the blog for experience innovators

Journey Mapping

an illustration of a service blueprint without any text, just a visual on black background
May 25, 2023

Using Service Blueprints to design customer-centered processes

Service blueprinting is a method used by businesses to better understand and optimize the processes that impact customer experience. It enables businesses to identify areas for improvement and make changes to enhance customer satisfaction. This article guides you through all you need to know about service blueprints: their main elements, benefits, as well as some examples and tools you can use to create one.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
three women discussing and calculating in a business context
May 15, 2023

Use cases of customer journey maps: workshop, project, and management maps

Journey maps have the power to create a competitive advantage for organizations, but what kinds of journey maps are out there? And which purpose does each kind serve? In this article, you get more detailed insights about the three main use cases of journey maps, and why it’s crucial to differentiate between them. 

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
an orchestra playing in a theatre
April 26, 2023

Customer journey orchestration: what it is, benefits, and tools

Customer journey orchestration is the process of delivering a consistent and personalized experience to customers across all touchpoints and channels. It enables businesses to optimize their operations, improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and drive revenue growth. In this article, we'll explore the benefits of journey orchestration, best practices for implementation, as well as some tools and technologies that can help streamline the process.

Michael Steingress
Michael Steingress
A female receptionist behind a desk talking to a man in an office environment.
April 11, 2023

Journey mapping for customer success

Customer journey mapping is important for customer success teams because it helps them to better understand their customers' needs and pain points, which in turn helps them to improve the overall customer experience. By mapping out the customer journey, teams can learn how to better support customers on different channels like the helpdesk, phone, or forums – leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Zsofia Szatmari-Margitai
Zsofia Szatmari-Margitai
people working on infographics and journey maps
March 14, 2023

Business cases of journey maps: examples of using journey maps for various purposes

Journey maps are a useful tool for many organizations and they have countless use cases. When looking at it without any preoccupation, it’s a series of steps in chronological order. This sequence of steps is triggered by a certain event.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
person looking at customer experience insights
November 29, 2022

9 Customer Journey Mapping Benefits For Your Organization

Customers don't always follow a linear path when interacting with your organization or business. They often go back and forth between stages before they finally convert. This is where customer journey mapping is most beneficial — you can better understand the customers' perspective and provide relevant information and offers throughout their entire experience. The bottom line? Increase your revenue.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
Visualization of a journey map hierarchy with three zoom levels and dedicated journey map managers.
November 3, 2022

What is Customer Journey Management and how to get started?

Effective customer journey management is vital for businesses to remain competitive and relevant in today's market. It helps to optimize every step of the customer journey and thus ensuring customer satisfaction, building brand loyalty, and driving revenue growth. In this article, you learn the basics of customer journey management: What is customer journey management? Why is it so important? What are the tasks and skills of a customer journey manager? And what are essential tools for customer journey management?

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
A hand taking a photo of a journey map with a smartphone.
October 20, 2022

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map can become the central hub for customer experience insights – visualizing the customer journey holistically, end-to-end. Read on if you’d like to find out what customers experience when they use your service or purchase your product (or, when they fail to do so). We'll show you how to help your customers navigate your service, no matter how complex it is.

Antonia Cramer
Antonia Cramer
woman stamping a document
June 14, 2022

Legal design: how to innovate the experience of law services with journey mapping

For the legal profession, customer experience is of the utmost importance. Legal practitioners are constantly in contact with people in delicate situations. May it be going through a divorce, being accused of a crime, or having experienced severe financial or bodily damages, oftentimes the very fate of the affected individuals is at stake.

Andreas Seelos
Andreas Seelos
Phone scanning a QR code of jewellery.
March 22, 2022

Omnichannel customer journey maps – designing experiences across channels

Have you ever visited a store, tried on some clothes, used your smartphone to compare prices – and in the end bought everything online? Undeniably, omnichannel experiences are becoming more and more habitual, and we don’t need to go too far to verify consumers’ behavioral changes.

Juan Alves
Juan Alves
A friendly doctor looking after a woman who just gets her bloodpressure checked
February 23, 2022

What is patient journey mapping and how to do it?

