simple user journey template

20+ User Journey Map Examples and Templates

13 min read

Looking at user journey map examples can help you come up with a visual representation of your customer’s journey.

Customer journey mapping research also allows you to identify areas of opportunity in your processes and plan to reduce those friction points. For instance, you might discover that you need user onboarding software to retain users after the first three months.

So, we’ve compiled 20+ examples and templates of customer journey maps to help you get inspired.

Let’s get started!

• A user journey map is a document that shares the steps a user must follow to accomplish a goal. It can also include sentiments, thoughts, and friction points.
• The terms user journey maps and customer journey maps are usually interchangeable. These are similar because they both tell the story of a customer’s journey . However, they vary in scope, definitions, and goals.
• For instance, a user journey map is usually reduced to a specific product or service; while a customer journey map shows the end-to-end of a customer’s activities involving your product or service, e.g., advertising.
• The touchpoints in a user journey map refer to in-app experiences, and customer touchpoints in a journey map refer to every interaction the customer has with your app.
• Usually, the user journey map influences product design, while the customer journey map informs business strategies.
• There are four types of customer journey maps:
• Current-state maps. To illustrate the customer journey in the present.
• Future-state maps. To speculate on potential user journeys in the future.
• Day-in-the-life maps. To show what a user does in relation or without any link to your product/service.
• Service-blueprint maps. To define everything that needs to happen internally to properly serve users.
• Examples of user and customer journey maps include companies like Hubspot, Zoom, Mailchimp, Dropbox, and Userpilot.
• Templates of user journey maps include service blueprints, customer empathy maps, user touchpoints, and effective journey maps.
• Did you identify friction points in your user onboarding? Try Userpilot , the all-in-one product adoption platform that’ll help you improve your onboarding experience and boost retention rates. Get a demo .

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What is a user journey map?

A user journey map is a document that shows the steps a user follows to reach a goal with your product or service. It’s usually used for UX visualization as it tells the story of a person navigating your product and their interaction with different touchpoints.

This document also helps you gather information about the user and the functionality they find most relevant.

In your first version of a user journey map, you may only add the user’s actions. But as you expand it, you should also add their emotions and thoughts.

User journey maps vs customer journey maps

User journey maps and customer journey maps are almost interchangeable terms. They both show the road a person takes to achieve goals and help improve the user experience .

However, these vary in scope, definitions, and goals:

• Scope. User journey maps usually showcase the way a user experiences and interacts with a specific product or service. On the other hand, customer journey maps visualize the end-to-end experience of a customer across various brand touchpoints.
• Definitions. The word ‘touchpoints’ has different meanings in each case. A touchpoint in a user journey map refers to interface interactions and in-app experiences. However, a touchpoint in a customer journey map means every moment a customer interacts with or becomes aware of your brand — e.g., advertisements, customer support, or at checkout.
• Goals. User journey maps are useful to influence product design improvements. The insights of a customer journey map , usually inform broader business strategies and customer engagement efforts.

Types of user and customer journey maps

Using customer or user journey maps for different purposes allows you to influence different aspects of your business. For instance, a day-in-the-life journey map lets you spot areas of your customer’s routine where you can participate.

Here are different types of user and customer journey visualization to implement in your business:

• Current-state map. Illustrates the critical user journey as it is now. It helps you visualize the current state of the user experience based on facts. This type of journey map allows you to identify the strengths and opportunities of your current process.
• Future-state map. Design how you wish the customers’ journey could look in the future. This type is aspirational and it’s useful when speculating potential customer paths. It’s mostly based on data from the current state map and creativity.
• Day-in-the-life map. Lists everything a customer does throughout the day despite those actions being related to your brand. A day-in-the-life map gives you an overall understanding of who your customer is, how they spend their time, and where your company falls. This map is based on user research data.
• Service-blueprint map. This is an internal document that states all the actions, policies, and processes that go behind customer-facing services. The service blueprint is usually for employees to know what they need to do to meet the customer across the journey.

User and customer journey map examples

Take a look at examples of user and customer journey maps from successful businesses and get inspired to draft your own.

1. Userpilot’s current user state journey map

To examine the user’s current state, you can use Userpilot to perform a path analysis .

With path analysis, you can identify and understand how users navigate through your product, pinpointing the key interactions and touchpoints they encounter.

For example, to optimize conversion , you can look into how enterprise users navigate toward the conversion point. Then you can use the discovered insights to replicate the experience for new users.

2. Spotify’s music-sharing user journey map

Spotify is a music streaming platform with various features. This example shows a detailed view of a Spotify user’s journey when sharing music with friends and family.

The image shows the steps the user takes to find and share music as well as their thoughts, emotions, touchpoints, and actors. It starts with a user opening Spotify to listen to music at work. They look up the different playlists and feel excited to see the suggestions.

Once they find a song that makes them feel happy, they share it with a friend by sending the link through WhatsApp. They follow up and wait for an answer.

This example is particularly interesting since it includes the actions, thoughts, and sentiments of two different personas.

3. Uber’s first experience user journey map

Uber is a popular transportation company for booking rides. This current-stage customer journey map shows all the steps a user takes from the moment they choose to use Uber as a new user, up to when they arrive at their destination.

It includes screenshots that show exactly what the user sees when they go through each of the customer journey stages.

This example includes goals from the persona on the side. It also includes verbatim thoughts and emotion tags that give you deeper insights into the target persona.

The bottom part of the map shares critical insights that help marketing and sales teams understand the user on a deeper level and improve their experience.

4. Dropbox’s customer journey map

This journey map includes the user persona’s jobs-to-be-done (JBTD) and the path they follow from the problem-awareness stage.

Since Dropbox is a cloud storage platform, using it for business affects the day-to-day of all workers. Hence, this map includes a clever section named “cast” which includes the profiles of everyone who’ll be affected by the decision to use Dropbox.

As you can see, Sophia starts her journey when she discovers Dropbox. She researches alternatives, books a demo, and signs up for the application.

This looks like a future state journey map as it seems quite simplified for a current state map.

5. Mailchimp’s day-in-the-life customer journey map

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform. The customer journey map captures everything a marketing worker named Dani does every two weeks.

This customer journey map compiles all the little tasks she does before, during, and after she sends a marketing email.

It’s considered a day-in-the-life map rather than a current-state one because it includes more detail than simply outlining the steps Dani takes to send an email. Instead, it includes the digressions she takes before actually completing the task, as well as emotions and areas of opportunity.

6. Hubspot’s customer journey map

This platform offers multiple services for managing a business. This is the current state of Hubspot’s customer journey . It shows everything a user does from the moment they become dissatisfied with previous tools.

This map explains in detail how customers interact with Hubspot until they become paying users. It also includes all the other actors involved, the factors that lead to a positive or negative experience, and the decision points.

This map also includes thoughts and sentiments, friction points, customer touchpoints, and internal actors involved.

7. Netflix’s customer journey map

Similar to the Mailchimp example, this customer journey map explains the macro steps a user like Jen takes to watch a movie on Netflix.

As a media streaming platform, Netflix’s algorithm comes up with movies and TV show recommendations. This map shows how Jen disregards those recommendations and searches for a different movie instead, making it an area of opportunity for the Netflix team.

As part of the analysis, this map also includes Jen’s pain points, motivators, and emotions. This is an example of how breaking the journey down into smaller goals can simplify spotting friction points by showing an end-to-end process on a single screen.

8. Canva’s user journey map

Canva is an online graphic design platform, mostly suited for non-designers. This user map tells the story of Laura, a woman who isn’t a designer but wants to build beautiful flyers to promote her hobby.

As you see, the map walks us through the process of building a new design. It starts with Laura creating a board and ends when she exports the design. Similarly to the Netflix example, this journey map is also restricted to one scenario.

This user journey also includes actions, pain points, goals, expectations, and thoughts across the phases.

9. Zoom’s user journey map

This popular online meeting platform serves different purposes. This example is about Zoom for teachers and it’s broken down into three main categories: Action, emotions, and thinking.

This user journey map explains what a teacher does to give online lectures. It’s separated into five main action buckets with a breakdown of the tasks that go into each bucket. For example, for a teacher to “Start teaching” they need to open Zoom and roll the call.

You can also see how the teachers’ emotions and thoughts vary throughout the session. Plus, the design of this map lets us quickly identify opportunities just by looking at the emojis.

10. HeartiCraft’s user journey map

HeartiCraft is an online store for people who want to buy handcrafted products. The experience begins when the user researches and finds the website and ends when they decide to buy again.

It’s an interesting view of a user journey map as it exposes where HeartiCraft shines but also where it fails to delight users.

This map highlights four different stages and includes all the actions, thoughts and feelings, pain points, and delights under each of them.

11. Say Yeah!’s customer journey map

This company helps businesses deliver products and services that better serve neurodiverse users. To analyze this customer journey , you need to place your eyes on the left side of the screen and skim through the stages.

As you can see, this is the journey of an adult child looking for health support for their parents. It starts at the moment they discover a problem and ends after they’ve made a purchase.

This map includes the tasks, actors, emotions, media, tactics, and the thinking process of the user across the stages. It also shows how relevant each of those moments is for serving the customer properly.

12. Gartner’s B2B customer buying journey map

As a consulting firm, Gartner has a deep understanding of the B2B sales process. You can see that in this example because it paints the B2B buyer’s journey as a non-linear path.

This is likely informed by historic customer behavior, journey analytics , and user research. In the map, you’ll see four main actions across the user’s journey that allow them to buy a product.

However, there are internal discrepancies that Gartner manages to capture in this map. For example, showing that the person meeting with the company isn’t necessarily the decision maker and needs to go back and get the CEO’s approval before agreeing to make a purchase.

13. Service blueprint map for technical support

As mentioned above, a service journey map helps employees know what needs to happen internally to power customer-facing tasks. In this example, we can see how systems are interconnected and linked to company policies.

This map also shows the actions employees take to provide service, including the invisible back-end tasks and the evidence that supports each action.

Templates for user and customer journey mapping process

Explore the different templates included on this list, and edit them to fit your customer journeys:

1. User journey map template in Figma

You can leverage this template on Figma for your customer journey mapping exercise and uncover user activities and emotions across different stages – from realizing their needs to becoming a paid customer.

It allows you to add what you expect the user’s emotions, experience, and expectations to be at each of the stages.

You can include as many ideas as you wish on this canvas or even invite your teams to work on this together.

2. User empathy mapping template in Notion

An empathy map compiles your target user’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.

This Notion template follows the classical approach by including the four main categories:

• Says. Direct quotes or statements that provide insight into the user’s thoughts and opinions.
• Thinks. Reflects the user’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.
• Does . Includes what the user does in real life or during their interaction with a product or service.
• Feels . Fears, frustrations, joys, and other emotional responses.

3. Future state customer journey map template from Xtensio

Use your creativity and your current state journey map to fill out this template. Explore alternative customer paths to offer a better customer experience.

This template includes space to add:

• Stages of the journey.
• User’s thoughts and feelings.
• Actions and touchpoints.
• How this map is different from the current journey.

4. Service blueprint customer journey map template from Miro

This is a typical service blueprint template. Miro lets you edit it to your liking by following these steps:

• Define the customer service scenario to investigate.
• Plot customer actions in chronological order.
• Lay out processes, actors, and support systems.
• Add roles and responsibilities by specifying interactions, visibility, and internal actions.
• Illustrate cross-functional relationships.

5. Customer journey map template from Mural

Use Mural’s customer journey map template to have a better understanding of your target audience’s touchpoints, needs, motivations, and barriers.

Here you can:

• Establish a customer scenario, e.g., buying a shirt online.
• Define the customer steps, including big and small actions.
• List all customer interactions with your brand, either in physical or digital touchpoints.
• Determine your customer’s goals and motivations.
• Highlight the positive moments at each stage.
• Define the negative or frustrating moments across the journey.

6. Customer journey map template from Canva

Find many different customer journey map templates on Canva. These all let you edit the customer actions across stages, and depending on the option that you choose, you’ll also be able to add the user’s:

• Emotions and feelings.
• Thinking process.
• Physical or digital touchpoints.
• Barriers or pain points.
• Solutions to barriers.

