing that touchpoint.
It also ensures that stakeholders have a unified understanding of what success looks like, encouraging alignment across the team.
Step #3: Define customer personas and make emotional & behavioral insights
Defining customer personas helps businesses visualize their typical customers’ behaviors, motivations and challenges.
This is the "who" of the map; the person that’s going on the journey.
You shouldn’t be pulling this user or customer persona out of thin air though, research is key to properly establishing your main actor. This should include things like customer surveys or interviews, market research and demographic analysis to name a few.
For GlowUp, this means digging deeper than basic demographics, it requires going further into a customer’s life to understand the "why" behind their actions.
Persona spotlight — Jamie
Jamie’s profile as a customer involves more than her age and job.
She is motivated by the need to maintain her energy, relieve stress and carve out self-care time in her busy schedule.
Her pain points and frustrations include things like time constraints, confusing or non-intuitive online booking systems and generic experiences that fail to make her feel recognized.
GlowUp’s journey map must recognize these factors to create a seamless and personal experience for her.
Unique insights
When mapping Jamie’s journey it’s not just understanding her steps but capturing how she feels during each phase — and why.
Understanding that she might get excited but slightly anxious when trying a new fitness class will allow GlowUp to proactively offer reassurance through features like introductory videos, personalized class recommendations or access to a support team.
Lastly, it’s important that each journey map corresponds to a single user persona, or customer perspective, because each person’s journey is different; different pain points, different ages, different economic brackets, different wants and needs, etc.
Start with the most common persona that’ll have the greatest impact on your bottom line, then optimize for smaller customer segments afterward.
To decide what’s most important to work on in relation to each persona, particularly if your team is operating in Agile, user stories and story mapping are going to be your best friends.
Step #4: Identify customer touchpoints and pain points according to customer journey stages
Touchpoints are all the places, both online and offline, where a customer interacts with your brand.
Here you need to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and list out each point of contact and all customer interactions across the entire customer journey — and where they happen.
Doing this allows GlowUp to pinpoint where potential barriers or pain points might exist and refine these interactions to optimize Jamie’s experience.
Touchpoints for GlowUp
- Initial web search: Jamie’s first encounter with GlowUp is through a quick Google. Making sure their website is engaging, informative and mobile-friendly sets the stage for a positive experience.
- Website and booking platform : The next crucial touchpoint is navigating the website. A clear, intuitive site and booking process are vital to ensure she doesn’t abandon her attempt out of frustration. Take a look at our breakdown of an ecommerce user flow to get a better idea of how an effective site creates more conversions.
- Pre-class communication: Emails or app notifications that remind her of her booking and what to expect can build anticipation.
- In-studio experience: From the moment Jamie steps into GlowUp, the reception and onboarding process shapes her first impression. Personal greetings and a welcoming environment contribute to her comfort.
- Workout session: High-quality, supportive instruction helps Jamie feel engaged and motivated.
- Post-class follow-up: Sending an email with tips for muscle recovery or an invitation to review her experience maintains a connection after she leaves.
Unique angle
A successful touchpoint isn’t just functional; it should resonate emotionally.
For example, a brief "thanks for joining us today!" text or email after a class makes Jamie feel recognized and valued, boosting her motivation to come back for another class.
Common Touchpoints to Consider:
The above touchpoints are examples for this specific customer’s journey, here are some additional examples for each stage of the customer journey.
You’ll notice we expanded the traditional stages from 5 to 8, making things more granular after the purchase stage. The goal is to have a complete visual representation of the customer experience so if that requires adding stages to your customer journey map, go for it!
Note how varied they are and the fact that touchpoints can, and do, exist outside the bounds of your website, app or brick-and-mortar location.
