How do you share your customer journey maps effectively?

For generative work (i.e., creatively finding new opportunities), it's generally not about the map (the noun) but the mapping (the verb). Dynamic, collaborative formats that encourage participation are the way to go. I view journey maps and similar artifacts, first and foremost, as collaboration tools.

You can create more comprehensive maps in Visio, particularly as a Business Analyst, but they can be imported into Miro which is more collaborative. Miro can then be exported into a PowerPoint slide deck if it's got multiple parts, which you can then share with stakeholders.

If you can't afford Miro, Mural, LucidSpark, etc. then Microsoft Whiteboard and Google Jamboard have the main features you need for running a workshop to create a customer journey map online in the moment and for sharing digitally afterwards. Also, a typical customer journey is fairly complex and so it really demands to be printed out on a large format plotter as a poster or to be broken down into multiple slides in PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, etc. with one journey phase per page so that people can read the touchpoints, pain points, etc.

I love to partner with an artist here and create an illustrated storyboard that leverages the AS-IS customer journey information that we have just gathered together (including pain points and experience improvement opportunities) to craft a TO-BE visualization of an aspirational customer journey.

Customer goals, challenges, emotions, and behaviors all help develop the ‘character’ in your story. However these are very conceptual and often lacking detail. The ‘moment of truth’ is the most compelling part of the story. It’s relatable and allows you to put yourself in the customers shoes, facing a very specific challenge at a specific point in time. It really helps you talk about a solution in context.

Like customers, customer journey map evolves constantly. It is important to engage with your customer during the customer journey mapping process as well as adapting to changing scenarios. I recommend that you identify critical drivers with significant impact on your business; document feedback as a benchmark, then make adjustment and monitor progress. For example, you can embed feedback loop within your product and allow real-time product feedback.

Customer Journey mapping is not a solo activity. They should always be co-created collaboratively with a broad group of stakeholders who can bring a diverse range of customer perspectives and knowledge to complement the customer research that you have hopefully done before beginning! At each step of the journey mapping process there is necessarily a clustering and rationalization exercise that is the perfect place for people to provide feedback to each other and align on the information to retain. If you can think of people who you would ask for feedback after the journey is created then you should invite them to your workshop instead! Post journey creation should be more about socializing and sharing what the team has created.

Customer journey needs to incorporate the RACI and R&R. With clearly defined R&R, it can help enhance the alignment and accountability. Getting up front buy-in from your customer and internal stakeholders is critical. That enables you to drive alignment and accountability.

The secret to creating actionable customer journey maps is to make sure that your journey map co-creation workshop attendees include those with the budget and the self-interest to fund the improvement efforts the team identifies in the workshop. Make sure you allocate time to have these conversations and to gain these commitments and to build the roadmap and responsibility matrix during your workshop - not after.

As with anything “business”, there must be constant and consistent touch points to ensure the plan is still moving in the right direction at the right speed. Frequent and continuous evaluations and revisions are integral to the steady success of any project. This way you can expand on what has worked, retire what hasn’t and then continue to watch for what may come with the fluctuations in the market and consumer behaviors.

Identify key moments within customer journey will help you determine when and how frequent to update the customer journey. Different industries or fields vary. For example, executive change (retirement, new appointment) is considered a key moment. That requires you to reconnect with customer and validate what you have learned from the predecessor and make adjustment as needed.

Updating and iterating your journey maps once a year can be quite helpful to reflect the outcomes of your experience improvement investments, changes in technology, updates to strategy, evolving trends, changing expectations, etc. Capturing your journeys digitally or digitizing them after your in-person workshops can make this much easier. This can be done in Miro, Mural, Lucidspark, etc. or even using free tools like Microsoft Whiteboard or Google Jamboard. Moving them from onwards into Excel can also be a useful way of making them easy to update in the future and for sharing them.

Constant and consistent review are part of the journey. The more input, feedback and analysis the more improvements to the customer journey.

Ensuring your customer journey maps are accessible by the right teams is crucial for their success. Don't just present them once during a team meeting! Distribute the maps and help teams apply their information in a way that's meaningful to their work. Embracing the use of customer journeys is the key to them being adopted and applied.

Done well, journey maps end up being an eye chart when displayed on a single page - SO MAKE IT A BIG PAGE! Poster size printouts can be useful tools for helping to create or reinforce a customer-centric culture - when posted prominently in the hallways. OR, break them up into multiple pages highlighting one or two high level phases per page as a way of making the detail big enough to read and consume.

Also consider: A) mapping more than one "time" view of the customer journey, e.g.: 'current state', 'future state' (if you're planning changes in product/service), or 'day-in-the-life' (broader, perhaps include interactions with other products/services u might partner w/) B) Consider having clarity on journey stages (level of granularity): e.g. simple (awareness, consideration, decision, loyalty) or more granular (awareness, consideration, decision, conversion/purchase, delivery/use, loyalty, advocacy) C) lastly, consider using a cloud-based visual-friendly spreadsheet (e.g. air table) to map journey tags (persona, journey stage, feeling, call-to-action, ...) so u can edit interactively w/stakeholders & present a variety of views

Ideally, you should be building persona-specific journey maps so that the journey really brings the experience of that persona to life. The key is to have a handful of personas that are distinct from each other and a journey to go with it, so that you can build the processes, systems, solutions, assets, and culture to support as much of what they all need as possible.

I have different customer journey maps for different customer segments. For example, at our car wash, we have seniors who come in regularly. We also have customers who only come in “when it’s dirty”. The customer journey at a car wash is also seasonal, with more volume in the winter.