7. Customer touchpoint map template from InVision

Map out the customer touchpoints on this InVision template. Here, you’ll be able to list all the different interactions between the user and your business, as well as mention all the involved actors. You can break down the actions by stages and teams.

8. Customer journey mapping template from Slidesgo

Slidesgo provides you with 29 customer journey mapping examples. You can choose the design that piques your interest the most and add the different stages, touchpoints, actions, and sentiments. These designs are mostly suited for journeys of up to five steps.

9. B2B customer journey map template from UXPressia

UXPressia developed a set of B2B/B2C customer journey map templates for you to use. This mix also includes persona templates to guide you when creating personas for your journey maps.

You can use these templates as-is to guide your thinking or adapt them to fit your specific project needs.

10. Customer journey map template from Conceptboard

This customer journey map template is a classical one. Open the file with a clear understanding of your user persona.

There, you’ll be able to add customer data concerning each stage, more specifically regarding their:

• Touchpoints and channels.
• Overall experience.
• Pain points.
• Areas of improvement.

Exploring user journey map examples can inspire you to enhance your customers’ experience by pinpointing critical areas, such as better onboarding processes.

To create an effective customer journey map, you need a deep understanding of your user and a clear mapping path, i.e., via conducting user interviews and contextual research.

Userpilot is an all-in-one product platform that can equip you with actionable customer journey insights. Get a demo to explore our powerful analytics capabilities!

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Customer Journey Map Template

Map your customer journey and help your customers successfully get from A to B. Understand the reasoning behind their choices and design the best product experience and meet your customer's needs.

Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies

About the Customer Journey Map Template

A customer journey map, also known as a user journey map, is a visual representation of how customers experience your brand and company across all its touchpoints. In a customer journey map template, interactions are placed in a pre-made timeline to map out the user flow.

Since customers are the backbone of your business, it is important to understand their pain points, desires and needs so that you can create a customer-centric experience for them.

Many teams use customer journey mapping tools to visually represent customers' thought processes and emotions from their initial interaction until the end goal. This practice enables businesses to assess whether they are meeting their objectives. Doing so can improve their conversion rates and enhance the overall customer experience.

How to use Miro’s customer journey map template

Here are 6 steps to create a successful CJM using the customer journey mapping template. In each section, we will dive a little deeper, but remember, every customer journey map is different, so you may spend more time on one step compared to another.

1. Set clear objectives for the map

Identify your goal for the map. Identifying your ideal outcome will help set the foundations for a successful project.

Ask yourself some of these questions:

Why are you making a customer journey map?

Who is it specifically about?

What experience is it based upon?

Based on this, you may want to create a buyer persona. This is a fictitious customer with all their demographics and psychographics representing your average customer. Having a clear persona is helpful in reminding you to direct every aspect of your customer journey map toward them.

2. Identify your user personas and define their goals

Use the Game-Changer container on the template to identify your persona.

Answer these three questions:

What are their key goals and needs?

What do they struggle with most?

What tasks do they have?

Conduct user research to help you in this process. Survey customers to understand their buying journey, or ask the sales team or customer service representatives for feedback or the most frequently asked questions. You would want to hear the experience of people who are interested in your product and who have interacted with it to understand their pain points and what can be done to improve.

3. Highlight target customer personas

Once you’ve discovered all the different buyer personas that interact with your business, you will need to narrow the list down and select one or two to focus on.

A customer journey map is a specific journey one customer takes, so having too many personas on one map will not be a precise indication of their journey and not a reflection of their true experience.

4. Identify all possible customer touchpoints

Based on your research, you can now use this information to map out all the possible customer touchpoints your customer will face. Use the User Journey Map Template to add the outcomes you want your customer to achieve, and then map all the steps they need to take in order to achieve these outcomes.

List out all of the touchpoints your customer currently has, and then make another list of where you would like your customers to have additional touchpoints. Then check if there are any overlaps.

This step is vital as it can show you whether you have too few or too many touchpoints and gives you a rough idea of your current customer journey experience.

Touch points are not limited to just your website. Look at other areas such as:

Social media channels

Email marketing

3rd party reviews or mentions

Pro Tip:  Run a quick Google search of your business and identify all the pages that mention your brand. Verify this using Google Analytics to see what brings in the most traffic.

This step is very important as it can help you understand things like, are the lack of touchpoints the reason why my customers are turning away? If there are more than expected, are they getting too overwhelmed?

5. Build the customer journey map and try it yourself!

Once you have gathered all the necessary information and identified all the touchpoints your customer will experience, it will finally be time to start building your own customer journey map.

Ensure that you note down every point your customer will touch your business. Remember to add their actions, needs, pains, and feelings to your customer journey map.

Creating the map alone isn’t the end of the process. You will need to go through the journey yourself and analyze the results. By going through the journey first-hand, you will see the areas where expectations might not have been met.

For each persona, go through every journey from beginning to end and take notes.

6. Adjust as needed

Once you have gone through each persona map, you will get a clearer understanding of what your customers are experiencing.

Ensure that all the needs are met and pain points are addressed. No matter how big or small the changes are, every single change has an impact. And this small impact could be the deciding factor for purchase, signup, or download.

Add all the opportunities and improvements you could introduce to your User Journey Map Template . Brainstorm with your team ideas to implement changes, and make sure you assign the right team members to each process.

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What should be included in a customer journey map template?

Every customer journey map will be different. No map is linear, so it is okay not to have a direct A to B Journey. Below we have compiled a number of points that may be included in a customer journey map template:

1. Significant milestones

In order to begin with a successful customer journey map, it is important to draft a path your customer will be journeying through to reach your business’s goal. This step is also useful as you can preemptively identify potential hiccups that might ensue here.

2. User engagement

This element is where you map out the details of how your customer will interact with your site or product. Think of how you would like this to be in order for you to achieve your goal.

3. Emotions

As we seek positive experiences, it is also important to ensure our customers feel relief, excitement, and happiness. Therefore, to mitigate any negative emotions, ensure you have a clear and concise process with appropriate branding to avoid creating negative opinions.

4. Pain Points

When your customers are experiencing a negative emotion, there is a reason why. Adding pain points to your customer journey map will help you identify the reasons behind them and come up with a solution to fix them.

5. Solutions

And finally, add solutions. Once you and your team have identified the pain points, brainstorm and implement solutions to improve your user experience.

How do I use a customer journey map template?

You can create your CJM with Miro’s free Customer Journey Map Template and customize it according to your brand or product needs. When using your own CJM template, remember to define the scope, what touchpoints you want to analyze, and who inside your organization has ownership of which step.

What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

Using a user journey map template can be key to better understanding your customers. Customer journey mapping puts you and your team in the mind of the customer and helps you to visualize what they are experiencing at each stage and touchpoint with your business or product. Outlining the stages of interaction, while keeping the customer front and center, allows you to identify any pain points that could be improved. This will better not only the customer experience but will help with customer retention in the long run.

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. Touchpoints can be found in places where your business comes in direct contact with potential or existing customers. A display ad, an interaction with an employee, a 404 error, and even a Google review can be considered a customer touchpoint. Your brand exists beyond your website and marketing materials, so it’s important that the different types of touch points are considered in your customer journey map because they can help uncover opportunities for improvement in the buying journey.

How often should you update your customer journey map?

Your map should be a constant work-in-progress. Reviewing it on a monthly or quarterly basis will help you to identify gaps and opportunities for streamlining your customer journey further. Use your data analytics along with customer feedback to check for any roadblocks. It would also be helpful to schedule regular meetings to analyze any changes that might affect the customer journey.

Do all businesses need a customer journey map?

Customer journey mapping is important for businesses of all sizes. From SMBs to Enterprise. It is also important for all functions. From sales and marketing to customer service. There is no one size fits all for customer journey maps. Therefore, it is important to take time to personalise your own customer journey map to fully understand your own process and identify your own pain points.

Get started with this template right now.

Research Topic Brainstorm Template

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Coming up with a topic for a research project can be a daunting task. Use the Research Topic Brainstorm template to take a general idea and transform it into something concrete. With the Research Topic Brainstorm template, you can compile a list of general ideas that interest you and then break them into component parts. You can then turn those parts into questions that might be the focus for a research project.

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Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success. Those are the pillars of user experience — which is why they serve as the key metrics in the HEART framework. Developed by the research team at Google, this framework gives larger companies an accurate way to measure user experience at scale, which you can then reference throughout the product development lifecycle. While the HEART framework uses five metrics, you might not need all five for every project — choose the ones that will be most useful for your company and project.

The Ultimate Storyboarding Template

Elevate your storyboarding with The Ultimate Storyboarding Template. Designed for ultimate flexibility and detail, this template supports a wide range of projects, from films to product launches. It includes sections for scene breakdowns, character arcs, and visual elements, making it ideal for comprehensive storytelling. Use it to create detailed, engaging storyboards that communicate your vision clearly and effectively to your team and stakeholders.

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.

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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

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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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11 Free Effective Customer Journey Map Templates

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

Creating an effective customer journey is essential to the success of any business.

It takes careful planning and consideration, as well as a deep understanding of your customer’s needs and preferences. But it doesn’t have to be daunting. With the right tools and templates, you can craft an exceptional customer experience that will keep them coming back for more.

One such tool is customer journey templates, which provide businesses with a structured approach to creating their buyer journeys.

In this article, we’ll explore what customer journey templates are and what makes a good template. Then, we’ll look at 11 examples of great customer journey templates so that you can see first-hand how tools help create great experiences for customers throughout their entire lifecycle.

What is a Customer Journey Map Template?

What makes a good customer journey mapping template, 1. clickup customer journey map template, 2. clickup agency client health tracker by zenpilot, 3. clickup user story mapping template, 4. clickup empathy map whiteboard template, 5. clickup customer success plan template, 6. clickup voice of the customer template, 7. clickup customer problem statement template, 8. clickup customer onboarding template, 9. clickup customer service escalation template, 10. slidesgo powerpoint customer journey mapping template, 11. sidesgo google slides customer journey map template, how to create a customer journey map.

A customer journey map visually represents the customer experience from start to finish. It’s similar to a project management tool , except that it helps businesses understand how different parts of their customer journey contribute to buyers’ satisfaction and loyalty. A customer journey map templates are pre-designed versions of these timelines that give users a solid place to start from.

Typically, a customer journey map template will include key steps in the customer lifecycle, such as onboarding and follow-up . It will also include key metrics such as customer satisfaction and net promoter score, which can help inform decision-making when it comes to refining the customer experience.

By using a template as part of your standard operating procedures to plan out your customer journey, you can quickly gain insight into how different touchpoints are performing and identify areas where improvement is needed. This can then be used to shape your company’s work habits around delivering an exceptional customer experience.

Additionally, templates provide a starting point for businesses that do not have the resources or in-house skills to design their own customer journey map from scratch.

Bonus: SOP software !

If you’re looking to create a fantastic customer journey, having a good template is the key. A stellar customer journey should be both enjoyable and informative, allowing your customers to feel knowledgeable and empowered throughout the entire process.

Likewise, a good customer journey template should be easy to follow and utilize, offering a structure that makes sense for both you and your customers.

• Has clearly defined stages: A good customer journey template should have clear and distinct stages that represent the various touch points or interactions the customer has with your business.
• Shows the customer perspective : The template should be designed from the customer’s perspective, highlighting their needs, expectations, and pain points at each stage of the journey.
• Represents graphically: The template should be visually appealing and easy to understand. A visual representation of the journey can help to identify areas where the customer experience could be improved.
• Is flexible and customizable: A good customer journey template should be flexible and customizable to accommodate different types of customer journeys across different industries or businesses.
• Includes metrics and feedback: The template should include business metrics that measure the success of each stage of the journey, as well as feedback mechanisms that capture customer feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Facilitates collaboration: The template should facilitate collaboration between different departments within your organization to ensure a consistent and seamless experience across all customer touchpoints.

With a solid template and a customer journey mapping tool , you can create a customer journey that not only meets but exceeds your customers’ expectations. And having that set roadmap to follow will make the process easier and more efficient than ever before.