- Awareness stage
- Online ads (social media, search engine marketing)
- Word-of-mouth referrals
- PR articles and influencer endorsements
- Email newsletters or promotions
- Consideration stage
- Company website visits and landing page interactions
- Product or service reviews and testimonials
- Engagement on social media platforms (likes, comments, shares)
- Webinars or virtual events
- Online chatbots or inquiry forms
- Purchase stage
- Online checkout or in-app purchase process
- Payment confirmation emails or SMS notifications
- First-time user offers or discounts
- Assistance through customer support during purchasing
- Onboarding stage
- Welcome emails or introductory guides
- User account setup and customization
- Tutorials, product demos or guided tours
- First-time user incentives (e.g., discounts or free trials)
- Usage stage
- Regular interactions with the product or service
- Customer support and troubleshooting assistance
- Scheduled service reminders or notifications
- Personalized recommendations or upsell suggestions
- Feedback and engagement stage
- Post-service or post-purchase surveys
- Follow-up emails or calls to check satisfaction
- Invitations to join loyalty programs
- Customer feedback, reviews and ratings submission
- Retention and loyalty stage
- Exclusive member-only events or promotions
- Personalized updates or rewards programs
- Regular newsletters with tips, news, or promotions
- Invitations to referral programs or advocacy opportunities
- Re-engagement stage
- Win-back campaigns for lapsed customers
- Seasonal promotions or special limited-time offers
- Notifications of new features or services
- Invitations to reconnect or schedule a consultation
Step #5: Add actions, thoughts and emotions
Customer actions are the literal things your buyer personas do at each stage, i.e., see and click an ad at the awareness stage, sign up for a trial at consideration, etc.
Thoughts are what the customer interacting with your product or service thinks at each stage, generally used as a way to define the problem they face.
Emotions are how they feel at each stage and are often represented by emojis or graphs that chart the ups and downs they feel.
This is where you start to turn an average customer experience into an extraordinary one by getting into the head of your clientele.
The customer journey is coming into focus!
Mapping out what Jamie feels, does and thinks at each touchpoint enables GlowUp to address any disconnect between customer expectations and experiences.
Action and emotion mapping for GlowUp
When Jamie first visits GlowUp’s website, she should feel a sense of clarity and excitement.
A poorly organized site or lack of information could shift that excitement to uncertainty, leading her to think "is this membership worth the effort?"
During her initial booking, if the process is overly complex, her anticipation could turn to frustration.
To avoid this pain point, GlowUp should make its platform more streamlined and user-friendly.
In the studio, Jamie’s emotions shift from anticipation to motivation and fulfillment when instructors are attentive and classes are engaging.
To maximize those vibes, instructors should be coached to give a warm greeting and personal touches, like addressing Jamie by name, transforming a mundane visit into an experience she looks forward to.
A genuine, post-class follow-up reinforces her satisfaction and helps her build a routine that supports her goals, leading to a more positive customer experience.
Insightful additions
Take your customer journey map design a step further by adding empathy maps.
An empathy map is a tool that helps businesses understand what customers think, feel, see, hear, say and do during their interactions. It reveals the emotional and psychological insights that help you improve the customer journey map.
Here’s how they look:
How to incorporate an empathy map into a customer journey map
Think of these babies as a supplement to your customer journey map; they don’t go on the map, they’re a little attachment that’s stapled to it.
- Integrate with journey phases: Use empathy maps to add emotional depth at each phase of the customer journey (e.g., awareness, purchase).
- Focus on key buyer personas: Develop empathy maps for your target customer personas like Jamie to understand how they feel during different touchpoints.
- Enhance emotional mapping: Apply insights from empathy maps to identify triggers and pain points at each stage.
- Spot improvement opportunities: Use the map to find ways to personalize the customer experience based on their emotions.
- Collaborate across teams: Gather input from various departments — the customer service team, the sales team, floor staff, etc. — to ensure a full understanding of experiences across the customer lifecycle.
If Jamie’s empathy map shows she feels hopeful but overwhelmed during the consideration phase, GlowUp can simplify its website and highlight transparent pricing and reviews to build trust and ease decision-making.
Incorporating empathy maps into journey mapping helps anticipate customer needs, making the experience more customer-centric and effective, creating a higher likelihood of customer success.
Step #6: Integrate customer data and feedback loops
Decisions based on feelings ❌
Data-driven decisions ✅
Incorporating data is how you ensure your customer journey map will accurately reflect the customer experience along the entire buying journey.
What do we mean by data though and where do you get it?
- Surveys and questionnaires: Survey customers about their experiences, preferences and pain points.
- Customer interviews: Get the customer’s perspective straight from the horse’s mouth by conducting one-on-one interviews for in-depth insights into customer motivations, challenges and expectations.
- Focus groups : Gather groups of customers to discuss their experiences and perceptions collectively, gaining a range of perspectives.
- Web analytics: Use tools like Google Analytics to track customer behavior on websites, look at things like page views, click paths and bounce rates.
- Social media listening: Monitor your socials for mentions, comments and reviews to understand public sentiment and trends.
- Customer service reps and support logs: Analyze records from customer service interactions, including chat logs and call summaries, to identify common issues and feedback.
