Customer Journey Mapping: Resources and Examples
The Evolution of Mapping
Customer Journey Map, as we know it today, did not always exist. The tool evolved as the result of a shift towards customer-centric business thinking over the decades.
Aslan Patov, Founder and CEO of Renascence, has written a fantastic article on the history and evolution of Customer Journey Mapping. It is packed with information on how this methodology has become what it is today, including thoughts for its continuous growth.
📍 Do click to read the article - I highly recommend it!
My early Customer Journey Framework
I know firsthand what it’s like to work without this handy tool.
Almost 20 years ago, I led a project analysing the web experience of 13 North American financial institutions. The goal? To identify best practices for attracting users to the then-novel services of Internet and Telephone banking - and to benchmark the client’s against its competitors.
To make sense of it all, I devised a proprietary evaluation framework that combined the following:
Customer journey with 5 phases - Aware, Research/Compare, Sign up, Interact, Refer.
Web design heuristics to assess how site visitors interact with the website at each phase.
Competitive analysis with scores for each stage of the customer journey
While I didn’t produce a visual map, the thinking was there. I was following the user’s journey - the exact mindset at the core of modern journey mapping.
Modern Customer Journey Maps
Of course, nowadays Customer Journey Maps don’t simply show the phases of a customer’s journey. The tool has evolved into a full-blown visual representation, detailing what customers do, think, feel as they interact with the company along a series of touch points via different interfaces.
📍 Here’s a good 101 overview of the basic components of a Customer Journey Map.
Just like how I designed a framework for my own needs those years ago, you should absolutely tailor your own Customer Journey Map to fit your unique purpose and audience.
With the rise of visual storytelling, modern Journey Maps place a higher emphasis on serving as a visual artifact. Graphical elements are incorporated to make the map easier for everyone to read and interpret, thereby placing the user/customer front and centre.
Creative Variations
I’ve found 2 collections that nicely demonstrate the variations of Customer Journey Mapping.
📗 Nine Customer Journey Map Examples - and What We Can Learn From Them by CX Today
📗 9 Best Real-life Customer Journey Map Examples by Ruthie Carey
Some of these maps are truly creative!
Final Thoughts
Customer Journey Mapping is effective because visual storytelling can reveal gaps and opportunities that often get overlooked in text-based descriptions. By anchoring the map around a user's actions, thoughts, and emotions, it naturally reinforces a user-centric mindset - supporting smarter decision-making.
Tools like Miro, with built-in templates and visual libraries, are especially useful for those of us who don’t specialize in visual design. The aim isn’t to create the most polished map, but to use visuals as a shared language to bring the team together.