11 Free Customer Journey Map Templates

Customer journey templates are a powerful tool for mapping out the customer journey, as they provide a concise visual representation of the touchpoints a customer has with your business. These templates can help businesses better understand their customer’s experience, and make data-driven decisions to improve it.

Because every business’s customer journey will look a bit different, we’ve rounded up 11 of our favorite journey templates for various use cases.

If you’re trying to decide where to start on your customer journey mapping, why not keep it simple with ClickUp’s Customer Journey Map Template ?

This whiteboard-style template lays out the customer’s lifecycle from start to finish. It offers question prompts on customer actions, touchpoints, experience, and solutions, and breaks the journey into three main stages:

• Awareness: Stage 1 of the customer journey, where customers become aware of the business and its products or services.
• Consideration: The second stage of the customer journey, where customers begin to consider the business as a potential solution to their needs. At this stage, customers may begin to research the business and its products or services, compare it to other options, and evaluate its features and benefits.
• Conversion: The final stage of the customer journey, where customers make a purchase decision and become paying customers.

Each stage has 6 preloaded sticky notes underneath it, but the whiteboard workspace also allows you to add additional sticky notes, draw freehand, add shapes, arrows, and text, and include links to documents, websites, Figma files, and Google Workspace apps.

Overall, this template provides a comprehensive roadmap of the customer’s journey and helps businesses to brainstorm opportunities for improvement.

Stay ahead of your client’s needs and drive customer satisfaction with the ClickUp Agency Client Health Tracker from ZenPilot . This customizable template allows you to track the health of your customer relationships, manage account details, and more – all in one convenient location.

This template allows you to easily visualize your customer journey from beginning to end. Its customizable fields, user-friendly interface, and powerful tracking capabilities make it easy to manage your customer relationships and stay ahead of their needs.

The ClickUp Agency Client Health Tracker by Zenpilot includes:

• 8 pre-configured views
• 14 Custom Fields
• Built in activity tracking features

Customer journey mapping breaks down a user’s journey from awareness, consideration, and conversion into smaller pieces and stages, and then represents them on a visual map. This process enables businesses to gain a better understanding of the customer’s perspective and identify areas of improvement in the user experience.

If that’s something your company needs, ClickUp’s User Story Mapping Template is for you!

During the process of user story mapping, cross-functional teams work together to identify the different stages of the user journey. This can include identifying buyer personas, user activities, user steps, and more.

Our template utilizes the same whiteboard features as our Customer Journey Mapping Template , just with a different layout and pre-populated fields specific to story mapping.

• Functionality: All the flexibility of our regular whiteboard workspace. The ability to add or remove sticky notes, link out to documents and websites, add photos, shapes, arrows, and text, and even freehand draw.
• User guide: The steps on the left-hand side show you how to use the template, and there are premade sections for user activity, user steps, releases, and customer personas.

By creating a shared understanding of the user’s journey, businesses can develop more effective solutions and products that better meet their customer’s needs.

Empathy mapping enables teams to gain a more profound understanding of their buyers. Like a user persona , empathy maps represent a specific customer segment or profile. It is designed to help teams develop empathy and identify with their customers’ needs, feelings, thoughts, and motivations.

ClickUp’s Empathy Map Whiteboard Template allows team members to share insights and observations on their customers’ behaviors, experiences, and challenges. By using a user persona template and creating a visual representation of their customers’ perspectives, teams can develop a better understanding of their customers’ emotional and psychological states, ultimately leading to more customer-centered solutions.

The template features 6 sections designed to guide your understanding of your customer journeys:

• Think and feel: The customer’s worry and aspirations, what makes a difference to them, and what their mindset and character reveal about them
• See: The customer’s environment, market, and cultural preferences
• Hear: What influencers, friends/family, and boss/peers/co-workers are saying to the customer
• Say and Do: The customer’s behavior towards others, public attitude, and appearance
• Pain: The customer’s fears and frustrations
• Gain: The customer’s wants, needs, and measures of success

The Empathy Map Whiteboard Template is an essential tool for any team looking to understand their customers better. But it can also be used in-house for HR teams wanting to understand their employees better. Consider implementing empathy mapping into your HR software , or make mapping employees one of your HR goals .

Customer success is an essential aspect of maintaining and growing a loyal customer base for any business. A customer success plan is a critical tool that can help you provide an exceptional customer experience, leading to long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty.

ClickUp’s Customer Success Plan Template is an easy way to visualize critical customer information in a single place for streamlined efficiency and quicker customer support.

• Filter by status: Quickly view all customer information depending on where customers are at in your pipeline – either “onboarding,” “ongoing,” “retention,” “on hold,” “complete,” or “inactive”
• Quick view important customer information : Client name, phone number, email, location, service type, agreed upon pricing, progress percentage bar, and attachment to the contract
• Add subtasks: Add custom subtasks to the customer’s card, and visually check how many tasks have been completed just below the client’s name.

Using this template gives you a bird’s eye view of where each customer is at in your lifecycle, and which tasks still need to be completed for them to move along to the next stage. It provides accountability and oversight in a single view.

In today’s competitive business landscape, providing top-notch customer service is important for the success of any organization. To achieve this, you need to gain a deep understanding of your customer’s needs, expectations, and preferences. That’s where ClickUp’s Voice of the Customer Template comes in.

This template helps you gain insights into your customers’ experiences and improve your overall customer satisfaction. It captures customer feedback through various channels like surveys, case studies, social media, customer service interactions, and online reviews, then helps guide you toward finding a solution.

• Voice of the customer: This lets you put a soundbite of a customer’s review or feedback (ie, “This product is too difficult to use”)
• Customer need: Space to interpret what the customer is looking for that they aren’t getting based on the complaint (ie, “Customer needs instructions that are easier to understand”)
• Solution: Space to determine how you’ll meet the customer’s need (ie, “provide alternative instructions via video walkthrough and online recordings)

This “problem–need–solution” format can help you improve customer satisfaction and increase customer loyalty. When customers feel heard and see that their feedback is being acted upon, they’re more likely to become loyal to your brand and recommend your business to others.

There are numerous reasons why a product or service may fail to meet customer expectations. That’s why it’s so important to take the time to understand your customer’s challenges and problems. One way to do this is by using ClickUp’s Customer Problem Statement Template to capture customer issues and create strategies to solve them.

The customer problem statement template includes 5 sections:

• Customer profile: Where you’ll include a customer description and personal information to help identify the segments this customer fits into.
• Customer objectives: Where you’ll write what your customer hopes to accomplish with your product or service.
• Customer roadblocks : Where you’ll list any barriers standing between your customer and their objectives.
• Barrier root cause : Where you’ll identify what deeper issue is causing the roadblocks.
• Emotional impact: Where you’ll write your plan to target the pain points and help them reach their goals.

This template will help you clarify your customers’ frustrations and pain points to understand them better, improve business operations and products to meet customer needs, and educate your team so they can become more empathetic customer advocates.

An organized customer onboarding experience is essential for the success of both new clients and the company.

Good customer onboarding can lead to improved customer satisfaction, retention, upselling and cross-selling opportunities, and long-term brand loyalty. On the flip side, a negative experience can lead to customer frustration and churn. Use ClickUp’s Customer Onboarding Template to ensure your business reaps the benefits – and avoids the pitfalls.

The template offers 4 preset stages of onboarding (though, they can be edited to suit your needs):

• Welcome gift: The first stage includes sending a welcome email, present, and additional information to a new customer.
• Team assignment: The second stage includes assigning a person or team to manage and support the new customer.
• Onboarding Questionnaire: The third stage includes sending out a series of questions to the new customer, getting it back, and reviewing the responses.
• Onboarding Call: The fourth stage includes scheduling and running an onboarding meeting with the new customer.

Each stage offers fields for the new customer name, assignee, priority level, customer contact information, onboarding call date , services, and customer type, plus subtasks within each stage. Note that this template is specific to customer onboarding – but we have plenty of great resources on employee onboarding and welcoming new hires , too!

Providing excellent customer service can set a company apart from its competitors and create a loyal customer base. However, even the best customer service teams can face difficult situations that require escalation to higher levels of management. This is where ClickUp’s Customer Service Escalation Template comes in.

This template lets you see all customer service tickets in a single view, as well as additional views for tier support and team capacity. Tickets are organized by new tickets, Tier 1, Tier 2, and beyond, depending on the customer’s need.

Each support section has the following field to give your support team all the context they need to resolve customer issues.

• Task name: The subject of the issue or request in question (ie, “Product demo inquiry” or “refund status”).
• Custom task ID: To easily categorize, identify, and track support tickets.
• Assignee: To assign a particular support staff member to the request. Assignee data can be pulled later to assist in supporting staff performance reviews .
• Customer information: Including name, phone number, email, address, order ID, and support request message.
• Issue category: To help you identify the type of support the customer is requesting (ie, a refund, follow-up message, replacement, etc.).
• Attachment spots: Optional fields to capture images or files the customer provides, and to attach a copy of their receipt.
• Impact level: To determine how critical or urgent resolving this task is.

Handling customer service escalation requests in a quick and organized fashion can improve customer satisfaction, reduce customer churn, increase efficiency, improve communication, and provide valuable data for continuous improvement .

While we believe ClickUp provides the best customer journey templates possible, we know that sometimes, you don’t get to choose the software you use to conduct your business. For those who have to stick with Microsoft solutions, SlidesGo provides a Customer Journey Map Template to help you track your customer’s lifecycle.

This slide pack includes high-level, mostly visual templates to use in presentations, as well as a few more detailed journey maps that take you through the awareness, acquisition, service, and loyalty customer stages. This download includes:

• Wide variety of options: 30 different 100% editable infographics and customer journey maps
• Most common format size: Widescreen 16:9 format for all screen types
• User guide: Additional information and instructions on customizing the graphics

These templates are not quite as detailed or varied as the ClickUp options, but if you’re creating a quick slide deck for a presentation, they’re a perfect solution.

If your company uses Google Workspace and you’re required to keep your customer journey templates within the Google family, these SlidesGo Google Slides Customer Journey Map Templates are for you.

It’s important to have a complete understanding of your customer’s needs, opinions, motivations, doubts, and interactions with your product. This thorough analysis of the customer’s experience is a critical aspect of product development. This set of infographics was creed to help with these studies.

This download includes:

• Wide variety of options: 32 different 100% editable infographics and customer journey maps

These infographics are easy to use and can help elevate any presentation on customer experience studies. While they’re designed with Google Slides in mind, they can also be downloaded for use with Microsoft PowerPoint.

Related Customer Journey Resources:

• Client Management Software
• CRM Software Examples
• CRM Templates
• CRM Workflow

Now that you have a variety of templates to choose from, you may be wondering how to actually create a customer journey map. Here are some simple steps you can follow:

• Identify your target audience: The first step in creating a successful customer journey map is knowing who your customers are. Identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your existing and potential customers. This will help you understand their needs and motivations.
• Map the stages of your customer journey: Next, map out the different stages that a customer goes through when interacting with your brand. These typically include awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy.
• Gather data: To create an accurate customer journey map, gather data from various sources such as surveys, interviews, and feedback. This will give you a better understanding of your customers’ experiences.
• Create personas: Develop fictional characters that represent the different types of customers you have. These personas should be based on real data and help you empathize with your customers for a deeper understanding of their journey.
• Analyze emotions: Customers’ emotions play a crucial role in their journey map. Identify how they may feel at each stage of the journey and make note of any pain points or moments of delight. This can help you improve their overall experience.
• Plot the map: Finally, plot all the stages, touch points, and emotions on a visual map to get a clear understanding of your customer journey. This will help you identify areas for improvement and align your strategies with your customers’ needs.

Optimize Your Workflow with Customer Journey Templates

Customer journey templates are a valuable tool for businesses looking to efficiently map and track their customers’ lifecycles. By utilizing these templates, businesses can identify opportunities to improve the customer experience and stay competitive in today’s market.

We may be biased, but we think the easiest way to get started with customer journey mapping is by using ClickUp. ClickUp’s workspace lets you easily visualize your customer lifecycle, and our templates help you to quickly and intuitively organize it, whether you’re working solo or as part of a larger team. And when you do need to collaborate with other contributors, ClickUp makes getting feedback simple.

