3 mapping methods to understand your customer journey

By meeting customer needs, you contribute to significant improvement in your organisation's KPIs. An effective way to gain insight into those needs is by mapping the customer experience. With a mapping method, you develop a visual representation of the customer experience during all ofthe customer's interactions with your product or service.

At Digital Power, we believe in the power of mapping. Click here to read more about the power of mapping.

When do I deploy which mapping method?

Within the UX/CX field, there are various mapping methods that can be used to research and optimise a product or service. These mapping methods can be used both for a new product (to-be situation) and for an already existing product (as-is situation). In this article, we will cover the three most commonly used maps: the experience map, customer journey map and the service blueprint.

Mapping method 1: Experience map

An experience map is a visual representation of an experience a user goes through, intended to achieve a certain goal. This experience is not tied to a specific product or brand.

An example is a purchase journey of a person who wants to buy a new outfit regardless of which shop this is done at and which brand the clothes are from. What does this experience look like? To answer this, you can ask questions like:

• Is the outfit purchased online or offline?
• Is each garment tried on before purchase?
• Which payment method does the customer choose? 

All these steps are visualised in the experience map without linking the experience to a specific brand, platform or service. The experience map is therefore the broadest mapping variant, which includes broader experiences such as the outfit buying example described above.

Another commercial example is mapping different online check-out flows. What needs do customers have in a check-out flow? In which steps are the pain points? Do customers need additional information at certain steps? You can use the common thread identifiable from these journeys as a foundation (benchmark) when building a check-out flow of a new business that does not yet exist.

However, the journey does not always have to be commercial in nature. It can also be much broader by, for example, mapping an employee's education and career development or that of a pregnant woman up to childbirth. So with the experience map, you focus on understanding general human behaviour to achieve a certain goal. You use the resulting insights as a foundation for developing your product or service.

Mapping method 2: Customer journey map

Whereas an experience map visualises a journey that is not tied to a specific product or service, the customer journey map is. It is elaborated from the perspective of a specific persona or target group. With the customer journey map, you can better understand the relationship customers have with your company and learn how customers experience your product or service. This gives you insight into why your customers' needs are or are not met. It helps you optimise products and services on a deeper level by uncovering customer problems that would otherwise be difficult to signal.

A customer journey map consists of several elements. The stages show, in a global sense, the steps that make up the customer journey. The actions show the actions taken by a customer. The emotions reflect the feelings experienced by the customer and the thoughts include the customer's opinions and expectations.

The journey a customer takes through an online configuration tool is something you can visualise well in a customer journey map. Online configuration tools are common these days and are used, for instance, to let customers put together his or her ultimate dream car (or pizza). These tools are product-related and often complex in nature. Countless choices have to be made regarding colour, rims, engine and upholstery. In addition, each car attracts a different target group. So this journey is target group and product-specific. By working out this journey in a customer journey map, you discover in a data-driven way problems that are relevant for the customer to solve.

Mapping method 3: Service blueprint

A service blueprint is a visualisation of the actions a customer goes through, combined with the visible and invisible parts of the product or service itself. When you combine a customer journey map with a service blueprint, you bring together both the customer journey and the process of the product or service in one visualisation. You can therefore see the service blueprint as a second part of a customer journey map. The part in which the service or product itself is central.

We explain the components of the service blueprint using an example:

Imagine, you call a webshop's customer service because you want to ask a question. You are presented with a selection menu which is clearly not working properly. This selection menu is a 'visible' element that you as a customer consciously interact with. This makes the selection menu part of the frontstage of the service blueprint. It turns out that the problem you are experiencing is caused by a bug in an underlying system. This is not visible to you as a customer, which makes it a backstage element within the service blueprint. We call the boundary between frontstage and backstage the line of visibility. An element in the frontstage is visible to the customer and an element in the backstage is not. To solve the bug, the help of an external party turns out to be needed. This party is part of the support processes because they are indirectly needed to keep the process (calling customer service) working.

As with a customer journey map, finding pain points and opportunities is often the goal with a service blueprint. Because the customer experience often depends on invisible processes, it is valuable to enrich a customer journey map with a service blueprint. This allows you to paint a complete picture of the journey and its optimisation opportunities.

In short, by combining customer journey map and service blueprint mapping methods, you will find the greatest value. We can help you do this with 'Insight-driven optimisation', using mapping as a powerful tool for optimisation.

Getting started with a mapping method?

At Digital Power, we have a lot of experience in data-driven mapping. With insight-driven optimisation (through mapping), we visualise your entire journey and optimise it on the basis of data. Together, we ensure that insight-driven optimisation becomes the ongoing optimisation process from which your organisation can reap the benefits for years to come. Would you like to discuss this? Then contact one of our experts.

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