This is where journey mapping becomes invaluable. By empowering organizations to discover how their customers engage with them, journey mapping illustrates how communications impact customer actions and responses. Armed with insights, companies can take control and transform their operations and communications, creating a new and improved customer experience that drives engagement. Ideally, journey mapping will help a company change its communications and operations to attract loyal customers who will spend more with them, stay longer and interact in more cost-effective ways.

A customer journey map is a visualization of a typical customer experience that showcases its strengths and weaknesses. This visualization can vary, but it is always based on the customer’s view of the experience, which may vary substantially from the companies' typical process-oriented view.

In addition, maps may showcase different types of customers — called personas — whose journeys vary. For example, the map below is a consolidated view of multiple customer journeys, now supplemented with callouts of four specific customer types — such as planners versus spontaneous customers — who took unique approaches to their winter vacation rental. The results help the company identify operational interventions to improve customer responses, which in turn improves the company’s financial results.

The map above is drawn from a real-life journey mapping initiative, although the company name and details have been masked. It highlights several Moments of Truth, which are critical touchpoints where the customers’ emotions and expectations peak — must-win opportunities to target efforts to improve the overall results. In the example above, the customer arrives at the property about halfway through the journey. This Moment of Truth impacts how they feel about their experience.

The map also identifies certain elements that trigger customer anxiety — such as a closed front desk or a smaller-than-expected rental unit. The true power of the journey map lies in its ability to pinpoint these common anxiety triggers — empowering organizations to craft targeted communications that preempt these issues before they can cause distress.

Effective customer journey maps are not created in isolation. They are a result of qualitative research, sometimes backed up with quantitative research. By engaging with customers, organizations make customers feel included and part of the team, and they learn what their customers truly value. Journey mapping initiatives typically include interviews with 30 to 50 customers to get a broad range of customer viewpoints. The best practice is to record customers’ positive and negative feedback and use it to motivate internal teams toward process improvement.

However, journey mapping is not just about collecting customer insights; it also requires active involvement from internal teams. Customers and internal team members often have differing perspectives on what truly matters. In addition, employees’ views of the most critical interactions are highly correlated with their point-of-view on the journey. For example, marketers might feel that customer communications are the most critical touchpoints, while IT staff identify technology, and sales point to sales-related interactions. Customers, however, often focus on the spaces in between the teams — failed handoffs, for example, where they need to navigate internal silos. A collaborative approach that leverages these insights effectively is essential for success.

Research shows that two-thirds of companies undertaking journey mapping fail to implement identified operational and communication changes. Why does this occur? The primary reason is the lack of involvement from the teams responsible for driving the change. By engaging marketing, IT, sales, operations and other departments more closely in the process, these departments can hear their customers’ pain points firsthand, fostering a collective drive for action. Digital team members, for instance, will not prioritize changes just because of a visually appealing map. But if they are part of the journey mapping process and witness how their work impacts customers directly, they are more inclined to drive change.

The real trigger for change begins when the customer conversations and the journey maps are shared with the entire team. Then the teams can prioritize communications with the highest impact on customers. For instance, in the winter vacation journey, pre-arrival communications were identified as a key area for improvement. By sharing details about the front desk hours and the property features in advance, the company alleviated customer anxiety and enhanced satisfaction.

Journey mapping doesn’t just uncover challenges — it provides a roadmap for improvement. Consider the case of a life insurance company that sought to assess its process of applying for life insurance from the perspective of a potential policyholder. The company had received feedback that its process was worse than its competitors’ but didn’t know exactly where it was failing. To gain information, fifty customers were assessed for a month as they went through the life insurance application (“underwriting”) process.

Through research, they discovered that new customers had two distinct perspectives. One group viewed the life insurance process as “no big deal”—just a part of being an adult. These customers generally had a good experience, and no substantial changes were needed. The other group approached the journey with a very different perspective. For them, life insurance reminded them of their mortality, causing them to approach the journey with anxiety. As a result, this anxious group reacted negatively to the same interactions that the “adulting” group found acceptable.

These emotions were sticky — those who came into the journey feeling positive remained positive, and most who came in feeling anxious rated the experience negatively throughout the journey. But one bright spot emerged. A few anxious customers flipped to positive emotions when their agent provided reassurance. This provided a clue about how to improve the experience. If the company could target the right information at the right time, they could build a positive experience for these anxious customers.

Observing this shift in emotions gave the team valuable insights to improve results for both groups. For those with positive emotions, these communications provided reminders of the process, with links to more details so “adulting” customers could stay informed, while anxious customers were given links to learn more in advance about the medical exam and other required steps. Because policyholders had stronger relationships with the agents than with the client, the company also shared these materials directly with agents, enabling them to guide potential customers through the experience, reducing their anxiety.

This example illustrates the power of journey mapping to drive positive change. By understanding customer emotions and tailoring interactions, organizations can transform challenging moments into opportunities for connection and loyalty.

To start a journey mapping initiative, ask five questions, as outlined in the book, How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer? Using Journey Mapping to Drive Customer-Focused Change. Begin where the greatest opportunities for improvement intersect with your business goals. Ensure that all teams involved in creating the customer experience are engaged from the outset.

This collaborative approach ensures the process leads to actionable insights and lasting change, creating a vastly improved customer experience that benefits both the customer and the company.