It’s free to get started with ClickUp, so give us a try today to see how a bit of planning upfront can maximize your production in the long run.

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What is a Customer Journey Map? [Free Templates]

Learn what the customer journey mapping process is and download a free template that you can use to create your own customer journey map.

Table of Contents

Mapping the customer journey can give you a way to better understand your customers and their needs. As a tool, it allows you to visualize the different stages that a customer goes through when interacting with your business; their thoughts, feelings, and pain points.

And, it’s shown that the friction from those pain points costs big: in 2019, ecommerce friction totaled an estimated 213 billion in lost US revenue .

Customer journey maps can help you to identify any problems or areas where you could improve your customer experience . In this article, we’ll explain what the customer journey mapping process is and provide a free template that you can use to create your own map. Let’s get started!

Bonus: Get our free, fully customizable Customer Experience Strategy Template that will help you understand your customers and reach your business goals.

What is a customer journey map?

So, what is customer journey mapping? Essentially, customer journey maps are a tool that you can use to understand the customer experience. Customer journey maps are often visual representations showing you the customer’s journey from beginning to end. They include all the touchpoints along the way.

There are often four main stages in your sales funnel, and knowing these can help you create your customer journey maps:

• Inquiry or awareness
• Interest, comparison, or decision-making
• Purchase or preparation
• Installation, activation, or feedback

Customer journey maps are used to track customer behavior and pinpoint areas where the customer experiences pain points. With this information uncovered, you can improve the customer experience, giving your customers a positive experience with your company.

You can use customer journey mapping software like Excel or Google sheets, Google Decks, infographics, illustrations, or diagrams to create your maps. But you don’t actually need customer journey mapping tools. You can create these maps with a blank wall and a pack of sticky notes.

Though they can be scribbled on a sticky note, it’s often easier to create these journeys digitally. That way, you have a record of your journey map, and you can share it with colleagues. We’ve provided free customer journey mapping templates at the end of this article to make your life a little easier.

The benefits of using customer journey maps

The main benefit of customer journey mapping is a better understanding of how your customers feel and interact with your business touchpoints. With this knowledge, you can create strategies that better serve your customer at each touchpoint.

Give them what they want and make it easy to use, and they’ll keep coming back. But, there are a couple of other great knock-on benefits too.

Improved customer support

Your customer journey map will highlight moments where you can add some fun to a customer’s day. And it will also highlight the pain points of your customer’s experience. Knowing where these moments are will let you address them before your customer gets there. Then, watch your customer service metrics spike!

Effective marketing tactics

A greater understanding of who your customers are and what motivates them will help you to advertise to them.

Let’s say you sell a sleep aid product or service. A potential target market for your customer base is young, working mothers who are strapped for time.

The tone of your marketing material can empathize with their struggles, saying, “The last thing you need is someone asking if you’re tired. But we know that over half of working moms get less than 6 hours of sleep at night. While we can’t give you more time, we know how you can make the most of those 6 hours. Try our Sleep Aid today and sleep better tonight.”

Building out customer personas will show potential target audiences and their motivation, like working moms who want to make the most of their hours asleep.

Product advancements or service improvements

By mapping your customer’s journey, you’ll gain insights into what motivates them to make a purchase or prevents them from doing so. You’ll have clarity on when or why they return items and which items they buy next. With this information and more, you’ll be able to identify opportunities to upsell or cross-sell products.

A more enjoyable and efficient user experience

Customer journey mapping will show you where customers get stuck and bounce off your site. You can work your way through the map, fixing any friction points as you go. The end result will be a smoothly-running, logical website or app.

A customer-focused mindset

Instead of operating with the motivation of business success, a customer journey map can shift your focus to the customer. Instead of asking yourself, “how can I increase profits?” ask yourself, “what would better serve my customer?” The profits will come when you put your customer first.

At the end of the day, customer journey maps help you to improve your customer experience and boost sales. They’re a useful tool in your customer experience strategy .

How to create a customer journey map

There are many different ways to create a customer journey map. But, there are a few steps you’ll want to take regardless of how you go about mapping your customer’s journey.

Step 1. Set your focus

Are you looking to drive the adoption of a new product? Or perhaps you’ve noticed issues with your customer experience. Maybe you’re looking for new areas of opportunity for your business. Whatever it is, be sure to set your goals before you begin mapping the customer journey.

Step 2. Choose your buyer personas

To create a customer journey map, you’ll first need to identify your customers and understand their needs. To do this, you will want to access your buyer personas.

Buyer personas are caricatures or representations of someone who represents your target audience. These personas are created from real-world data and strategic goals.

If you don’t already have them, create your own buyer personas with our easy step-by-step guide and free template.

Choose one or two of your personas to be the focus of your customer journey map. You can always go back and create maps for your remaining personas.

Step 3. Perform user research

Interview prospective or past customers in your target market. You do not want to gamble your entire customer journey on assumptions you’ve made. Find out directly from the source what their pathways are like, where their pain points are, and what they love about your brand.

You can do this by sending out surveys, setting up interviews, and examining data from your business chatbot . Be sure to look at what the most frequently asked questions are. If you don’t have a FAQ chatbot like Heyday , that automates customer service and pulls data for you, you’re missing out!

Get a free Heyday demo

You will also want to speak with your sales team, your customer service team, and any other team member who may have insight into interacting with your customers.

Step 4. List customer touchpoints

Your next step is to track and list the customer’s interactions with the company, both online and offline.

A customer touchpoint means anywhere your customer interacts with your brand. This could be your social media posts , anywhere they might find themselves on your website, your brick-and-mortar store, ratings and reviews, or out-of-home advertising.

Write as many as you can down, then put on your customer shoes and go through the process yourself. Track the touchpoints, of course, but also write down how you felt at each juncture and why. This data will eventually serve as a guide for your map.

Step 5. Build your customer journey map

You’ve done your research and gathered as much information as possible, now it’s time for the fun stuff. Compile all of the information you’ve collected into one place. Then, start mapping out your customer journey! You can use the templates we’ve created below for an easy plug-and-play execution.

Step 6. Analyze your customer journey map

Once the customer journey has been mapped out, you will want to go through it yourself. You need to experience first-hand what your customers do to fully understand their experience.

As you journey through your sales funnel, look for ways to improve your customer experience. By analyzing your customer’s needs and pain points, you can see areas where they might bounce off your site or get frustrated with your app. Then, you can take action to improve it. List these out in your customer journey map as “Opportunities” and “Action plan items”.

Types of customer journey maps

There are many different types of customer journey maps. We’ll take you through four to get started: current state, future state, a day in the life, and empathy maps. We’ll break down each of them and explain what they can do for your business.

Current state

This customer journey map focuses on your business as it is today. With it, you will visualize the experience a customer has when attempting to accomplish their goal with your business or product. A current state customer journey uncovers and offers solutions for pain points.

Future state

This customer journey map focuses on how you want your business to be. This is an ideal future state. With it, you will visualize a customer’s best-case experience when attempting to accomplish their goal with your business or product.

Once you have your future state customer journey mapped out, you’ll be able to see where you want to go and how to get there.

Day-in-the-life

A day-in-the-life customer journey is a lot like the current state customer journey, but it aims to highlight aspects of a customer’s daily life outside of how they interact with your brand.

Day-in-the-life mapping looks at everything that the consumer does during their day. It shows what they think and feel within an area of focus with or without your company.

When you know how a consumer spends their day, you can more accurately strategize where your brand communication can meet them. Are they checking Instagram on their lunch break, feeling open and optimistic about finding new products? If so, you’ll want to target ads on that platform to them at that time.

Day-in-the-life customer journey examples can look vastly different depending on your target demographic.

Empathy maps

Empathy maps don’t follow a particular sequence of events along the user journey. Instead, these are divided into four sections and track what someone says about their experience with your product when it’s in use.

You should create empathy maps after user research and testing. You can think of them as an account of all that was observed during research or testing when you asked questions directly regarding how people feel while using products. Empathy maps can give you unexpected insights into your users’ needs and wants.

Customer journey map templates

Use these templates to inspire your own customer journey map creation.

Customer journey map template for the current state:

The future state customer journey mapping template:

A day-in-the-life customer journey map template:

An empathy map template:

A customer journey map example

It can be helpful to see customer journey mapping examples. To give you some perspective on what these look like executed, we’ve created a customer journey mapping example of the current state.

Buyer Persona:

Curious Colleen, a 32-year-old female, is in a double-income no-kids marriage. Colleen and her partner work for themselves; while they have research skills, they lack time. She is motivated by quality products and frustrated by having to sift through content to get the information she needs.

What are their key goals and needs? Colleen needs a new vacuum. Her key goal is to find one that will not break again.

What are their struggles?

She is frustrated that her old vacuum broke and that she has to spend time finding a new one. Colleen feels as though this problem occurred because the vacuum she bought previously was of poor quality.

What tasks do they have?

Colleen must research vacuums to find one that will not break. She must then purchase a vacuum and have it delivered to her house.

Opportunities:

Colleen wants to understand quickly and immediately the benefits our product offers; how can we make this easier? Colleen upholds social proof as a decision-making factor. How can we better show our happy customers? There is an opportunity here to restructure our website information hierarchy or implement customer service tools to give Colleen the information she needs faster. We can create comparison charts with competitors, have benefits immediately and clearly stated, and create social campaigns.

Action Plan:

• Implement a chatbot so customers like Colleen can get the answers they want quickly and easily.
• Create a comparison tool for competitors and us, showing benefits and costs.
• Implement benefit-forward statements on all landing pages.
• Create a social campaign dedicated to UGC to foster social proof.
• Send out surveys dedicated to gathering customer feedback. Pull out testimonial quotes from here when possible.

Now that you know what the customer journey mapping process is, you can take these tactics and apply them to your own business strategy. By tracking customer behavior and pinpointing areas where your customers experience pain points, you’ll be able to alleviate stress for customers and your team in no time.

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Colleen Christison is a freelance copywriter, copy editor, and brand communications specialist. She spent the first six years of her career in award-winning agencies like Major Tom, writing for social media and websites and developing branding campaigns. Following her agency career, Colleen built her own writing practice, working with brands like Mission Hill Winery, The Prevail Project, and AntiSocial Media.

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Customer journey mapping 101 (+ free templates)

When I was a kid, I remember watching my parents switch between different credit cards to get the best rewards for a particular purchase. They almost always pulled out the American Express first because (as they explained to me) the base reward rate was higher than even the sector-specific perks offered by other cards. Twenty years later, when I decided to get a high-end credit card, Amex was the first one that came to mind.

Customer journey mapping is the process of planning out people's awareness of and relationship to your brand, starting with their very first impression—even if, as in my case, that impression is made a full decade before they can actually use your product.

Table of contents: 

What is a customer journey map?

Think back to any recent purchase of your own, and try to trace your own customer journey:

When and where was your first contact with the product or service?

How many channels of communication with the company did you have available?

How was the contact you had, if any? Was it personal or formulaic?

Were your problems, if any, solved? If so, were they solved in a timely manner?

What do you now know about the brand besides the product or service itself?

The customer journey vs. the user journey vs. the buyer journey

What's the difference between the customer, user, and buyer journeys?

The customer journey is split up into two parts: the buyer journey and the user journey. The buyer journey covers everything up to the point of purchase. After that point, the customer becomes a user, and all of their experiences are part of the user journey. 

Benefits of customer journey mapping

Here are the main benefits of the customer journey mapping process:

Touchpoint optimization: With a clear understanding of what your touchpoints are and where they occur, you can track and adjust them based on how they perform.

Enhanced customer experience insights: Through customer profiling and a better overview of all the touchpoints that make a journey, you can acquire more precise and actionable customer experience insights.

Improved product development: Thoughtful and intentional journey planning creates more opportunities for meaningful customer feedback, which gives businesses better information to improve their product.

Customer journey map template

The customer journey map includes additional details within each phase (which I'll discuss in more detail later) to help you strategically plan your customers' touchpoints and move them closer to a purchase.

Below, we'll walk through each part of the customer journey map and how to use it. 

Parts of a journey map

If you're already familiar with journey mapping, you can start filling in the template right away. Otherwise, here's a quick walkthrough of what goes in each section.

What is the customer doing?

