Passed on 7 April, 2025
4. Mapping the customer journey
This lesson will focus on how you can create seamless customer experiences by mapping the customer journey and identifying key touchpoints.
✅ Learning objectivesBy the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:Understand how to map a typical customer journey.Identify key touchpoints and the types of communication at each stage.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:
Understand how to map a typical customer journey.
Identify key touchpoints and the types of communication at each stage.
Mapping the customer journey
A customer journey map outlines key touchpoints that shape the customer experience, from discovery to post-purchase engagement.
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map provides a detailed overview of the path customers take when interacting with a brand. It identifies critical touchpoints and moments influencing customer decisions, helping you to design meaningful, frictionless experiences at every stage.
Why is mapping the customer journey important?
Mapping the customer journey gives you insight into customer expectations, helping you identify where to engage customers most effectively. By understanding every interaction—whether it’s an online ad, an email, or a post-purchase survey—you can align your strategies to meet customer needs.Like planning a marathon, you can strategically place touchpoints at key moments to enhance the customer experience and keep them on track.
Like planning a marathon, you can strategically place touchpoints at key moments to enhance the customer experience and keep them on track.
Like planning a marathon, you can strategically place touchpoints at key moments to enhance the customer experience and keep them on track.
Customer touchpoints
Let’s look at the importance of customer touchpoints, and how to use them to map the journey customers take online.
Offline vs online touchpoints
Customer touchpoints are all the moments when customers interact with a business. They can occur before, during, or after a purchase, both online and offline.
4 key stages in the customer journey
It’s important to understand each stage of the customer journey, and how your customer moves along it. Your customers may not follow a straight path – particularly online – so it’s important to keep them engaged as they move between different stages and touchpoints.
Awareness
This stage helps customers discover what makes your brand unique. Effective messaging aligned with customer goals ensures that your brand captures their attention early in the journey.
Engagement
Once potential customers are aware of your brand, the focus shifts to engagement. This stage involves building trust and providing value through meaningful content, such as product reviews, tutorials, or case studies.
Conversion
The conversion stage focuses on making it easy for customers to take valuable action for your business (such as leaving contact info, completing a purchase, or reading content) by minimising barriers between them and your products or services.
Retention
Retention involves maintaining customer relationships after the purchase or action, building loyalty by reinforcing positive experiences and driving ongoing engagement.
Gymshark’s customer journey
Let’s explore how Gymshark used data to overcome conversion challenges and build customer loyalty through smart, app-driven strategies.
The challenge
Gymshark identified a roadblock at the conversion stage. While many customers added items to their carts, they often abandoned their purchases. Wishlist features weren’t translating into sales, and checkout drop-offs were high.
Identifying customer touchpoints and aligning them to your goals
With so many potential interaction points along a customer’s journey, identifying the most valuable touchpoints can seem overwhelming. This section will help you narrow down the key moments when customers engage with your business, ensuring that every interaction is purposeful and aligned with your goals.
How to identify customer touchpoints
To effectively map touchpoints, you need to step into your customer’s shoes and consider the path they take. It’s vital to consider their real and emotional journey to help identify the pain points you can address.Think about their motivations and interactions at every stage.
Think about their motivations and interactions at every stage.
Think about their motivations and interactions at every stage.
To get started, ask yourself:
Where do customers search for information?(Search engines, FAQs, online forums, AI tools, video platforms)
Where do they discover new brands or products?(Social media sites, email newsletters, online ads)
What influences their purchase decisions?(Customer reviews, product comparisons, pricing, peer influencing)
How do they stay engaged after a purchase?(Follow-up emails, loyalty programmes, social media posts, community engagement)
Answers that shape the journey
You can also ask your customers directly throughsurveysorinterviews. This approach makes it easier to visualise their journey and optimise your strategy.
Aligning touchpoints with your business goals
Every touchpoint along the customer journey serves a specific purpose, from creating awareness to driving conversions and building loyalty. Aligning these interactions with your business goals ensures that each stage of the journey is meaningful and effective.
1. Build brand awareness
The goal during the awareness phase is to introduce your brand to potential customers and build recognition. This can be achieved with the same communication tools and channels you’ll use throughout the customer journey—social media posts, online ads, influencer partnerships, and more—to spark curiosity and interest. The key is to ensure your message reaches the right audience to start building familiarity with your brand.
2. Encourage engagement
In the engagement phase, you want to provide meaningful content that gives your customers the information they need to make a decision – addressing their needs, informing them of their options, and feeling confident in your brand. Product reviews, educational content, blog posts, videos, and interactive content help customers evaluate their options.
3. Drive customer conversion
Driving conversions means minimising barriers for your customers. Clear product descriptions, simple checkout processes, and accessible customer support help with barriers. Tools like progress bars, suggested content, and targeted discounts encourage completion and further action. The focus is on creating a smooth, seamless experience.
4. Foster customer loyalty
Before and after conversion, you want to remain top-of-mind for your customers. This can be achieved through follow-up emails, thank-you messages, exclusive discounts, and loyalty programmes that make customers feel appreciated. The goal is to nurture the relationship and inspire repeat purchases, turning satisfied customers into long-term advocates.
Reviewing and optimising touchpoints
Regularly review and optimise your touchpoints to ensure your brand delivers the best possible experience. Whether it's tracking performance, adapting to new audiences, or maintaining consistency, fine-tuning these interactions helps meet customer needs and achieve business goals.
Monitor performance
It’s essential to regularly track how each touchpoint is performing, and set a baseline to measure how far you’ve come. Are your social media posts generating awareness? Are customers engaging with your emails? Monitoring performance helps you identify what’s working and what isn’t.