Patient experience is a critical component of quality healthcare services and thus it's also key to one of the most essential human needs. It does not matter what place on earth, culture, age, gender, predisposition – at some point we all need medical help. And in those sensitive moments, we are glad to have a health system where we can trust both the processes, and the human interaction.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
person attempting to draw on a notepad
January 26, 2022

How to create a visually appealing journey map in 6 steps

Visual clues are extremely important when creating journey maps. We are sure that you’ve come across the idiom “a picture says a thousand words”, which in the case of journey mapping proves to be true. Humans are brilliant at understanding and empathizing with images – make use of that! There are numerous ways to make your journey map visually appealing.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
people collaboratively working on a pen and paper journey map with colorful post its
January 21, 2022

12 tips on how to create a customer journey map that provides real insights

At the first glimpse, creating a customer journey map seems to be an intuitive thing. You’re working on projects related to customer experience every day and have a clear gut feeling about the customer journey anyway. So all you need to do is to use that paper template and some sticky notes to bring your thoughts on paper, right? Well... No. 

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
visualization of power point slides on grey background
September 17, 2021

Ask Marc – about presenting journey maps

In this webinar, we talked about presenting customer journey maps: How to approach different audiences, how to tailor journey map details to stakeholder groups, and about types of visualizations and exports for different use cases. After watching this session, you’ll know how to use journey maps as boundary objects to bridge organizational and communicational silos.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
employee working in a warehouse
August 3, 2021

Employee experience management: creating positive workspaces from acquisition to retention

A holistic approach towards employee experience does not start with the onboarding process nor does it finish with the offboarding process. Instead it actually starts with attracting your employees - the candidate experience - and possibly ends with re-engaging your alumni - alumni experience. Employee experience involves a broad and extremely varied range of many different areas and levels of employee journeys and each of these journeys deserves dedicated attention.

Melina Savvidis
Melina Savvidis
Display panes at an airport showing the departure and arrival of planes.
July 6, 2021

Customer journey mapping in tourism

Customer journey mapping has huge potential to change the travel & tourism industry in a positive way. As individual suppliers harness the potential journey mapping offers, they can craft more compelling experiences for their guests. Whether approaches are applied to services in a small hotel, or within a large destination management organization (DMO), journey maps can be created to suit different contexts and use cases within the travel industry.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
Sheets of paper with a cup, a mouse and a pen.
June 30, 2021

Improving citizen experience: Customer journey mapping for government services

When was the last time you used a government service? Sometimes it can be hard to bring a particular service to mind because they often play such a background role in our lives, only standing out during moments when they inconvenience us. However, in people's everyday lives they benefit from a vast range of different government services that support the way that they, as well as their communities, are able to function.

Cambrian Berry
Cambrian Berry
MacBook standing on a desk. On the screen a yellow couch is visible.
March 4, 2021

Create an e-commerce customer journey map with a free tool

Customer journey mapping in e-commerce is a diagram that illustrates the steps your customers go through in engaging with your online business. It starts when they first become aware of your products, to completing a purchase. It can extend to after-purchase care.

Antonia Cramer
Antonia Cramer
little kids waiting for school to start in front of a building
February 2, 2021

Education journey mapping: understanding learning experience

Education has the power to change people's lives and the world we live in. By understanding and mapping the education journey, we are much better prepared when creating meaningful educational experiences and we can thus achieve better outcomes with our learners. Education journey mapping can help us understand and improve the education journey.

Cambrian Berry
Cambrian Berry
How to create a customer journey map
January 20, 2021

How to Create a Customer Journey Map [With a Free Tool]

In this article, we explain how you can map a customer journey. You get a step-by-step explanation of how to create a customer journey map that you can use as instruction.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
Emotional Journey Export from Smaply
December 1, 2020

Customer journey map examples from different industries

On this page, you get a collection of some great journey map examples from different industries, such as airports, e-commerce, marketing, or telecommunication.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
A man playing chess and drinking coffee.
November 18, 2020

Journey mapping in strategic planning

Customer centricity is the core of every successful business. Only if we plan and deliver products that solve real customer needs, our business will survive in the long run. Hence, having a clear understanding of what the customer needs and how we can meet these needs better than any other actor on the market is key to sustainable success.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
Candidate journey mapping improving the hiring process
November 11, 2020

What is the candidate journey and how to successfully recruit with journey maps

Recruiters know: The candidate has moved into a powerful position and has changed our game. It’s not only on the candidate to apply and perform, but also on us recruiters to convince the candidate to become part of our organization. It’s on us to leave a good impression and to provide a great candidate experience in order to stand out and compete with other organizations. 