In this section, you'll jot down the main things that the prospect, lead, or customer is doing during this stage. For example, if you're a personal trainer, an awareness stage key step might include something like "Prospect wants to get in shape." Or if you offer an email newsletter app, an expansion and advocacy stage key step might be "Customer upgrades their plan." 

Each stage will likely have more than one key step or milestone—that's good. You should be specific enough to be able to create touchpoints, content, and marketing campaigns geared toward each milestone.

What is the customer thinking?

Next, put yourself in the customer's shoes and think about what questions they might have at each stage. In the awareness stage, it might be things like "How can I do X better?" or "What is [your product name]?" In the consideration phase, questions like "Is this worth my time/money?" or "Will this help me solve my problem?" will come to the forefront. 

Where and how could the customer encounter our brand?

After you've outlined what your customer is thinking at each stage, align each question with the relevant touchpoint that could address each concern.

What touchpoint opportunities are missing?

When you have a question or milestone that doesn't have a corresponding touchpoint, you've found a gap in your customer journey. That means customers at this stage are going to be left with unmet needs and unanswered questions, and may look more seriously at competitor products as a result. It's essential to develop touchpoints to fill this gap and prevent losing potential customers at a key milestone.

Stages of the customer journey

The customer journey map can be split into five phases: awareness, consideration, conversion, retention, and brand loyalty.

Customers can't decide whether or not they want your product if they don't know that it exists. In the earliest phase of the customer journey, a business's goal is to reach the individual and, ultimately, attract them to the brand.

Consideration

Once potential customers are aware of your brand, the next phase they enter is called "consideration" or "research." This is when the customer's perspective shifts from simple awareness of your brand's existence to an understanding of the value that you have to offer them. 

Some businesses also include a mini-stage called "Intent" or "Onboarding," when the customer has decided they're interested in the product and is testing it out. The company's goal in this stage is simply to provide an exceptional user experience—they want to make sure the product works as intended and the customer's questions and requests are handled well.

A business can identify customers that are primed for conversion based on behavior in the consideration stage. Someone who signs up for a newsletter isn't a hot sales prospect quite yet, but when they start opening more emails and spending more time on the site, that's when brands know they're ready for a conversion push.

An abandoned cart email pushing a browsing shopper to complete a purchase

A physical mail offer pushing a potential customer to open an account

A seasonal campaign highlighting why a product is perfect for a particular holiday, celebration, or event

When a conversion is successful, a potential buyer becomes an actual customer. The goal in the retention stage is to demonstrate to the customer why they were right to make their purchase, and set them up to make more purchases or renew services in the future.

The retention stage is also where the user experience or user journey begins. The company's job in this phase, then, is to provide the best possible user experience. Easy installation, frictionless customer service, and—this part should be obvious—a product or service that works well and provides the user what they need are all key components to improved customer retention.

Brand loyalty

In the final customer journey phase, users go from run-of-the-mill satisfied customers to active advocates for your business. 

Keep in mind: a customer doesn't need to be a zealot for your company to be an unintentional brand advocate. One of the biggest reasons I made the decision to apply for Amex's high-end card is because my best friend has it. She didn't specifically recommend it to me, but I became interested after experiencing a lot of the card benefits vicariously through her. 

Advanced customer journey mapping tips

Everything we've covered up to this point will only get you as far as a basic customer journey map. That doesn't mean, however, that your customer journey map will be good . Once you have the basic journey mapping structure down, you'll want to take steps to continually improve your map's effectiveness.

Survey your customers and customer teams

Talk to your customer-facing employees, too. The people who work directly with customers day-to-day will have more accurate information about how to interact with them.

Automate customer data collection

Tweak for b2b, b2c, and saas industries.

The nature of the customer journey is different for SaaS, B2B, and B2C companies. A B2B company's interactions with prospects might include in-person conferences, while a SaaS company's touchpoints will be mostly digital. Companies that sell to consumers will need to think through individual people's experiences in a way that B2B companies don't. A company whose products are designed for emergencies will need to think through crisis scenarios instead of day-to-day customer experiences.

Tweak your customer journey categories to fit your company, product, and industry. Using a generalized or poorly-fitting customer journey map will result in vague and unhelpful interactions with your brand.

Create multiple maps for different journeys

When people refer to the customer journey, they're typically talking about the overarching journey from awareness to brand loyalty that we outlined above. However, you can map any part of the customer journey and experience. 

Do you target college students? Replace the five stages with four academic quarters and map their experience over the course of a year. 

Is your product designed to be used in the car? Map the customer journey through each hour of a long road trip. 

Zooming in to create detailed maps of different aspects of the customer journey will help you create even more specifically tailored customer experiences.

Types of journey maps

The template above follows the standard stages of the customer journey, but it's not the only way to do your customer journey mapping.

Two other commonly-used journey maps are the "Day in a life" journey map and the customer support journey map. We've provided the key elements of both below, as well as customer journey map templates for each.

Day/week/month in the life map

This map includes space for you to record the buyer persona's name, occupation, and motto, but these are really just shorthand for key persona characteristics. If you're selling baby diapers, for instance, your persona's occupation would be "parent," even if the person in question is also an accountant. 

The "motto" should be a condensed version of your persona's primary mindset with regard to their wants, needs, and pain points. The motto for an expecting first-time parent might be, "I'm excited but nervous—I have to make sure I'm prepared for anything."

Use the column headers to set your time frame. If you're marketing to expecting parents, the time frame might be the nine months of a pregnancy, or you might map an expectant mother's experiences through a single day in her third trimester. At each stage, ask yourself the same questions:

Where and how could the customer encounter our brand? Alternatively: how could our brand provide value at each stage?

A day in the life customer journey map will not only help you zoom in to develop more tailored experiences, but it will also give you insights into what might be useful to add or improve in your product or service.

Support experience map

This journey map is a bit different in that it doesn't just map touchpoints; it maps functional interactions between the customer and customer service representatives as well as the behind-the-scenes activities necessary to support the customer-facing team.

This map starts when the support ticket is opened and ends when the customer's issue is resolved. The top row of the map is simple: what is the customer doing at each stage in the support process?

​​Next, you'll record the corresponding actions of your customer-facing, or "frontstage" team. This includes both employees' actions and the systems engaged in the support process. For example, if the first step of your customer support process is handled by a chatbot or automatic phone system, these will go in the technology row. If the customer moves forward to request to speak with a representative, then the second stage is where your "employee actions" row will come into play.

Finally, the bottom row is for behind-the-scenes activity performed by employees who don't interact with the customer at all. For example, if the customer representative needs to get information from another department to answer the customer's questions, the other department's involvement will be recorded in the "backstage actions" section of the map.

Customer journey mapping example

To put it all together, here's an example customer journey map for a gym. 

Researches local gyms online

Reads reviews

Compares membership options

"I can't go up a flight of stairs without getting winded; I need to get my health and fitness on track."

"I wish I knew someone who could recommend this gym." 

Encounters: 

Online reviews

Social media pages

Missing touchpoint:

Success stories on social media in a front-and-center location, like a saved Instagram Stories collection or a pinned post 

Views gym's social media

Visits gym's website

Views membership pricing page

"This gym looks clean and modern from the photos."

"I hate calling the gym, but I'd like to learn more about personal training or class options."

Contact form

Free trial request pop-up

A live chat box on the gym's website for prospective customers to ask questions about the facility or membership options before visiting 

Visits the gym to take a tour

Meets with a membership consultant

Potentially signs up for free trial

"The staff was friendly and it was easy to sign up."

"I wish I could see what classes they offer and weekly schedules without having to visit the gym."

In-person visit

Facility tour

Consultation

Free trial sign-up

Orientation session

Gym access card

A mobile app where members can track their progress, access class schedules, book personal trainer sessions, and receive personalized workout recommendations

Visits the gym regularly

Participates in classes

Engages with personal trainers

Potentially pays for membership after free trial ends

"Maybe I should compare options again." 

"I wish I knew someone who could work out with me."

Personal trainer consults

Email reminders about upcoming end to free trial

Personalized offer encouraging renewal

Follow-up call

Community-building events like workshops or challenges to foster a sense of community and support among members and staff

Refers friends and coworkers

Promotes the gym on social media

Regularly visits and attends classes 

"My coworker would love this gym since it's so close to work." 

"I love that teacher. I'm going to try some of her other classes."

Referral programs

Social media engagement

Reviews gym

Potentially provides a testimonial for gym

Missing touchpoints:

A loyalty rewards program for members' continued commitment and engagement that offers exclusive discounts, merchandise, or access to premium services 

Related reading:

This article was originally published in May 2021 by Nick Djurovic. The most recent update was in August 2023.

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Amanda Pell

Amanda is a writer and content strategist who built her career writing on campaigns for brands like Nature Valley, Disney, and the NFL. When she's not knee-deep in research, you'll likely find her hiking with her dog or with her nose in a good book.

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
• Sales & business development
• Small business

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User Journey Map Guide with Examples & FREE Templates

18 April, 2024

Senior UX Researcher

Customer journey mapping is also a popular workshop task to align user understanding within teams. If backed up by user data and research, they can be a high-level inventory that helps discover strategic oversights, knowledge gaps, and future opportunities.

Yet, if you ask two different people, you will likely get at least three different opinions as to what a user journey looks like and whether it is worth the hassle. Read on if you want to understand whether a UX journey map is what you currently need and how to create one.

You can get the templates here:

Click here to download a high-resolution PDF of this template.

What is user journey mapping?

Imagine your product is a supermarket and your user is the person wanting to refill their fridge. They need to: 

Decide what to buy, and in what supermarket will they be able to find and afford it

Remember to bring their coupons

Park there 

Find everything

Save the new coupons for the next shopping trip

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3 ways to understand user journey maps

Now, there are at least three ways to look at the customer journey.

1. Workflow maps for usability optimization 

Some imagine a user journey map as a wireframe or detailed analysis of  specific flows in their app . This could be, for example, a sign-up flow or the flow for inviting others to a document. In our supermarket example, it’s a closer look at what they do inside your supermarket, maybe even only in the frozen section. Or you could define what you want them to do in the frozen aisle.

.css-61w915{margin-right:8px;margin-top:8px;max-height:30px;}@media screen and (min-width: 768px){.css-61w915{margin-right:38px;max-height:unset;}} The focus here is on getting the details of the execution right, not how it fits into the bigger picture of what the user needs.

It is more or less a wireframe from a user perspective. Such a product-focused understanding is not what we want to discuss in this article, though many examples for the best user journey maps you might come across are exactly this. There are good reasons to do such an analysis as well, since it helps you smooth out usability for the people who have already found their way into your supermarket because of your excellent ice cream selection. Workflow maps won’t help you notice that your lack of parking spots is one of the reasons why you are missing out on potential customers in the first place. By only looking at what they do inside the supermarket, you might also miss out on an opportunity for user retention: You could help them get their ice cream home before it melts.

2. Holistic user journey maps for strategic insights

With a more holistic view of what people experience when trying to achieve a goal, product makers gain strategic insights on how their product fits into the big picture and what could be in the future. Because this journey document covers so much ground, it is usually a linear simplification of what all the steps would look like if they were completed. Going back to our supermarket example, it would start from the moment the person starts planning to fill the fridge and ends when the fridge is full again — even if the supermarket building is only relevant in a few phases of this journey. Creating this version of a user journey map requires quite some time and research effort. But it can be an invaluable tool for product and business strategy. It is an inventory of user needs that can help you discover knowledge gaps and future opportunities.  Service blueprints   are the most comprehensive version of a user journey map  since they also lay out the behind-the-scenes of a service, usually called backstage. In our supermarket example, that could be:

the advertising efforts

logistics required to keep all shelves stocked

protocols the staffers follow when communicating with customers

3. Journey mapping workshops as an alignment method

In a user journey mapping workshop, stakeholders and team members share their knowledge and assumptions about the users. Some of these assumptions might need to be challenged — which is part of the process. The goal is not the perfect output, but rather to get everyone into one room and work out a common understanding of the users they are building products for. It forces everyone to organize their thoughts, spell out what they know and assumed was common knowledge — and ideally meet real users as part of the workshop. If done right, this establishes a more comprehensive understanding of what users go through and helps overcome the very superficial ideas one might have about the lives and needs of people outside their own social bubble.

