Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves. - Steve Jobs
If you head up a digital product, communication, marketing or brand team, you may not have heard this quote but the importance of understanding your customers is surely ingrained in your work, and you are probably already familiar with the concept of "Journey Mapping". It’s an approach used by many teams to improve product and overall customer experience, aligning with broader business objectives. And it’s not difficult to see why:
Customer Journey Mapping results in a 54% greater return on marketing (Webinarcare).
Companies that use tools like customer Journey Maps reduce their cost of service by 15-20% (McKinsey).
In the realm of digital products, "Journey Mapping" is undeniably valuable by:
Shifting the focus to user-centred design at a strategic level among all stakeholders
Identifying customer needs, wants, pain points and opportunities when interacting with your digital products
Creating a consistent experience across all touchpoints such as website, app, social media and physical space (in-store)
But did you know that beyond “Journey Mapping”, there are numerous other forms of maps that are critical to setting a digital product for success? In addition to enhancing customer experiences with existing digital products, they also provide invaluable insights during the initial stages of designing or redesigning a digital product. Hanover Research found that 94% of businesses said their Journey Maps help them develop new products and services to match customer needs. Let’s dive into the world of:
Empathy Map
Journey Map
Experience Map
The key prerequisite to mapping - Persona
Before we start exploring these essential maps, a gentle reminder: don’t get started with any form of mapping without your Persona profile or profiles! A persona is a fictional character representing a specific type of customer who might interact with the product. Depending on your business and digital product, you may need more than one persona and there will be varying facets you’ll want to include in the creation of your persona or personas. We recommend starting with including the following sections:
Demographic, such as age, generation, gender, education and occupation, etc.
Geographic, such as location, origin (if applicable) and culture, etc.
Psychological, such as personality, motivation and belief, etc.
Behavioural, such as touchpoints, preferences and life in a day, etc.
Now, to the key reason we are here – the three maps! Let’s take a closer look:
Empathy Map
An Empathy Map is a visual tool used to understand and empathise with customers. It typically consists of a simple framework divided into the following 8 sections:
Hear – what are they hearing
See – what are they seeing
Feel – how do they feel
Think – what are they thinking
Say – what are they saying
Do – what are they doing
Pains – what are their frustrations
Gains – what are they looking to achieve?
In addition to the above, there are different Empathy Map variations:
One that has four sections: combining think & feel and say & do, and not including pains and pains
One that has six sections: taking out hear and see, and keeping say, think, do, feel, pains and gains.
There are no absolute right or wrong answers, for example, some may prefer combining say & do. Each option provides value and its suitability depends on the actual business context.
Journey Map
A Journey Map is a visual representation that illustrates the stages and steps a customer goes through when interacting with a product, service or brand.
It is often based on a timeline of events showing how the customer progresses from one event in the journey to the next. The exact stages of your Journey Map will very much depend on your business context, product and persona, but a good starting place can be adopting the following stage headers:
Awareness
Consideration
Decision
Usage
Renewal / Repurchase
Loyalty & Advocacy
There are other stage frameworks available, for example, the traditional marketing “Consumer-decision making process” which has five steps: problem recognition, information search, alternatives evaluation, purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation.
At each stage, you may want to learn more about your customer by listing the following attributes in the grey section/column of the template above, and exploring each of them across all stages.
Customer actions – what is the customer doing at this stage
Touchpoints – what channels or touchpoints is the customer interacting with
Emotions – what feelings or emotions are they experiencing
Needs – what are the essentials they are looking for
Wants – what are they desiring
Pain points – what pains or frustrations are they experiencing
Experience Map
Similar to the Journey Map, the Experience Map goes through defined stages, but this time, we’re focused on how the customer interacts with multiple products, services and brands, and according to Jim Kalbach (a noted author, speaker and instructor in user experience design, information architecture and strategy) and his book “Mapping Experiences”, it allows brands to ask the questions: “how do we fit into the lives of individuals”.
The Experience Map therefore goes beyond a single product, service or brand interaction and provides a much more holistic view. Similar to a Journey Map, when planning for your Experience Map, the stages you identify will also very much depend on your customer’s broader life context.
In short, Journey Mapping focuses on a narrower scope compared to Experience Mapping. While Journey Mapping delves into enhancing the customer experience for a specific product, Experience Mapping encompasses the broader customer ecosystem focuses on uncovering opportunities for new and innovative solutions.
A quick note: while the terms "Journey Map" and "Experience Map" are often used interchangeably, they aren't the same. However, they can be combined into a comprehensive hybrid map by incorporating the functions of both.
Mapping session tips
Whether it’s an Empathy Map, Journey Map or Experience Map that you decide to adopt with your team, and regardless of the variations you are choosing to use, there are some critical guidelines to follow. Here are the top ones we’ve seen work well for enterprise brands that will help you and your team get the most out of the exercise and reap the ROI rewards too!
Don’t forget your Persona!
Remain customer-focused!
Try and do the mapping sessions in person, using equipment such as a whiteboard, post-it notes and even creative props!
Gather a cross-functional team, but keep it small so your sessions are focused and effective.
Get your hands on as many data points as possible to inform your mapping sessions.
Work with your customers for direct feedback and validation to minimise bias or assumptions from your team.
Be sure to agree on and capture the action points so that everyone knows what the next steps are after the mapping sessions and you’re maximising any potential ROI.
Think about using an experienced session facilitator to ensure your session or sessions run smoothly and don’t overrun. A facilitator can also make sure that you’re asking the right questions, staying focused and capturing any key follow-up steps.
Understanding your customer isn't a one-time task; it's an ongoing endeavour. It requires a perpetual commitment to learning and adapting. Beyond personas and the three maps mentioned earlier, a plethora of tools exist to keep your understanding of your customers up to date. These include various types of maps, research methods, and ongoing monitoring, analysis and review approaches.
Moreover, just like using an experienced session facilitator, a great way to get started with customer mapping is to leverage an external team of experts. This team can help you identify which map or maps to use in the first place, who to involve in your mapping sessions, and then facilitate and organise the sessions to make sure they happen!
If this sounds like an approach your brand needs, then get in touch with the Adrenalin team.
To stay updated on valuable digital product and technology insights, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter below and follow us on social media channels.
Learn from us
Join thousands of other Product Design experts who depend on Adrenalin for insights