Melina Savvidis
Melina Savvidis
Selfie of Marc Stickdorn while recording a podcast
November 10, 2020

Podcast: talking about Journey Map Operations at 'This is HCD'

In this podcast, Gerry Scullion and I talk about Journey Map Operations and how projects in organizations impact customer and employee experience.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
piggy bank with cash money
November 9, 2020

Customer journey mapping in banking: what it is and how to get started

Like many other sectors, the world of banking is facing persistent pressure to innovate within a society undergoing rapid technological, environmental and social change. Due to these changes, the way we engage with banks and access money isn't the same as it was five years ago. Short: the customer journey in banking has changed – and it's highly likely it won't be the same five years from now into the future. 

Cambrian Berry
Cambrian Berry
Women sitting at a table, discussing the importance of journey mapping in SaaS
October 21, 2020

What is user journey mapping and how to create a user journey map? – for SaaS and beyond

In today's digital landscape, understanding and meeting user expectations has become paramount for businesses striving to stay competitive. Enter user journey mapping—a powerful method that empowers designers and product teams to visualize and optimize the user experience. In this article, we explore the relevance of user journey mapping, its invaluable insights, and provide a step-by-step guide on how to create an effective journey map that puts the user at the center of the design process. This article is not only relevant for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies but also applicable to businesses across various industries seeking to deliver exceptional user experiences.

Klaus Schwarzenberger
Klaus Schwarzenberger
Journey map focussed on the emotional experience of a persona
October 12, 2020

Beyond words: How to present a customer journey map that gets you buy-in

The way in which a customer journey map is presented plays an important role in engaging different stakeholders like clients or in-house teams. In this article we take a quick look at the basics of professional journey map presentations, including structure, formats and fundamental principles that help you to engage your audience.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
a person's hands leaning on a table with sharpies, color samples, files and coffee
September 30, 2020

Customer journey mapping in marketing

Customer journey mapping and marketing go so much hand in hand that one might think it’s self-explanatory. But just like for any other person, also marketers sometimes have a hard time empathizing with customers. Customer journey mapping can help marketers to ensure they act for the customers’ sake and that it’s really the customer who’s in the focus of what they’re doing – rather than tools and processes.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
little girl and woman holding hands and walking away
September 22, 2020

Volunteer journey mapping: managing experiences with NGOs

Volunteer journey mapping is an important tool for nonprofits looking to create engaging and rewarding experiences for their volunteers. By mapping out the volunteer journey, nonprofits can identify pain points, opportunities for improvement, and ways to enhance the overall volunteer experience.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
journey map hierarchy
July 10, 2020

Ask Marc – about journey map repositories

In this session we talked about hierarchies of journey maps, how they can complement each other, also between different departments and the challenges of implementing such a method in organizations.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
close up of an antique map
June 10, 2020

A map is a map: how understanding geographical maps helps us create better journey maps

Maps have been a key tool for people since the dawn of humankind. Starting with fading sketches drawn in sand to Google Maps, maps have always provided information, context, and orientation. What helps us find our way through this world, also helps us to understand our customers and our business.

Michael Steingress
Michael Steingress
person with headset sitting at a desk
May 13, 2020

Employee experience mapping: shaping new work practices

Employee experience mapping has emerged as a powerful way to better understand what a work team really needs and wants – and shape a more fulfilling work environment that is perfectly aligned. This article introduces to the concept of employee experience, explores its importance and shows how to bring it into action.

Melina Savvidis
Melina Savvidis
supermarket shelves from above
April 7, 2020

Increasing perceived safety and trust in a supermarket with journey mapping

Journey maps can help take the customer by the hand and together walk through times of perceived high risk.

Paul Cook
Paul Cook
two people hiking up a mountain in snowy conditions
April 1, 2020

Customer experience in times of crises

Why it’s so important to focus on your customers’ needs and expectations – especially in times like these.

Michael Steingress
Michael Steingress
journey map repository
March 30, 2020

The why and how of a journey map repository

A journey map repository allows you to organize all your journey maps and make it clear and accessible for yourself and your team. This is a crucial step towards using journey maps as a visual management tool and organizing all projects that impact experiences throughout the organization.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
visualization of multiple personas on one journey map
February 12, 2020

How to convince your boss of a journey mapping tool

You want to bring more customer centricity to your organization and need to pitch that journey mapping tool to your boss – your team, other stakeholders? Here comes a slide deck you can use to show others why and how software can help you to successfully improve your customers’ experience.