Hence, such a workshop helps create aha moments and gives the consequences of great and poor product decisions a face. So at the end of the day, it is one of many methods to evangelize user-centricity in an organization.

What are the benefits of user experience (UX) mapping?

We already discussed the benefits and shortcomings of workflow maps, but what are the reasons you should consider a UX journey map and/or a journey mapping workshop ?

1. Switching perspectives

Empathy:  Like any other UX method and user research output, user journey maps are supposed to foster empathy and help product makers put themselves into the shoes of a user. Awareness:  It creates awareness of why users do all the things they do. And it challenges product makers to resist the temptation of building something because it’s feasible, not because it’s needed that way.

2. Aligned understanding

Given the team is involved in creating the user experience map (either as a workshop, in expert interviews, observing the user research, or at least as a results presentation), it forces a conversation and offers a shared mental model and terminology — the foundation for a shared vision. 

3. Seeing the big picture

Imagine the vastly different perceptions Sales reps, Customer Support teams, C-level, and backend engineers might have since they all meet very different segments at very different stages of their journey. Day-to-day, it makes sense to be an expert in the stages of a user journey you are responsible for. A journey map helps to step back from this and see the bigger picture, where your work fits in, and where assumptions about the majority of users were wrong. It might even help define KPIs across teams that don’t cancel each other out.

4. Uncovering blind spots and opportunities

A user journey map gives you a structured and comprehensive overview of which user needs are already tackled by your product and which ones are either underserved or solved with other tools and touchpoints. Which moments of truth do not get enough attention yet? These are the opportunities and blind spots you can work on in the future.

When is customer journey mapping just a waste of time?

In all honesty, there are also moments when creating a user journey map or running a journey mapping workshop is destined to fail and should better be put on hold. It’s a lot of work, so don’t let this energy go to waste.  User journey maps only make sense when there is an intention to collaboratively work on and with them.  Here are some of the scenarios and indicators that it’s the wrong moment for a journey map:

No buy-in for the workshop: The requirements of a successful journey workshop are not met, e.g., there is not enough time (60 minutes over lunch won’t do the trick), only a few team members are willing to attend, and/or key stakeholders refuse to have their assumptions challenged.

Isolated creation: The whole creation process of the user journey map happens isolated from the team, e.g., it is outsourced to an agency or an intern. Nobody from the team observes or runs the user research, or is consulted for input or feedback on the first drafts. There is no event or presentation planned that walks the team through the output. Finally, a very detailed, 10-foot-long poster appears in a hallway, and none of the team members ever find time to read, process, or discuss it with each other.

UX theater: For one reason or another, there is no time/resources allocated to user research or reviewing existing insights whilst creating the map (usability tests with non-users do not count in this case, though). Such an approach, also known as, can do more harm than good since the resulting user journey may only reinforce wrong assumptions and wishful thinking about your users.

Unclear objectives: The user journey map is only created because it is on your UX design checklist, but the purpose is unclear. If you are unsure what you or your stakeholders want to achieve with this journey map, clarify expectations and desired output before investing more energy into this. E.g., there is a chance you were only meant to do a usability review of a bumpy app workflow.

Lack of follow-through: Creating a user journey map is just the start. Without a plan to implement changes based on insights gathered, the map is merely a paper exercise. This lack of action can result from limited resources, lack of authority, or inertia. It's vital to establish a process for turning insights from the map into design improvements or strategy adjustments. This includes assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and defining success metrics to ensure the map drives real change and doesn't end up forgotten.

Overcomplication: Sometimes, to capture every nuance and detail of the user experience, teams can create an overly complex user journey map. This can make the map difficult to understand and use, particularly for team members who weren't involved in its creation. A good user journey map should balance detail and clarity, providing insightful and actionable information without overwhelming its users.

Failure to update: User expectations, behaviors, and the digital landscape constantly evolve. A user journey map that remains static will quickly become outdated. Regular reviews and updates are necessary to ensure that the map reflects the current state of user experiences. This requires a commitment to ongoing user research and a willingness to adjust your understanding of the user's path as new information becomes available.

The good news is: UX maturity in an organization can change rapidly, so even if you run into one of the obstacles above, it is worth revisiting the idea in the future. Once you’re good to go, you can get started with the user journey map examples and templates below.

User journey mapping: examples, templates & tools

There is more than one way to do it right and design a great user journey map. Every organization and industry has its own templates, tools and approaches to what elements are most important to them. The following examples and template will give you an idea of what a user journey map can look like if you decide to create one yourself. Make it your own, and change up the sections and design so they make sense for your product and use cases.

User journey map template and checklist

To give you a first orientation, you can use this user journey template and check the two fictional examples below to see how you could adapt it for two very different industries: instant meal delivery and healthcare.

Click here to download a high-resolution PDF of the user journey map template. 

While there is no official standard, most other user journey maps contain the following elements or variations of them:

Key phases (or ‘stages’) start when users become aware of a problem they need to solve or a goal they want to achieve and may end when they evaluate whether they achieved their goal or enter a maintenance phase. E.g., user journeys for e-commerce could be structured along the classic funnel of:

Consideration

Delivery & use

Loyalty & advocacy

2. Jobs to be done

Whilst some other user journey templates might call this section ‘steps’ or ‘tasks’, it can be very beneficial to structure the stages into ‘jobs to be done’ (JTBD) instead. This framework helps you distinguish better between the actual goal of a user vs. the tasks required to get there . For example, safe online payments are never a goal of a user, this is just one of many jobs on the long way to get new sneakers on their feet. Ideally, users ‘hire’ your product/service to assist them with some of the JTBD on their journey. Phrase your JTBD as verb + object + context . Examples:

Install app on phone

Tip delivery driver

Buy new shoes

Naturally, the stages closest to your current (and future) solution require a more detailed understanding, so you might want to investigate and document deeper what JTBDs happen there.

3. Needs and pains

Users have needs and pains every step along the journey. Use this section to collect the most important needs and potential pains, even if not all apply in all cases. Ask:

What are the repeating themes, even the ones you are (currently) not able to solve with your product?

Phrase pains and needs as I- or me-statements from the user perspective, e.g., ‘I forgot my login details, ‘I am afraid to embarrass myself’ or ‘My day is too busy to wait for a delivery.’ 

Which are the pains and needs that are so severe that, if not solved, they can become real deal-breakers for your product or service?

On the last point, such deal-breaker and dealmaker situations, or ‘ moments of truth ’, require particular attention in your product decisions and could be visually highlighted in your journey. In a meal delivery, the taste and temperature of the food are such a moment of truth that can spoil the whole experience with your otherwise fantastic service.

4. Emotional curve

An emotional curve visualizes how happy or frustrated users are at certain stages of their journey. Emojis are commonly used to make it easy to understand and empathize with the emotional state of the user across the whole journey. It can be a surprising realization that users are not delighted with your witty microcopy, but you already did a great job by not annoying them. It is also a good reminder that what might personally excite you is perceived as stressful or overwhelming by most other users. Strong user quotes can be used for illustration.

5. Brand and product touchpoints

Here, you can list current and planned touchpoints with your brand and product, as well as. Whilst the touchpoints when using your product might be obvious, others early and late in the journey are probably less obvious to you but critical for the user experience and decision to use or return to your product. This is why it is worthwhile to include them in your map. Make sure your journey does not get outdated too soon, and don’t list one-off marketing campaigns or very detailed aspects of current workflows — just what you got in general so there is no major revision needed for a couple of years.

6. Opportunities for improvement

As you map out your user journey, it is important to not only identify the current touchpoints and experiences but also opportunities for improvement. This could include potential areas where users may become frustrated or confused, as well as areas where they may be delighted or pleasantly surprised.

By identifying these opportunities, you can prioritize making meaningful improvements to the user experience and ultimately creating a more positive, long-lasting relationship with your users.

7. Other tools and touchpoints

This may seem the least interesting aspect of your journey or a user interview, but it can tell you a lot about blind spots in your service or potential partnerships or APIs to extend your service. E.g., Google Maps or WhatsApp are common workaround tools for missing or poor in-app solutions.

User journey map example 1: health industry

The following example is for a fictional platform listing therapists for people in need of mental health support, helping them find, contact, schedule, and pay for therapy sessions. As you can see, the very long journey with recurring steps (repeated therapy sessions) is cut short to avoid repetition. 

At the same time, it generalizes very individual mental health experiences into a tangible summary. While it is fair to assume that the key phases happen in this chronological order, JTBD, timing, and the number of sessions are kept open so that it works for different types of patients.

You can also see how the journey covers several phases when the platform is not in active use. Yet, these phases are milestones in the patient’s road to recovery. Looking at a journey like this, you could, for example, realize that a ‘graduation’ feature could be beneficial for your users, even if it means they will stop using your platform because they are feeling better.

This user journey map is fictional but oriented on Johanne Miller’s UX case study  Designing a mental healthcare platform . 

User journey map example 2: delivery services

What the example above does not cover is the role of the therapist on the platform — most likely they are a second user type that has very different needs for the way they use the platform. This is why the second example shows the two parallel journeys of two different user roles and how they interact with each other. 

Nowadays, internal staff such as delivery drivers have dedicated apps and ideally have a designated UX team looking out for their needs, too. Creating a frictionless and respectful user experience for ‘internal users’ is just as critical for the success of a business as it is to please customers.

User journey map example: meal delivery. Please note that this fictional journey map is just an example for illustrative purposes and has not been backed up with user research.

For more inspiration, you can find collections with more real-life user journey examples and customer journey maps on  UXeria ,  eleken.co  &  userinterviews.com , or check out free templates provided by the design tools listed below.

Free UX journey mapping tools with templates

No matter whether you’re a design buff or feel more comfortable in spreadsheets, there are many templates available for free(mium) tools you might be already using. 

For example, there are good templates and tutorials available for  Canva ,  Miro  and even  Google Sheets . If you are more comfortable with regular design software, you can use the templates available for  Sketch  or one of these two from the  Figma (template 1 ,  template 2 ) community. There are also several dedicated journey map tools with free licenses or free trials, e.g.,  FlowMapp ,  Lucidchart  and  UXPressia , just to name a few.

Be aware that the first draft will require a lot of rearrangement and fiddling until you get to the final version. So it might help to pick where this feels easy for you. 

How do I collect data for my app user journey?

User journey maps need to be rooted in reality and based on what users really need and do (not what we wish they did) to add value to the product and business strategy. Hence, user insights are an inevitable step in the creation process.

However, it’s a huge pile of information that needs to be puzzled together and usually, one source of information is not enough to cover the whole experience — every research method has its own blind spots. But if you combine at least two or three of the approaches below, you can create a solid app user journey .

1. In-house expertise

The people working for and with your users are an incredible source of knowledge to start and finalize the journey. Whilst there might be a few overly optimistic or biased assumptions you need to set straight with your additional research, a user journey mapping workshop and/or  expert interviews  involving colleagues from very different (user-facing) teams such as:

customer service

business intelligence

customer insights

will help you collect a lot of insights and feedback. You can use these methods to build a preliminary skeleton for your journey but also to finalize the journey with their input and feedback.

2. Desk research

Next to this, it is fair to assume there is already a ton of preexisting documented knowledge about the users simply floating around in your company. Your  UX research repository  and even  industry reports  you can buy or find with a bit of googling will help. Go through them and pick the cherries that are relevant for your user journey. Almost anything can be interesting:

Old research reports and not-yet-analyzed context interviews from earlier user interviews

NPS scores & user satisfaction surveys

App store feedback

Customer support tickets

Product reviews written by journalists

Competitor user journeys in publicly available UX case studies

Ask your in-house experts if they know of additional resources you could check. And find out if there’s already a  long-forgotten old journey map  from a few years ago that you can use as a starting point (most organizations have those somewhere).

3. Qualitative user research

Qualitative research methods are your best shot to learn about all the things users experience, think, and desire before and after they touch your product.  In-depth interviews  and  focus groups  explore who they are and what drives them. You could show them a skeleton user journey for feedback or  co-creation . 

