We recently approached some of the best customer experience practitioners to get you the latest and most actionable CX content out there.
One of these is Annette Franz, who has kindly shared with us a free chapter from her uniquely insightful book, Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business).
We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Happy reading :)
Free Excerpt from Customer Understanding: Inform Your CX Strategy With Journey Maps
Journey mapping is the most critical and pivotal component in any customer experience transformation. An in-depth understanding of the experience today — what’s going well and what isn’t — is the only way to really drive change going forward. This is what journey maps provide and, hence, why journey maps and the journey mapping process are often called the backbone of customer experience management.
What do I mean by that? The journey mapping process informs and supports so many parts of your customer experience strategy that it literally is the backbone; those parts include:
Executive Alignment
- Helps you build the business case and get executive commitment for the work that lies ahead
- Explains the what and the why behind the customer experience today
- Brings them closer to the customer and allows them to walk in customers’ shoes
- By opening their eyes and building that commitment, it ensures all executives are aligned on the customer-centric vision — it’s the mindset shift, inside out to outside in
Brand Promise
- Helps you communicate, translate, and amplify the brand promise for your employees
- Aligns the experience with the brand promise
- Identifies where the promise is kept or broken
- Teaches employees about—and aligns them with — the brand promise
Organization Adoption and Alignment
- Teaches employees about the customer and the experience
- Provides a clear line of sight for employees to the customer
- Helps employees understand how they contribute to — and impact — the customer and the experience
- Builds empathy for the customer
- Helps create a universal language for employees to talk about the customer
Employee Experience
Identifies broken or missing tools, resources, policies, or processes that hinder the experience for the employee (and for the customer)Helps the organization align training, tools, and resources to customer needs and expectationsHighlights how and where the employee experience intersects with the customer experience
Customer Understanding
- Helps the organization understand what the customer is doing, thinking, and feeling as she interacts with the brand
- Helps everyone understand who the customer is and identifies her needs, expectations, preferences, and jobs to be done
- Identifies listening gaps and provides co-creation opportunities with customers
- Identifies key moments of truth (when enriched with data)
Process Improvements
- Becomes the root cause analysis for customer-facing issues
- Identifies operational (in)efficiencies and cost savings
- Is a decision support tool to help prioritize improvement areas
- Facilitates breaking down or connecting organizational silos
There are many more ways that journey mapping supports and informs your customer experience strategy, including designing new experiences for tomorrow. I wrote a whitepaper a few years ago called 30+ Reasons to Map Customer Journeys, which includes more details on this.
When journey mapping is viewed (and used) not only as the process that it is but also, especially, as the backbone of customer experience management, it becomes an ongoing practice and process in your organization. When it becomes part of the conversation, when it feeds into all of the things mentioned here (plus in the whitepaper), then it becomes a part of the fabric of the organization.
Are you convinced yet that journey maps are a powerful tool and process in your customer experience toolbox?
Don’t let your tools become your process.
Annette Franz is an internationally recognized customer experience thought leader, coach, speaker, and author. She recently published her first book, Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business); it’s available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats.
Customer Understanding and Journey Maps: FAQs
What is customer understanding in business?
Customer understanding is the process of learning about customer needs, behaviors, motivations, and challenges. It allows businesses to design products and services that align with customer expectations.
Why is customer understanding important?
It helps companies create better experiences, build loyalty, and reduce churn. By truly understanding customers, businesses can make more informed and customer-centric decisions.
What are customer journey maps?
Customer journey maps are visual representations of the steps customers take when interacting with a brand. They show customer goals, emotions, and pain points across different touchpoints.
How do journey maps improve customer understanding?
Journey maps provide a structured view of customer experiences, highlighting where friction occurs and where improvements are needed. They help align teams around customer-centric goals.
What types of journey maps are used in customer experience?
Common types include:
- Current state maps – showing how customers interact with the brand today.
- Future state maps – envisioning the ideal customer journey.
- Day-in-the-life maps – capturing customer behavior beyond interactions with the brand.
How can businesses create effective journey maps?
To build effective maps, companies should gather customer data, conduct interviews or surveys, identify key personas, and map each stage of the customer journey with emotions and pain points.
What role does feedback play in journey mapping?
Customer feedback validates journey maps by confirming whether identified pain points and touchpoints reflect real experiences. It ensures that maps are accurate and actionable.
How often should journey maps be updated?
Journey maps should be updated regularly to reflect changing customer behaviors, new products, or shifts in market expectations. Keeping them current ensures continued relevance.