Isabel Grillmayr
Isabel Grillmayr
Marc Stickdorn smiling into the camera, visualization of people
December 20, 2019

Ask Marc – about journey map operations

In this session we talk about journey map operations, a customer-centric management tool for agile organizations and answer user questions on how to embrace this approach in an organization.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
Gerry Scullion and Marc Stickdorn laughing at the SDGC19
October 11, 2019

Podcast: SDGC19 Special

Gerry Scullion asks our CEO and co-founder Marc Stickdorn about ‘Customer Journey Map Ops‘. This is also a nice recap of Marc’s masterclass that was hosted as a SDGC side event by EY.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
students sitting around a table talking
October 1, 2019

Case study: student journey mapping

This case study reviews the use of journey mapping for improving retention rates at a US university. As the work was completed by students graduating into the healthcare field, it also showed how service design methods can help people working in healthcare to apply creative problem solving and a more user-centric approach in their daily work.

Birgit Bosio
Birgit Bosio
Man waving into the camera with a microphone in the foreground.
August 20, 2019

Ask Marc – about employee experience

In this session we talk about employee experience: how to research employee experience, how to build trust and how to start with employee journey management.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
visualization of personas standing in front of a white background
April 5, 2019

14 aspects to consider when opting for a journey mapping tool

So you’re planning to really dive into journey mapping, together with your team. So many tools out there, so many different possibilities and features – but which ones do you really need for your purpose, for the team you’re working with, for your product? We’ve prepared a checklist that helps you choose the most suitable customer (or user, employee, citizen, …) journey mapping tool for your project.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
Mother with a newborn baby, holding it tight.
March 1, 2019

Case study: journey mapping in healthcare

This case shows how the Community Empowerment Lab, a global health research and innovation organization, used Smaply to help design a model for scaling Kangaroo Mother Care in rural India.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
plotted journey map hanging on a brick wall
December 6, 2018

Facilitating journey mapping workshops

A facilitator can help make workshops more efficient and enjoyable. This is a slide deck on facilitating journey mapping workshops.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
symbols of health care on a light rose background
November 5, 2018

Case study: developing a mobile app through journey mapping

This case study shares how students at the University of Michigan developed user personas and journey maps to create an innovative mobile app to remind teenage chronic patients to take their medication.

Birgit Bosio
Birgit Bosio
storyboard images on an orange background
April 13, 2018

About storyboards

Images help give a shared understanding of customer experience and are enormously helpful to tell your persona’s story. A storyboard is a valuable feature of journey maps and helps to empathize more intensively with your persona.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
people crossing a street with umbrellas
July 26, 2017

Podcast: applying service design to the homelessness issue

Empathy. It’s an unavoidable word in the world of user experience design. Too often it is applied to designs in too narrow a fashion. Your empathy should come from the problem your design is solving, not measured in the level of frustration or delight experienced with your design.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
data wires on an electronic device
July 11, 2017

Case study: journey mapping in a global japanese electronics corporation

This case shares how a global Japanese electronics company used journey mapping to improve its business to business operations, specifically with external partners. Through a number of service design workshops internal staff gained awareness of the problem of poor service delivery and became part of the solution.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
yellow background with writing: how to evaluate a journey map? ...6 aspects to consider
March 8, 2017

How to evaluate a customer journey map?

How worthy is a customer journey map? What aspects you should consider when analyzing a customer journey map that someone else made? In this article you learn about the six most relevant aspects to consider when evaluating a the usefulness of a customer journey map.

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
black square with the Service Design Show logo
April 9, 2016

A customer journey map is not a ****ing deliverable!

In this interview with the Service Design Show Marc talks about his first encounter with Service design, why there are so many names for it and more. Watch it to get some great insights!

Katharina Rainer
Katharina Rainer
desk with laptop, microphone and poster in the background
March 15, 2016

Podcast: Service Design Thinking [GERMAN]

Today we’ve got an interesting podcast for you, made by Marc in collaboration with IATV.

Marc Stickdorn
Marc Stickdorn
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