This could also be embedded into your user journey mapping workshop with the team. Alternatively, you can follow their actual journey in  diary studies ,  in-home visits  or  shadowing . However, in all these cases it is important that you talk to real users of your product or competitors to learn more about the real scenarios. This is why usability testing with non-users or fictional scenarios won’t help much for the user journey map.

4. Quantitative research

Once you know the rough cornerstones of your user journey map,  surveys  could be used to let users rate what needs and pains really matter to them. And what their mood is at certain phases of the journey. You can learn how they became aware of your product and ask them which of the motives you identified are common or exotic edge cases. Implementing micro-surveys such as  NPS surveys , CES , and  CSAT  embedded into your product experience can give additional insights.

5. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey

Customer satisfaction surveys (or CSATs for short) are important tools that measure your customers' satisfaction with your product or service. It is usually measured through surveys or feedback forms, asking customers to rate their experience on a scale from 1 to 5. This metric can give valuable insights into the overall satisfaction of your customers and can help identify areas of improvement for your product.

CSAT surveys can be conducted at different customer journey stages, such as after purchase or using a specific feature. This allows you to gather feedback on different aspects of your product and make necessary changes to improve overall satisfaction.

The benefit of CSAT lies in understanding how satisfied customers are with your product and why. By including open-ended questions in the surveys, you can gather qualitative insights into what aspects of your product work well and what needs improvement.

5. User analytics

User analytics is a beautiful source of information, even if it has its limits. Depending on what tools you are using (e.g., Google Analytics, Firebase, Hubspot, UXCam), you can follow the digital footprints of your users before and when they were using the product. This may include  acquisition channels  (input for brand touchpoints and early journey phases),  search terms  that brought them to your product (input for needs and pains), and how they navigate your product. 

Unlike a usability test, you can use  screen flows  and  heatmaps  to understand how your users behave naturally when they follow their own agenda at their own pace — and how often they are so frustrated that they just quit. Knowing this gives you pointers to negative user emotions at certain journey steps and even helps identify your product’s moments of truth. Whilst you cannot ask the users if your interpretations are correct, checking analytics already helps you prepare good questions and talking points for user interviews or surveys.

Curious to know how heatmaps will look in your app?  Try UXCam for free — with 100,000 monthly sessions and unlimited features.

How can I utilize UXCam to collect App User Journey data?

If you have UXCam set up in your mobile app, you can use it to support your user journey research. You can find many of the previously mentioned  user analytics  features ( screen flows  and  heatmaps , including  rage taps ) here as well. 

UXCam can also be an  invaluable asset for your qualitative research . Especially for niche products and B2B apps that normally have a lot of trouble  recruiting real users  via the usual user testing platforms. 

UXCam’s detailed segmentation options allow you to  identify exactly the users you want to interview  about their journey — and  reach out to them via either email or UXCam push notifications , which can include invitation links for your study, a survey or an additional screener.

Additionally, UXCam's session replay feature allows you to watch recordings of user sessions, providing valuable insights into how users interact with your app and where they may face challenges.

Where can I learn more about user journey map?

Don’t feel ready to get started? Here are a few additional resources that can help you dive deeper into user journey mapping and create the version that is best for your project.

Creating user journey maps & service blueprints:

Mapping Experiences by Jim Kalbach

Journey Mapping 101

How to create customer journey maps

Customer Journey Stages for Product Managers

The Perfect Customer Journey Map

Planning and running user journey mapping workshops:

Journey mapping workshop

Jobs to be done:

The Theory of Jobs To Be Done

Moments of truth in customer journeys:

Journey mapping MoTs

What is a user journey map?

A user journey map is a visual representation of the process that a user goes through to accomplish a goal with your product, service, or app.

What is a user journey?

A user journey refers to the series of steps a user takes to accomplish a specific goal within a product, service, or website. It represents the user's experience from their point of view as they interact with the product or service, starting from the initial contact or discovery, moving through various touchpoints, and leading to a final outcome or goal.

How do I use a user journey map in UX?

User journey maps are an essential tool in the UX design process, used to understand and address the user's needs and pain points.

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8 Free Customer Journey Mapping Templates and Examples

Published in: Journey Mapping / Last update: July 2020

So you want to create a customer journey map and are looking for a template to get you started. Well, you've come to the right place!

In this article, you'll find an overview of the best templates out there . Next to giving you a comprehensive overview, the goal of this article is also to help you get the most value out of these templates.

That’s because— no matter how good a template is —if you don't know how and when to use it, you might as well pick any random one.

You can either use the table of contents below to jump straight to the templates or continue reading to build a deeper understanding of how to get the most value out out these templates .

As you'll see, the overview in this article also contains service blueprint templates. As a customer journey is always embedded in service blueprint , it makes sense to include them.

Just a quick note that there might be affiliate links in this article, which means I get a small commission when you sign up for one of the journey mapping tools mentioned here.

Why and when to use customer journey map templates?

There are many good reasons and smart moments to use a journey map template. You just have to know what they are and be able to recognize their value.

This is also a word of warning , since reaching for a template at the wrong time, as tempting as it might be, will eventually do more harm than good.

So, let's go over some common scenarios in which you could benefit from using a customer journey map template.

DO make more informed decisions and build a solid foundation.

When you're starting out with customer journey maps, you're going to have a lot of questions around how to structure your map.

Which kinds of lanes should you add? How many should there be? What is the right order?

This is a stage in which templates and examples can be extremely helpful.

Seeing how other organizations have structured their journey maps will open up your eyes to what's possible and expand your "vocabulary."

The more informed you are, the better you'll be able to judge which information is relevant in your journey map and what's totally fine to ignore. 

Remember that you should strive to map as little as possible and not more.

You wouldn't want to spend a lot of time mapping the journey just to realize that your map is full of information you don't need anyway.

DO get a head start with plenty of time.

Starting with a blank piece of paper is one of the hardest things in any situation.

What is the first word you write? Where do you draw the first line? What should you say to start the conversation with a stranger?

The nice thing is that, when you've gone over the process a few times, you'll start to recognize patterns.

If you’re a budding artist, once you’ve drawn a few stick figures, you'll have figured out the basic structure of a face.

The same applies to customer journey maps. At some point, you'll know what the generic structure is of your customer journey.

From that moment on, it makes sense to create a template from this journey so you don't have to recreate that over and over again.

A template allows you to focus on the content of your journey map rather than how to structure the information.

DON'T copy and paste the perfect recipe.

Imagine this: You meticulously follow the perfect recipe to prepare the most amazing pasta Bolognese...only to find out that your guest has a tomato allergy. :-/

As unlikely as this might sound, this is the most common pitfall regarding customer journey map templates.

You find the perfect customer journey map template online and start filling it in with your full dedication. And of course, you manage to create an impressive journey map.

When you finally share the map within the organization , you come to the realization that it doesn't give the answers to the challenges that need to be solved.

Always be critical about the elements in your journey map template. Do you really need all of them? Is there something important missing? Could a little tweak to the template give you much better results?

DON'T get distracted by the visual aspects.

Until now, journey maps have been produced using tools ranging from PowerPoint to InDesign. The effect is that:

• There are a lot of different journey maps out there that all have a unique look and feel.
• You feel that every journey map has to be nothing less than a work of art to have any value.

So, when you're looking at templates and examples, the plethora of options can easily be overwhelming.

The truth is that most of these templates contain at their core the same key elements described in our Practical Guide to Customer Journey Mapping . They are just visualized in a different way.

It's easy to get distracted and lose yourself in trying to make your journey map look good. Just try to keep the visuals consistent and clear . Once again, less is more!

DON'T map just for the sake of it.

What's the fastest way to create a customer journey map? Not making a map when you don't need one. 

A bit cheesy, I know. But it holds a lot of truth.

Don't be the person who creates a customer journey map just because you can. We've got enough of them already.

Be a true professional and make sure that you're mapping for the right reason . Your efforts need to add real value to the organization.

Using a journey map template without first understanding what questions it needs to answer is a guarantee that you'll waste your time. Unless, of course, you aspire to become an artist who creates nice visuals in the form of a journey map.

Down below, you'll find an overview of customer journey map (and service blueprint) templates. The overview is divided into templates offered by online journey mapping tools and templates you'll find in books, articles, etc.

I've included a pros and cons list for each template, which should help you decide if the template fits your needs.

A Quick Word on Online Journey Mapping Tools

There is a difference between professional journey mapping tools (like Custellence and Smaply) and generic tools that also allow you to create journey maps (like Miro, Mural and Google Slides).

When you decide to pick one of these tools, it's good to understand the long-term implications.

If you want to learn more about how these different journey mapping tools compare, check this playlist on the Service Design Show YouTube channel.

Templates in Online Tools

Miro is a very user-friendly and flexible online whiteboarding tool. I did a full review of how to create journey maps in Miro .

In Miro, you'll find a lot of useful templates. And the good news is that there is a customer journey map and a service blueprint among them.

Customer Journey Map Template ( link )

This is probably the most bare-bones journey map template you'll find, which is good when you purely need to focus on the customer experience aspect of the journey.

(click the image to the template open in Miro)

• Super simple format, meaning no distractions and quite easy for anyone to participate in the journey mapping process
• You don't get distracted by thinking about other information lanes.
• Step-by-step instruction video on how to use this template and a quite comprehensive blog article worth reading
• The template presents touchpoints as the main storyline, while it should be customer activities & situations ( don't map touchpoints ). By basing your journey on touchpoints, you're visualizing the organizational perspective and will miss important moments for the customer’s perspective. Be careful with this!
• It's tempting to fill this template based on assumptions without further questioning the data. It would help if there were a place to add supporting insights from user and field research.
• You'll only be able to come up with meaningful pain and gain points if you know the needs of your customers. You should do that first in something like an empathy map .

When would I use this template

I would use this Customer Journey Map template from Miro as an initial conversation starter in a workshop where you have limited time.

Service Blueprint Template ( link )

We've discussed the difference between customer journey maps and service blueprints before. This template by Miro does a decent job in breaking up the service experience in the frontstage and backstage.

• The five lanes in this template provide quite a good starting point for the most basic service blueprint in a lot of situations.
• It doesn't make sense to place physical evidence as the top lane. It should almost always be customer activities & situations .
• This service blueprint template is missing the human aspect. It's not inviting you to enrich it with thick data like photos or quotes. Thereby, you run the risk of creating a process map and miss out on the customer-centric approach.
• The template contains nonlinear sequences (the arrows), which breaks the one of the most important rules of a clear journey map: a journey always moves from left to right.
• For a service blueprint to be useful, you'll quickly need to add more detailed and specific information, which this template does not cater to.
• Adding more detailed information to this template will get messy and complex. Once you get to the stage where you need a service blueprint, it's better to consider using a professional journey mapping tool .

I'd maybe consider using this Miro template to explain the basic structure of a service blueprint.

Mural is, just like Miro, another popular online whiteboarding tool. I do a walkthrough on how to create customer journey maps using Mural in this video .

You'll find many helpful templates in Mural. For our needs, they offer one service blueprint template .

The template is based on the work done by the Practical Service Design community.

(click the image to the template open in Mural)

• There are 3 versions: a blank template, one that's filled in as an example, and one that provides a guide on how to use this template. There's also a video that walks you t hrough the process .
• The template containing the real-life example provides some really helpful questions and good inspiration.
• The template gets into the processes and systems of a service quite fast. It would be good if there were more emphasis on the customer journey and experience.
• Color-coding information lanes creates an interesting visual, but it can easily get quite chaotic.
• The chosen information lanes are meaningful but don't follow general conventions around how to structure a service blueprint. This might cause some confusion.

to be honest it’s hard for me to find a useful application for this journey map template. On one hand, I feel it's too detailed to be filled in during a workshop. On the other hand, the structure and color-coding method wouldn't be my preferred way of doing this with a team outside a workshop.

If you're into journey mapping, Smaply is probably a tool that has been on your radar. It's one of the few dedicated online journey mapping tools that I'd say is specifically designed for customer experience professionals.

I've published a Smaply walkthrough video on how to create a journey map using Smaply as well as a more in-depth review of the tool.

Smaply offers 4 different journey mapping templates :

• Service Blueprint
• Communication Journey Map
• Empathy Journey Map
• Comparison Journey Map

You can also find a brief explanation of the purpose of each template .