- Feedback forms: Place feedback forms on your websites or within apps to capture real-time user insights post-interaction.
- Heatmaps and user recordings: Use heatmaps to see where users are most active on a page and what parts they engage with the most.
- Net Promoter Scores (NPS): Set up NPS surveys to gauge customer loyalty and gather qualitative feedback on why they would or wouldn’t recommend the service.
- Email feedback: Send post-purchase or post-service follow-up emails requesting customer feedback.
- Sales data and CRM systems: Leverage data from CRM systems to understand purchasing patterns and customer touchpoints.
- App usage data: Track how customers interact with a mobile app, noting which features are most frequently used or abandoned.
- Website search queries: Analyze internal search data to understand what customers are looking for on your site and whether they find it.
- Third-party reviews: Gather insights from reviews left on platforms like Yelp, Google Reviews, or Trustpilot to understand strengths and areas needing improvement.
Feedback mechanisms help GlowUp measure the effectiveness of its journey map and identify areas for improvement.
Data-driven insights
Fortunately, GlowUp actively collects data through post-class surveys, NPS scores and direct customer feedback to customer service representatives.
For instance, if Jamie mentions feeling confused about class types, GlowUp might introduce a guided explainer video on their website. Analyzing these insights ensures the studio adapts to Jamie’s needs, fostering a stronger relationship over time.
Unique angle
Create a feedback loop where any adjustments you make to the existing customer journey are communicated back to clients shows that you not only listen but take action on what you learn.
For GlowUp, if several customers comment on wanting more lunchtime class options, they can introduce new class slots and notify clients of the update, making them feel heard and valued.
People LOVE feeling seen.
Step #7: Define KPIs and responsible parties
To measure the success of a customer journey map, it’s important to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and identify the department responsible for each metric.
Accountability and tracking progress for the win.
Examples of KPIs:
Customer satisfaction scores, Net Promoter Score (NPS), conversion rates and customer retention rates.
Assigning responsibility
GlowUp Fitness Studio could assign marketing to track NPS, customer service or a sales rep to monitor feedback and satisfaction and the operations team to handle retention rates.
Clear roles help teams stay focused and aligned in enhancing specific journey phases.
Incorporating KPIs with responsible parties helps maintain momentum and drive results as improvements are made.
Step #8: Take the journey so you can analyze and optimize the journey map
Once the customer journey map is complete, put it to the test by going through it yourself.
If you have 5 different target user personas you’ve made customer journey maps for, go through each. Hit each touchpoint, read emails and social, interact with sales reps and so on.
Analyze as you go and take note of customer pain points you encounter so you can smooth them over.
Continuous improvement is the idea.
That sort of regular analysis and optimization helps GlowUp maintain a customer experience that adapts to changing needs and expectations.
That’s really what customer journey design is about.
Optimization example with GlowUp
Suppose feedback from existing customers reveal that as new clients they felt intimidated by their first visit.
GlowUp can respond by adding an orientation session for beginners, ensuring that Jamie and others like her feel more at ease.
Another example could be streamlining the booking process based on feedback about ease of use.
Unique angle
Small, thoughtful improvements can result in significant positive shifts in customer satisfaction.
A tweak as simple as adding more detailed class descriptions or enhancing the ambiance with personalized music options can lead to an improved overall experience for a business like GlowUp.
What would a tweak look like in your own business?
If you’re not sure, a customer journey map helps you find those little moments and optimize user flow.
Frequently asked questions about analyzing and optimizing
How often should I revisit and update my journey map?
Regularly, especially after new product launches or following any significant changes in service offerings or market trends. Aim to review the customer journey map at least once per quarter.
How can I measure the success of optimizations?
Success can be measured through KPIs like higher retention rates, an increase in NPS scores, lower churn rates and positive feedback trends. Monitoring customer behavior and conducting regular follow-up surveys also helps anecdotally.
🎬 Learn what Slickplan can do!
We filmed a short video to show you exactly how to use Slickplan
Customer journey mapping tools
We’ve already covered several tools that’ll help with data for your customer journey map. Tools like heatmaps, analytics from Google, Semrush and the like, surveys and NPS scores and plenty of others.
But you also need a tool to map the customer journeys themselves.
Slickplan is here for you.
A powerful suite of tools designed to help you plan and organize websites, content and user experiences. Slickplan also offers features that can support customer journey mapping.
