How to Develop a Customer Journey Map?

A Customer Journey Map is a powerful technique for understanding what motivates your customers—what their needs are, their hesitations, and their concerns. Although most organizations are reasonably good at gathering data about their customers, data alone fails to communicate the frustrations and experiences the customer has had. A story can do that, and one of the best storytelling tools in business is the customer journey map.

A customer journey map uses storytelling and visuals to illustrate the relationship a customer has with a business over a period of time. The story is told from the customer's perspective, which provides insight into their total experience. It helps your team better understand and address customer needs and pain points as they experience your product or service. In other words, mapping out the customer journey offers your business the chance to see how your brand first engages a potential customer and then moves through the touchpoints of the entire sales process.

In this Customer Journey Map tutorial, we will walk you through the steps involved in creating a Customer Journey Map in Visual Paradigm. If you want to learn more about what a Customer Journey Map (CJM) is, you can watch the video 'What is Customer Journey Mapping?' below:

Creating a Customer Journey Map

1. Create a new project by selecting Project > New from the application toolbar. In the New Project window, enter CJM Tutorial as the project name and click Create Blank Project.
   
2. Create a new Customer Journey Map by selecting Diagram > New from the application toolbar. In the New Diagram window, select Customer Journey Map and click Next. Enter Take a Tour as the diagram name and click OK to confirm.
   
3. Customer Journey Map is a feature available under Visual Paradigm Online ("VP Online")/Teamwork Server. If you are prompted to connect to a server and are evaluating Visual Paradigm, it is recommended that you Activate Local Repository (Quick Setup). If you are a member of VP Online or Teamwork Server, click Login under Existing Registered User.
   
4. A new Customer Journey Map will be created with four dummy stages by default. Read the section below to enter the stages.
   

Entering Stages

1. Double-click on Stage 1 at the top of the journey map and rename the stage to Explore Itineraries.
   
2. Repeatedly rename the other three stages to Book a Tour, Pre-Tour, and During Tour.
   
3. We need one more stage. Click the + on the right of the During Tour stage.
   
4. Enter Post-Tour as the stage name.
   

Entering Touchpoints

A touchpoint is any time a potential or current customer comes into contact with your brand. Follow the steps below to enter the touchpoints for the Explore Itineraries stage.

1. Double-click on the gray cell under the first stage, Explore Itineraries, to open the interface for entering touchpoints for this stage.
   
2. Enter the touchpoints as shown in the table below. You should press Enter to create a new row for each touchpoint.
   

   Title	Description	Reference
   Tours detail	The page where details of various tours are presented.	<None>
   Pre-sales support channel	Ask questions before making a booking decision.	<None>
   Tour booking page	The page where users can book a tour.	<None>

3. Click OK to confirm and return to the map. The touchpoints will be presented as bullet points in the cell.
   

Entering Customer Thinking/Feeling

Once the touchpoints have been identified, identify what the customers think and how they feel about each touchpoint. What do the customers think when they visit the website to find information about tours? Are they happy, unhappy, or even frustrated? Think like a customer and list all of their thoughts and feelings. Follow the steps below to enter the customer's thinking and feeling for the Explore Itineraries stage.

1. Double-click on the second gray cell under the first stage, Explore Itineraries.
   
2. Enter the customer's thinking as shown in the table below. You should press Enter to create a new row for each thought or feeling.
   

   Title	Description	Reference
   Lack of sophisticated tour searching	The website lacks the capability to search for tours by destination country, city, and period.	<None>
   Brochure not printable	Users want to print out the brochure to discuss vacation plans with friends.	<None>
   Lack of real-time support channel	Users are unable to get their questions answered instantly.	<None>
   No way to compare tours	Users want to find an option that balances pricing, travel arrangements, and the journey.	<None>

3. A customer's thought or feeling is generated by assessing a particular touchpoint. Let's indicate this relationship by specifying references. Under the "Reference" column of the first touchpoint, Lack of sophisticated tour searching, select Tours detail to reflect the fact that the customer found the search facility to be unsatisfactory when reading the tours detail page.
   
4. Repeat this step for the other touchpoints. Select Tours detail, Pre-sales support channel, and Tour booking page as references for the other touchpoints.
   
5. Click OK to confirm and return to the map. The customer's thoughts and feelings are presented as bullet points in the cell. The reference relationships are indicated by tiny icons that appear after each referenced and referencing item.
   

Entering Ideas for Improvement

Finally, based on the findings above, you can think of improvement opportunities. Follow the steps below to list the ideas for improvement for the Explore Itineraries stage.

1. Double-click on the third gray cell under the first stage, Explore Itineraries.
   
2. Enter the ideas for improvement as shown in the table below. You should press Enter to create a new row for each improvement idea.
   

   Title	Description	Reference
   Support advanced searching	Support searching by destination country, city, and period.	Lack sophisticated tour searching (Touchpoint)
   Support printer-friendly brochure	Support a printer-friendly brochure so that users can print out a neat page for communication purposes.	Brochure not printable (Touchpoint)
   Support more sharing options for tour details pages	Support more sharing options for tour details pages, such as Facebook, email, Gmail, etc.	Brochure not printable (Touchpoint)
   Support WhatsApp	Provide dedicated WhatsApp support.	Lack real-time support channel (Touchpoint)
   Allow comparison of tours	Present the information of different tours in a way that allows for comparison.	No way to compare tours (Touchpoint)

3. Click OK to confirm and return to the map. The ideas for improvement will be presented as bullet points in the cell.
   

Finishing up the Journey Map

Now you've finished entering the touchpoints, customer thinking/feeling, and ideas for improvement for the first stage. Let's complete the other stages by following the tables below.

Stage: Book a Tour:

Stage: Pre-Tour

Stage: During Tour

Stage: Post-Tour

The final journey map should look like this:

Generating a Document from a Journey Map

At the bottom of the journey map, there is a deliverable pane. On the left of the pane, there is a deliverable icon. To generate a deliverable, double-click on it, enter the filename in the Generate Deliverable window, and then click Save.

The figure below shows the generated document. It contains the journey map (image) and the touchpoints, customer thinking/feeling, and ideas for improvement entered under the stages.

Categorizing the Map with Labels

You can categorize items in cells with labels. Let's say you want to categorize touchpoints into system touchpoints and human touchpoints. Perform the steps below for categorization.

1. Right-click on the lane header "Touchpoints" and select Cells Format > Label from the popup menu.
   
2. Double-click on the cell of touchpoints under the Explore Itineraries stage.
   
3. Click on the hollow label next to the first item and select orange. We want to represent system touchpoints with an orange label.
   
4. Click on the hollow label next to the second item and select green. We want to represent human touchpoints with a green label.
   
5. Set the label for the third item to be orange.
   
6. Click OK to confirm. The map will be updated with the orange and green labels applied to the items.
   
7. At the bottom right of the map, double-click on the captions in the legends and rename the captions for the orange and green labels to System and Human, respectively.