Adapt to changing audiences
Your audience may evolve over time. For instance, if a new demographic starts engaging with your brand, you may need to adjust your messaging and touchpoints to better connect with them.
Gather customer feedback
Customer feedback is a powerful tool for understanding how your touchpoints are received. Surveys and reviews can offer insight into where improvements are needed and multiple ways of giving feedback help time-starved customers find the best method for them.
Stay consistent across channels
Consistency across touchpoints helps build trust and reinforces your brand message. Ensure that customers receive the same level of care and communication, whether online or offline.
Find what you can influence
When mapping the customer journey, it’s not necessary to address every stage in detail. Find the bottleneck where your efforts can create the greatest impact. Once you have found the bottleneck, focus on realistic and measurable actions you can take to improve things.
Welcome back Mia Johnson (Marketing Manager)
Remember Mia, the marketing manager from theCustomer personaslesson? She’s back! In this section, we’ll look at Mia's customer journey, which will help you build out your own journey for your customer persona.
Mia’s customer journey
Awareness: Mia sees an Instagram ad for ergonomic office furniture.
Engagement: She reads a blog post comparing different chairs.
Conversion: Mia checks out seamlessly, seeing multiple payment options.
Build your customer journey map
Spend some time completing the activity on this page to map out your customer’s journey.
Activity
Using the customer persona you developed earlier, map their customer journey. Follow the steps below to outline each stage of the journey, identify key touchpoints, and align them with specific business goals. Try to identify the greatest opportunity, or biggest pain point.
Step 1: Awareness
How will your customers discover your brand?Think about where your persona first interacts with your brand.What platforms do they use (e.g., social media sites, search engines, AI assistants, video platforms)?What content or messaging will catch their attention?Example:Mia Johnson (Marketing Manager) discovers ergonomic chairs through a sponsored social media post.
What platforms do they use (e.g., social media sites, search engines, AI assistants, video platforms)?What content or messaging will catch their attention?Example:Mia Johnson (Marketing Manager) discovers ergonomic chairs through a sponsored social media post.
What platforms do they use (e.g., social media sites, search engines, AI assistants, video platforms)?
What content or messaging will catch their attention?
Example:Mia Johnson (Marketing Manager) discovers ergonomic chairs through a sponsored social media post.
Example:Mia Johnson (Marketing Manager) discovers ergonomic chairs through a sponsored social media post.
Mia Johnson (Marketing Manager) discovers ergonomic chairs through a sponsored social media post.
Step 2: Engagement
How will your customer explore their options?Identify how your persona gathers more information to evaluate your product or service.Will they read reviews, browse blogs, or compare products?What content will help build trust and keep them engaged?Example:Mia reads a blog post comparing ergonomic chairs and watches a video review to decide which one fits her needs.
Will they read reviews, browse blogs, or compare products?What content will help build trust and keep them engaged?Example:Mia reads a blog post comparing ergonomic chairs and watches a video review to decide which one fits her needs.
Will they read reviews, browse blogs, or compare products?
What content will help build trust and keep them engaged?
Example:Mia reads a blog post comparing ergonomic chairs and watches a video review to decide which one fits her needs.
Example:Mia reads a blog post comparing ergonomic chairs and watches a video review to decide which one fits her needs.
Mia reads a blog post comparing ergonomic chairs and watches a video review to decide which one fits her needs.
Step 3: Conversion
How will your customer complete the purchase?Plan the steps that make the purchase easy and frictionless.Will they need customer support or multiple payment options?How will you encourage them to complete the purchase?Example:Mia uses a simple checkout page with the option to chat with support and chooses next-day delivery.
Will they need customer support or multiple payment options?How will you encourage them to complete the purchase?Example:Mia uses a simple checkout page with the option to chat with support and chooses next-day delivery.
Will they need customer support or multiple payment options?
How will you encourage them to complete the purchase?
Example:Mia uses a simple checkout page with the option to chat with support and chooses next-day delivery.
Example:Mia uses a simple checkout page with the option to chat with support and chooses next-day delivery.
Mia uses a simple checkout page with the option to chat with support and chooses next-day delivery.
Step 4: Retention
How will you keep your customer engaged after the purchase?Consider the touchpoints you’ll use to encourage repeat business.Will you send follow-up emails, offer discounts, or invite them to a loyalty programme?How will you show your customers they are valued?Example:Mia receives a thank-you email with a discount code for her next purchase and an invitation to subscribe to an office wellness newsletter.
Will you send follow-up emails, offer discounts, or invite them to a loyalty programme?How will you show your customers they are valued?Example:Mia receives a thank-you email with a discount code for her next purchase and an invitation to subscribe to an office wellness newsletter.
Will you send follow-up emails, offer discounts, or invite them to a loyalty programme?
How will you show your customers they are valued?
Example:Mia receives a thank-you email with a discount code for her next purchase and an invitation to subscribe to an office wellness newsletter.
Example:Mia receives a thank-you email with a discount code for her next purchase and an invitation to subscribe to an office wellness newsletter.
Mia receives a thank-you email with a discount code for her next purchase and an invitation to subscribe to an office wellness newsletter.
Download PDF
Download PDF
Lesson complete
Great job!You now know how to map out your customer journey.Now let’s learn about selecting the right digital channel.
You now know how to map out your customer journey.Now let’s learn about selecting the right digital channel.
Now let’s learn about selecting the right digital channel.
Now let’s learn about selecting the right digital channel.
1The data shown here is Gymshark's internal data that was included in thisThink With Googlearticle from 2022:Fit for purpose: How Gymshark continues to build its empire with a fresh approach to data.
1The data shown here is Gymshark's internal data that was included in thisThink With Googlearticle from 2022:
Fit for purpose: How Gymshark continues to build its empire with a fresh approach to data