Looking back on 2024, one question stands out in the world of customer experience (CX): How do companies get to the bottom of their customers’ journeys—in ways that spark bottom-line success?
In December’s CXPA B2B Roundtable hosted by Martha Brooke, and featuring Dave Seaton, that very question took center stage. The discussion highlighted the synergy between scientific customer feedback and customer journey mapping, likening these two tools to the “left foot and right foot” of an effective CX strategy.
Analysts (like us) who take a rigorous approach to customer experience research know that solid data means:
- Removing bias
- Sampling correctly
- Testing for replicability
- Using multiple CX methods
- Applying rigorous analysis
Bottom Line: By fueling your journey maps with research-based facts, you will be positioned to improve everything from customer onboarding to brand identity.
With over 75 CX practitioners joining the conversation, we dove into the heart of customer journey mapping—as a tool for creating experiences that drive ROI. To watch the recording, click here.
Because many of you listen on the go, you can find the audio here:
Below, we break down key themes and insights shared during the Roundtable.
And if you’ve ever wondered how to create a journey map that drives strategy or been curious as to why half of all journey maps fail, this blog post will give you the answers.
Takeaways from the Customer Journey Mapping Roundtable
Takeaway #1. Customer Journey Mapping Is Not Just a Pretty Picture
Journey mapping isn’t about creating colorful diagrams to hang in your conference room. Instead, a successful customer journey map:
- Uncovers friction points,
- Identifies pivotal moments,
- Pinpoints opportunities for growth.
When tied to strategic goals, it can help you:
- Improve onboarding processes
- Reduce churn
- Increase sales
Takeaway #2. Why Many Journey Maps Fail
According to Dave Seaton, roughly 50% of journey maps fail because they:
- Aren’t tied to strategic business goals.
- Don’t lead to meaningful action.
- Overload teams with unnecessary details instead of clear insights.
As Dave emphasized: “If your journey map doesn’t drive change, it’s just an art project.”
Takeaway #3. The Power of Personas and Critical Moments
Effective journey maps focus on key customer personas and highlight the “moments of truth”—the interactions that have an outsized impact on the customer’s experience and loyalty.
Takeaway #4. Customer Journey Mapping Consultants Drive Impact
Partnering with customer journey mapping consultants ensures that companies follow a proven process, prioritize research, and align insights with company-wide goals. Instead of winging it, you’ll align your efforts with strategic business goals—setting up a journey map you can use for years.
Takeaway #5. The Future of Journey Mapping is Dynamic
Best practices in customer journey mapping are evolving rapidly. Rather than creating a static asset that quickly goes stale, businesses are harnessing real-time data to continuously refine and adapt their journey maps as customer needs shift.
What is Customer Journey Mapping?
Customer journey mapping visually documents the steps a customer takes to achieve a specific goal from their perspective. Dave Seaton defined a customer journey map as “a visualization of the experience that a customer has as they interact with your company to accomplish their goal.”
Best practices in customer journey mapping focus on critical moments and ensure alignment with customer and business goals. By combining research, customer feedback, and organizational insights, journey mapping identifies:
- Key interactions (touchpoints): Moments where the customer directly engages with your company.
- Pain points: Friction or challenges that disrupt their journey.
- Opportunities: Areas where improving the experience can drive loyalty, revenue, or efficiency.
Effective customer journey mapping requires deep research (the kind that we do) and a clear understanding of customer needs, emotions, and critical moments. Done well, it can bring your teams together around your customer experience objectives.
How Customer Journey Maps Reveal Pain Points and Opportunities
The research that goes into journey mapping provides a structured approach to uncovering areas where customers may face challenges or where companies can improve.
While not discussed in the roundtable, here’s a case study widely seen as a customer journey mapping success:
Starbucks Case Study
Objective: Needing to pinpoint areas for enhancing its in-store and digital experiences, Starbucks used journey mapping.
Key Pain Points Uncovered:
- Long Wait Times: Customers were frustrated by delays during peak hours.
- A Disconnected Loyalty Program: Starbucks Rewards lacked integration with digital touchpoints, reducing engagement.
How Starbucks Addressed the Issues:
- Mobile Ordering: A new app allowed customers to order and pay ahead, minimizing wait times and streamlining service.
- Personalized Experiences: Starbucks leveraged rewards data to offer tailored recommendations and promotions, boosting customer engagement.
Results: Wait times improved, increasing customer satisfaction. And, Starbucks Rewards participation surged, fostering loyalty and repeat business.
This real-world example highlights how journey mapping helped Starbucks create a seamless, personalized experience that delights customers and drives growth.
The Five Essentials of Customer Journey Mapping
Back to the roundtable learnings, Dave highlighted five core elements that every journey map should include:
- Customer Personas: A representation of various customer segments based on needs, goals, and values—not demographics.
For example: “David the Work-from-Home Professional” values reliability and will pay a premium for uninterrupted internet service. - Customer Goals: The overarching objective the customer wants to achieve.
For example, with tax software, a predictable customer goal is to file taxes quickly while maximizing refunds. - Steps in the Journey: The actions a customer takes to reach their goal, including indirect steps like waiting, researching competitors, or asking for referrals.
- Thoughts and Emotions: What the customer is feeling at each step of the journey.
That could be frustration during a lengthy onboarding process or confidence after resolving an issue quickly. - Moments of Truth: Critical interactions that disproportionately impact the customer’s experience and perception of the company.
When these components are woven into a coherent journey map, you gain not only a visual but also a strategic narrative that directs your improvement efforts.