Here’s the skinny:
- Visual mapping: Starting with our customer journey map template or user journey map template, you can drag-and-drop your way through the flow of a customer journey. Plotting each touchpoint, stage and emotion in a clear and cohesive manner, from start to finish.
- Edit collaboratively: Work with your team in real time to develop and refine customer journey maps, getting input from all your departments. Get your marketing team, finance, sales and everyone else on the same page by sharing a link.
- Integrate data sources: Connect your customer journey map with your sitemap and tap into data and SEO integrations like Google Analytics to maintain a data-driven approach when identifying and addressing pain points.
- Document customer touchpoints: Most importantly, with dynamically linked sitemap and diagramming capabilities, you can document each customer interaction point, from the initial web search to follow-up engagement.
Throw in user flow tools and you’re well on your way to the customer experience promised land.
Common issues in journey mapping (and how to beat them)
Creating a customer journey map is a straightforward exercise, but not one without challenges.
Limited feedback data
For most businesses, getting enough data is a function of effort and consistency not an actual lack of data.
Solution:
GlowUp addresses limited feedback by incorporating quarterly surveys and focus groups.
These not only gather data but also foster a sense of community by showing that customer input is valued.
They also automate data collection with the various pieces of software they use for booking, marketing, sales, etc.
Consistency in brand messaging
If this is the first customer or user journey map you’ve put together, chances are you’ll come across big branding and messaging inconsistencies.
Why?
Maybe you worked with freelancers for different aspects of your marketing. Perhaps in the gap between doing social media marketing and email marketing your branding changed. Maybe your staff isn’t looking at the brand guidelines (or, worse, you don’t have guidelines yet!)).
Solution:
For GlowUp, aligning online and in-studio messaging ensured that Jamie’s expectations match her actual experience. GlowUp uses brand audits and unified training to achieve this consistency.
Resistance to change
"But things are working just fine the way they are!", your team might say as you discuss upcoming changes, because you know things are, in fact, not fine.
Solution:
Regularly sharing mapping successes with your team encourages buy-in and underscores the benefits of optimizing the customer journey.
When they can tangibly understand the why, they’ll buy into the how.
To overcome resistance, GlowUp management does exactly that. They share positive customer journey map results, illustrating how changes lead to better outcomes.
Regular training helps team members stay motivated and informed about the benefits of a customer-centric approach.
Types of customer journey maps
Customer journey maps come in multiple flavors and there’s a good case for using all of them, together, to create the clearest picture of what your customer persona is up to.
Current state
As the name suggests, this map shows the customer journey as it currently is, highlighting all the things they do, think and feel in regard to your business.
Future state
Again, sort of an obvious one but in need of some explanation. Future state maps are more goal-oriented in that they lay out future interactions along with the thoughts, actions and mindset changes that accompany them.
When you’re working on a new product or service, you’d of course be relying on this one but it is useful to create this type of map when brainstorming improvements for the current journey.
Day in the life
This map is even more customer-focused in the sense that it doesn’t include or involve your product at all. It’s about generating a more holistic view of the customer’s day without you.
When they might scroll social media, when the TV is on, when they’re at work, when they have free time, how they use their free time, where they shop, when they shop, where they check reviews, etc.
This sort of experience map allows you to understand, in detail, how a customer spends their time and it gives you the ability to find places of easy integration, where your marketing message will be most likely to stick or where you have opportunities for onboarding.
Service blueprint
Think of this one as being the synthesis of either your current or future state map and a day in the life map. The service blueprint details how you organize behind the scenes to get in front of the customer and meet their wants and needs with your product or service.
This is often represented as backstage actions, i.e. your actions which they don’t see from key role players and team members, and frontstage actions, i.e., their actions.
Think visually. Improve UX with Slickplan
Build intuitive user flows, stronger customer journeys and improve information architecture.
Map the journey, create better customer experiences
To improve customer experience, you first have to understand it inside and out.
Customer journey mapping is the tool that gives you that 360° view. A visual representation of a customers’ experience from awareness to purchase to advocacy.
Remember though, your customer journey map is a living document, not a one-time project; it’s a continuous strategy that keeps your business aligned with customer needs and expectations.
For GlowUp Fitness Studio, investing in journey mapping means understanding the "why" behind every client decision and turning that understanding into action. By doing so, GlowUp builds relationships that go beyond the studio walls, fostering loyalty and creating advocates for their brand.
Take the customer journey map examples and insights we outlined here and make them your own today with our Diagram Maker.
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