Mia Krysa

Customer journey maps are a tool used by many designers to learn more about their users and understand what may influence their decisions, and their journeys with specific products. With a customer journey map, the story is supposed to be told from the user’s perspective in a way that will inform designers. They’re useful to display information found when research is gathered.

Elements of a Customer Journey Map

According to UX Mastery, a customer journey map must have the following components:

1. Personas: Remember when we talked about personas? They’re the main characters in the customer journey map.
2. Timeline: How long is the process?
3. Emotions: What emotions does the user (or persona) run into during different moments in the process? What feelings do they feel when they cross paths with your product?
4. Touchpoints: Anything that the customer is doing.
5. Channels: Where does the customer come into contact with your product? In person? Online? And in what context?

Honorable mentions also include moments of truth and any supporting characters. Moments of truth can be any “eureka moment” that the customer will likely remember. It’s something that causes frustration or anxiety. Any supporting characters are exactly how it sounds— it’s anyone else involved in the decision-making process.

The customer journey map should help work out all of the “kinks” that may be evident when a customer is interacting with your product. A Forbes article stated that “the map helps you see which touchpoints your customers love, so you can emphasize those, and where there are common pain points you want to improve. You can use the map to create standard operating procedures in your business, train your staff, help all team members better understand your customers, and improve your product or service for a better user experience.”

Starbucks Customer Journey Map

When creating my customer journey map, I wanted to walk through a routine that I go through often. For me, that’s getting coffee in the morning. I often make coffee at home, but when I do decide to buy one, there’s a lot of thought and context that goes into my decision making.

Where do I want to go? What kind of coffee do I want? Do I have any coupons? Am I hungry too, or do I just want coffee? How much time do I have? Should I order ahead of time or when I get there? Do I want to go inside or through the drive-through?

In my map, I included my entire routine, as well as a persona, moment of truth, touchpoints, and emotions I often feel while waiting for my coffee. The journey map helped me identify where I come in contact with Starbucks most, and issues that I often run into when I go to order coffee. I realized that the best way to go is to always order ahead of time. But, I’m always happy with my cold brew. If you’d like to see my journey map in full swing, look below! ☕️