Dave Seaton’s DARMA™ Method: A Framework for Customer Journey Mapping
As Dave explained during the roundtable, a structured approach can make all the difference. Enter the DARMA™ Method:
- Define the opportunity: Why are you mapping this journey? (e.g., reduce churn, improve onboarding).
- Analyze the current state: Use existing data to understand what you already know.
- Research the customer experience: Conduct interviews (he finds that 20–30 customers are typically sufficient) to uncover meaningful insights.
- Map the experience: Visualize the findings into a journey map.
- Act on the insights: Prioritize improvements and measure outcomes.
Without scientific CX research that leads to action, journey mapping risks becoming an “art project” with no real business value.
Aligning Journey Maps with Business Goals
If you’re wondering how to create a customer journey map that delivers ROI, start by anchoring your journey map to the objectives that matter most. Dave Seaton says that usually, these objectives fall into four broad categories:
- Customer-Focused Goals: Reducing churn, improving satisfaction, and enhancing the overall customer experience.
- Employee-Focused Goals: Attracting and retaining top talent by addressing employee needs and engagement.
- Operations-Focused Goals: Streamlining processes, increasing efficiency, and reducing friction in service delivery.
- Financial Goals: Boosting revenue by increasing share of wallet, reducing costs to serve, and improving profitability.
Example:
A B2B software company struggles with high churn due to a confusing onboarding process. By identifying pain points, such as delays or lack of clear communication, they can streamline the experience, making it easier for customers to adopt the product. Fixing these friction points leads to fewer cancellations, happier customers, and a smoother path to upselling additional features.
By aligning journey maps with these strategic objectives, businesses can prioritize actions that deliver measurable outcomes, ensuring the journey map is a practical growth-minded tool.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
- Overloading the Map with Data
Dave advised keeping journey maps concise and focused. While supplementary details can be stored in reports, the visual map should serve as a high-impact storytelling tool for executives. - Neglecting Organizational Alignment
“One of the reasons journey maps fail is that they don’t align with the company’s strategic plan,” Dave noted. Start by identifying whether the goals are customer, employee, operations, or financially driven. - Underestimating the Importance of Personas
In B2B contexts, journey maps often require multiple personas to capture the varying goals of buyers, users, and decision-makers. Consultants can help businesses clarify these nuances.
From Static Maps to Dynamic Models
One of the roundtable’s most compelling insights was a preview of where journey mapping is headed. With new technologies emerging—think Qualtrics dashboards or Salesforce integrations—customer journey maps are becoming living, breathing models. Businesses can overlay real-time metrics, bridging the gap between static planning and dynamic CX optimization.
But even with top-tier software, the magic lies in how your teams respond. Data without action is just noise, so building a culture that prioritizes CX improvements is imperative.
The Role of Customer Journey Mapping Consultants
Customer journey mapping consultants play a pivotal role in ensuring that companies maximize the value of their journey maps. Their expertise ensures alignment with best practices in customer journey mapping, making the process more efficient and impactful.
While some companies may attempt to handle this process internally, consultants bring a unique set of skills, tools, and objective methodologies.
During the roundtable, Dave emphasized three key responsibilities of skilled customer journey mapping consultants:
- Strategy: A good consultant ensures that journey maps are not just insightful but also actionable, tying directly to outcomes like reducing costs or increasing revenue.
- Engagement: Consultants help make the journey map a collaborative tool by providing insights that resonate with teams across the organization.
- Research: By collecting well-sampled, robust data, consultants ensure the journey map reflects the truth of the customer experience.
Benefits of Working with Customer Journey Mapping Consultants
- Unbiased Perspective: Consultants provide an external, objective view of your customer experience. This impartiality helps identify blind spots that internal teams might overlook.
- Specialized Expertise: With extensive experience across industries, consultants know how to craft maps that lead to actionable insights.
- Accurate Data as a Foundation: High-quality data collected through surveys, interviews, and customer service evaluations is critical to the success of any journey map.
Tools and Methodologies Consultants Bring
- Survey-Driven Insights: Customer surveys and service evaluations provide the foundation for a strong map. Tools like customer service surveys offer clear, actionable data that consultants can integrate into platforms like Qualtrics or Salesforce.
- Journey Mapping Software: Advanced tools allow for dynamic, real-time mapping when combined with robust survey and evaluation data.
- Frameworks and Processes: Proven methodologies, like the DARMA™ Method mentioned by Dave, ensure the mapping process aligns with both customer needs and business goals.
Bringing Customer Journey Maps to Life: Your Blueprint for CX Success
Customer journey mapping is far more than a one-off exercise—it’s an evolving process that empowers companies to understand and improve their CX. By partnering with experienced customer journey mapping consultants, you’ll reduce complexity and be best positioned to transform insights into impact.
Mapping + Scientific Data = Success
Customer journey mapping and scientific customer feedback are the “left foot and right foot” of CX—they work in tandem to move your strategy forward.
This depth of insight transforms your journey maps into actionable tools, enabling you to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Reliable, insightful data doesn’t just support your journey map—it makes it a cornerstone of your strategy.
When we tap into the emotions, frustrations, and needs of your customers, you gain a clear path to crafting experiences that drive loyalty and growth.
Remember: Without good data, a journey map is just a static visual, disconnected from the reality of your customers’ experiences.
Turning Insights into Results
Whether you’re a CX leader aiming to reduce churn or an entrepreneur looking to maximize sales, a research-driven approach to CX ensures your customer journey maps will translate into measurable results that matter.
With the right data in hand, you can move beyond assumptions and craft journeys that delight your customers and boost your bottom line.
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At Interaction Metrics, we provide the research behind journey maps, and we work with consultants who develop journey maps for their clients. Let’s discuss whether customer research is right for you.
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