Smaply also offers 10+ example journey maps directly on their website. So if you’re looking for even more inspiration definitely take a look at these examples.

For this review, we're going to look at the empathy journey map template inside Smaply. It focuses on understanding your customer and brings the outside-in perspective so many organizations are looking for.

(click image to enlarge the template)

• The main focus in this template is on your customers and their needs. Having a deep understanding of this helps to create all the other journey maps.
• The lanes mimic the questions of an empathy map . If you're familiar with how that works, you'll have a head start here. And if you're not familiar with empathy maps, they are well documented.
• Depending on your service, the experience throughout the journey might eventually have more similarities than differences. So, you might end up duplicating the information in a lot of fields. If you recognize that this is happening, try to identify the moments where the experience is significantly different and map those first.
• In situations where you need to get stakeholders out of their inside-out mindset and into your customers’ shoes, especially when you're dealing with stakeholders from supporting departments that don't directly interact with customers on a daily basis.
• To create a foundation for all future journey mapping and service blueprinting initiatives

4. Custellence

Currently, Custellence is my preferred online journey mapping tool . And it's the one I recommend to anyone who is serious about using journey maps as a way to drive sustainable customer-centric change within their organization.

At the time of writing there are seven journey map templates in Custellence, divided into general and tailored template categories:

• Customer Journey Map template for Ideation ( PDF )
• Service Blueprint Template ( PDF )
• The Practical Service Design Blueprint Template ( PDF )
• Retail Online/Offline Customer Journey and Service Blueprint Template ( PDF )
• Restaurant Food Ordering and Delivery Customer Journey Map Template ( PDF )
• Elderly Need for Care Customer Journey Map Template ( PDF )
• Vacation Travel Customer Journey Map Template ( PDF )

Just like with the different templates in Smaply, you have to choose wisely.

What I like about the templates in Custellence (compared to the ones offered by Mural and Miro ) is that the tailored versions much better reflect the type of information your journey map might eventually contain in real life.

Generic templates are a good starting point. But often, you'll need to tweak them to get any practical value out of them. The tailored templates in Custellence give you an impression of what that might look like.

For this review, I've looked at the travel journey map template.

(click the image to open the template in Custellence)

• It's nice that the customer activities in the template are pre-filled. This helps to express your own journey on the right level and in the right language.
• The template invites you to elaborate on the experience of your customer and to provide "insight evidence." You're challenged to have a conversation on how much you know about your customers based on research versus your own assumptions.
• The separation of touchpoints into channels shows how you can reflect your internal organization in the journey map and assign internal stakeholders per lane in the map.
• Depending on your goal , this template might be too elaborate and too detailed.

This template is a great example of what a journey map used to drive sustainable customer-centric change could look like, rather than a one-off visualization. I would use this template when my goal is to create a central journey map that helps to make smarter decisions about the projects and initiatives we should invest in.

5. UXPressia

The collection of journey mapping templates and examples you'll find in UXPressia is quite astonishing. At the moment of writing, there are about 40 templates that are sorted based on industry.

Each template is based on a "real" customer journey map that the UXPressia team found on the internet. In the accompanying articles, they added a link to the original source so you can compare how that journey map looked.

For this review, I've looked at the template for food and retail .

(click the image to open the template in UXPressia)

• There's a strong emphasis on the customer perspective in this template.
• The template is pre-filled with a story, which helps to understand what kind of information and on what level should be in the map.
• The storyboard lane invites you to visualize the customer journey—a very important aspect that is overlooked in most templates.
• The process and channels lane is a bit complex. The information in this lane overlaps with the touchpoint lane.
• Introducing nonlinear elements (in the process and channels lane) is a potential source of confusion.
• This looks like a pretty good template to kick off a high-level journey mapping workshop . The number and choice of lanes strike a nice balance between depth and breadth of information.
• The template also provides a very natural flow of questions from top to bottom, from what the customer does and expects to the problems they face in the service, and ideas for solutions.

Templates in Books, Blogs and Presentations

6. This Is Service Design Thinking

When you look at this journey map template, you'll immediately notice that it has a different structure than all the other ones. This template was part of This Is Service Design Thinking when it was published back in 2010. A lot has happened since, but it's still good to take this template into consideration, as it was one of the first out there.

You could question if this is a real journey mapping template. The title already gives a clue that it's not, as it's called The Customer Journey Canvas .

So, it more resembles a canvas (in the spirit of the business model canvas ) rather than a template. That might seem like a subtle difference, but in practice, it has some implications.

• The questions in the template are very high level. You can use this template even when you know little about journey mapping.
• It's not visually organized into lanes, which can cause some confusion if you're expecting to see a journey map.
• The template doesn't invite or guide you to really step into the shoes of your customer.
• The information manipulation-credibility axis probably isn't the best source of insights. It would make more sense to just have a channels lane and use icons to illustrate the type of information.

I haven't been in a situation where this canvas seemed to be the right way to go. The canvas structure might be familiar to people who have seen other canvases and allow for an easier transition into journey thinking. But I think in the long run, it's smarter to go with the classic lane structure of a journey map.

7. Design a Better Business

The journey mapping template offered by Design a Better Business positions itself as a canvas, just like the template from This Is Service Design Thinking, which we looked at above. This journey mapping template is part of a larger collection of templates related to different stages in the design process.

When you look at the journey mapping template, you'll immediately see that it's very basic and high level. The template consists of just three information lanes. The structure looks a lot like the journey map template we saw in Miro .

• The simple structure and step-by-step guide that comes along with the template make this a very user-friendly template to start with.
• There's room for just five "key moments" in the journey. This forces you to focus the conversation on what's really important to your customer.
• The template invites you to visualize the journey rather than just describe it with words . Seeing the experience through the eyes of your customer is as important as understanding it.
• The instructions regarding the customer persona are a bit misleading. You should focus on the needs (as stated in the canvas but not the step-by-step instructions), desires, pain, etc.
• The key moments shouldn't be about touchpoints (as stated in the instructions) but rather about customer activities and situations. Otherwise, you run the risk of turning this into a process map.

The guide for this template states that you should be able to fill it out in about 45 minutes. So, this makes the template ideal for a short workshop . I imagine that template would be a very good follow-up exercise after a presentation on what customer journey mapping is. You could, for instance, have multiple groups in the workshop fill in the same journey and then compare the differences.

Another useful application for this template would be when you have a group of people with different backgrounds and need to get them to create a shared understanding of the customer journey. For example, this could be stakeholders from different internal departments. Using a service example like the coffee shop journey described in the instructions would be a good start to get people in the right mindset.

Finally, I think this template could be useful as a tool that helps raise questions rather than find answers. So, you quickly map a journey based on assumptions and then ask, “What would we like to learn about this customer and their experience?”

8. Nielsen Norman

The first thing I want to say about the journey mapping template shared by Nielsen Norman is that it's surrounded by a wealth of knowledge on the topic. You can easily spend a few hours reading all the free articles, which is great if you want to dig deeper into what it takes to create useful customer journey maps. And if that's what you're into, you might also consider joining our Customer Journey Mapping Essentials masterclass .

What sets this journey map template from Nielsen Norman apart is the way it's divided into three zones. Each zone represents a perspective through which you should look at the customer journey. This is a smart way to help you look at the journey holistically. There are other templates that do this as well, but this one is very clear and explicit.

Another strong point of this template is that it connects the experience of your customer to the impact on business and follows that up with the question about internal ownership. This is great, as talking about ownership shifts the focus of the conversation toward action rather than just insights.

• The three zones and how they are described make a lot of sense. The business and internal perspectives are really valuable.
• The template strikes the right balance between the width and depth of information.
• The accompanying guide helps you understand which questions you should be asking per information lane.
• There isn't a downloadable version of the template.
• It would be nice if there were a pre filled example.

This is a template I'd consider for a kick-off journey mapping workshop with an internal team, especially when the goal is to help stakeholders understand that the customer experience has implications on business.

The template could also be a good starting point to create a more elaborate journey map in a tool like Custellence .

How do I pick the right template?

Well, that's a really good question, maybe even the best one in this entire article! 🙂

Picking the right template is all about understanding which bits and pieces of information you need to get the insights you're looking for. And in order to know which insights you need, we must go back to the most fundamental question: Why do you need a customer journey map in the first place ( here are 5 good reasons )?

What goals do you want to achieve? What is the next step after you've created the map?

Are you hosting a workshop to build a shared understanding about the journey? Then, a template with just the customer activities and pain points might do the job.

Do you need to map your internal process onto the customer journey ? In that case, a template that contains backstage lanes will be more useful.

Is your goal to align branding efforts across multiple touchpoints in the journey? A template that splits the touchpoints into their respective communication channels might be a good fit.

What if I don't know what the goal of my journey map is yet?

From my experience, this usually means that you're creating a map to build an overview, to facilitate a conversation and to get to some form of shared understanding, which are all very valid reasons to build a journey map.

Quick Guide to Picking the right Journey Map Template

• Start with the simplest template that has the least number of elements but still suits your needs. Expand as you go along and learn what you need to add.
• Pick a template that has elements that invite everyone who's contributing to add their knowledge. If you're working with IT, for example, make sure there's a lane for internal processes.
• Don't worry about how polished and fancy a template looks. More visuals usually means more distractions, unless your end goal is to create an art piece.

If you follow the steps in this guide, you might not pick the perfect template, but you'll definitely have a customer journey map template that’s practical and gets you to the next stage .

When should I create my own template?

A good moment to start thinking about creating your own journey map template is when you start to recognize patterns .

After you've mapped a few customer journeys, you'll start to see that every map has repeating elements. These elements could be specific to your organization, your department, or the industry you're in.

When you get to this stage, creating your own custom journey map template is a very valuable exercise. That’s because, once you have your custom template, you'll be able to dive much quicker into specific parts of the journey rather than wasting time thinking about the structure of your map.

There's one other reason why you might consider creating a custom template: to make it match your brand .

Depending on your environment, people can critique your journey mapping efforts just because of the colors and style. Silly, I know. But it happens. On those occasions, it might be a good investment to make your template visually match your brand identity.

By creating your own custom template, you're getting into the position of teacher or mentor for others . And the nice benefit of that is, you yourself will learn a lot about journey mapping in the process.

What's next

Hopefully this guide helps you pick the right journey mapping template for your next project, so you can invest your energy in delivering a great customer experience, instead of thinking about journey mapping templates.

If your favorite journey mapping template is missing in the list, leave a comment down below. I’ll try to add it to the overview.

Now that you've made it all the way here it's probably a good moment to join the Customer Journey Mapping Essentials masterclass 👇

Great article on what tools are available and when to use them. Saved us some time having to just figure it out on our own.

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User Journey Map Template

Identify the key touchpoints in your user journey

Creating a user journey map can help you to design better products and services. By drilling down into the pain points and frustrations during a customer's experience, you can quickly identify what needs to change, and brainstorm possible solutions.

By undertaking the mapping process, you can learn about the weaknesses in a user experience and ultimately propose a better solution.

A user journey map can be completed at a macro level to the entire experience with your client's organisation, or focus in on a particular feature of a single product or service. By drilling down into the pain points and frustrations during a user experience, you can quickly identify what needs to change, and brainstorm possible solutions.

This template is part of the UX/UI Designers collection.

• Explore ideas

Organize visually

• Share with your team
• Gather feedback
• Export to PDF

Collect everything in one place

Milanote is the visual way to collect everything that powers your creative work. Simple text editing & task management helps you organize your thoughts and plans. Upload images, video, files and more.

Milanote's flexible drag and drop interface lets you arrange things in whatever way makes sense to you. Break out of linear documents and see your research, ideas and plans side-by-side.

Collaborate with your team

Milanote boards can be a private place to think, or a shared workspace for collaboration—you're in total control of who sees what. Instantly see your team's changes, leave comments, and never miss a thing with smart notifications and alerts.

Plan your website in one place.

Collect inspiration for your website or app.

Set the project goals & deliverables.

Plan the perfect website structure.

Paint a picture of your ideal user.

Creative professionals from these companies use Milanote

Start your journey map.

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