Build a customer journey map for a product, service

Customer Journey Map Skill

This skill produces a complete customer journey map covering every stage from awareness through advocacy. Each stage includes touchpoints, customer actions, emotions, pain points, and specific improvement opportunities. Output is ready for use in product discovery, UX design, or cross-functional alignment workshops.

Required Inputs

Ask the user for these if not provided:

• Product or service being mapped
• Customer persona — which customer segment is this map for? (be specific — one persona per map)
• Journey scope — full end-to-end (awareness → advocacy), or a specific phase (e.g. onboarding only)?
• Current state or future state? — mapping how it works today, or designing how it should work?
• Data sources — any research, user interviews, support tickets, NPS comments, analytics available?
• Goal of the map — what decision will this inform? (redesign, prioritisation, stakeholder alignment, new feature)

Output Structure

---

Customer Journey Map: [Product / Service]

Persona: [Name — e.g. "Sarah, the overwhelmed HR manager"] Journey scope: [Full end-to-end / Onboarding / Purchase / Renewal] Current or future state: [Current state / Desired future state] Prepared by: [Name / Team] Date: [Date] Based on: [Research sources — interviews, analytics, support data, assumed/hypothetical]

---

Persona Summary

Name	[Sarah]
Role	[HR Manager at a 200-person professional services firm]
Goal	[Reduce time spent on manual employee data management]
Frustrations	[Too many tools that don't talk to each other; always chasing approvals]
Tech comfort	[Moderate — comfortable with SaaS tools but not a power user]
Decision power	[Recommends tools; budget approved by CHRO]

---

Journey Overview

AWARENESS → CONSIDERATION → DECISION → ONBOARDING → ADOPTION → ADVOCACY
   [Stage 1]      [Stage 2]      [Stage 3]    [Stage 4]     [Stage 5]   [Stage 6]

Overall experience rating (current state): [😤 Frustrating / 😐 Neutral / 😊 Positive]

---

Stage 1: Awareness

How does the customer first discover the product exists?

Customer goal at this stage: [e.g. Realise they have a problem worth solving — or find a solution to a specific pain]

Element	Detail
Trigger	[What event makes them start looking? — e.g. Manual process breaks down / peer recommendation / saw ad]
Where they are	[Google search / LinkedIn / conference / colleague conversation / email newsletter]
What they do	[e.g. Searches "automate employee onboarding" / asks peers in HR community / clicks LinkedIn ad]
Emotion	[😤 Frustrated — overwhelmed by manual processes and hoping for a better way]
Pain points	[Overwhelming number of options / hard to know which tools are credible / can't tell what's B2B vs B2C from homepage]
Opportunities	[SEO content targeting the trigger keyword / LinkedIn thought leadership / peer community presence]

---

Stage 2: Consideration

The customer is actively evaluating options. What do they do to decide?

Element	Detail
Customer goal	[Narrow down from many options to a shortlist of 2–3]
What they do	[Reads G2/Capterra reviews / watches demo video / downloads comparison guide / asks peers who use something similar]
Touchpoints	[Website / review sites / social proof / demo request flow / sales email]
Emotion	[😕 Anxious — worried about making the wrong choice; past tool purchases haven't delivered]
Pain points	[Pricing not visible on website / demo requires a call before seeing the product / unclear if it works with their existing stack]
Opportunities	[Self-serve demo or interactive product tour / transparent pricing page / ROI calculator / case studies from similar company size]

---

Stage 3: Decision

The customer is ready to buy — or not. What makes them commit?

Element	Detail
Customer goal	[Get sign-off from CHRO and justify the decision with a business case]
What they do	[Books sales call / requests security questionnaire / builds internal business case / negotiates contract]
Touchpoints	[AE / sales call / security review / contract / procurement process]
Emotion	[😬 Cautious — doesn't want to be wrong; presenting to leadership adds pressure]
Pain points	[Sales process is slow / security questionnaire takes weeks / contract terms are non-standard and require legal]
Opportunities	[Security FAQ self-serve / standard contract with predictable terms / champion toolkit (slides, business case template) to help them sell internally]

---

Stage 4: Onboarding

The customer has bought. Now they need to get value fast.

Element	Detail
Customer goal	[Get the product working and show their CHRO it was a good decision]
What they do	[Receives welcome email / attends kickoff call / configures integrations / invites team]
Touchpoints	[Onboarding email sequence / in-product onboarding checklist / CSM / help centre / integrations marketplace]
Emotion	[😬 Anxious but hopeful — excited about potential but stressed about the setup work]
Pain points	[Setup is more complex than expected / IT required for SSO but IT is slow to respond / generic onboarding doesn't match their use case]
Opportunities	[Role-specific onboarding paths / IT connector with pre-filled request template / quick win email at day 3 (show them one thing that already works)]

Key moment of truth: [What single moment in this stage determines whether they'll become an active user or ghost? — e.g. "First time the product saves them 30 minutes on a task they used to do manually"]

---

Stage 5: Adoption

The customer is using the product. Are they getting consistent value?

Element	Detail
Customer goal	[Make the product a regular part of their workflow; demonstrate ROI to leadership]
What they do	[Uses core features daily / discovers new features / hits a limitation / contacts support / attends webinar]
Touchpoints	[Product UI / in-app notifications / email / support / community / customer success manager]
Emotion	[Variable — some days 😊 when the product works well; some days 😤 when hitting a gap or bug]
Pain points	[Feature they expected isn't there / reporting doesn't show the metric leadership wants / power features are too complex / feels like they're underutilising what they're paying for]
Opportunities	[Proactive CSM check-in at day 30 / in-product feature discovery / usage dashboard for the customer to see their own ROI / community for peer learning]

Adoption health indicators:

• [DAU/MAU ratio — what does healthy look like?]
• [Feature X used by Y% of seats within Z weeks]
• [First NPS survey at 60 days — target score]

---

Stage 6: Advocacy

The customer loves the product. How do you turn them into a referral engine?

Element	Detail
Customer goal	[Solve problems faster; feel like an expert; feel valued as a customer]
What they do	[Refers a peer / writes a G2 review / participates in case study / speaks at event / becomes a power user / joins community]
Touchpoints	[CSM / community / review request email / referral programme / case study outreach / conference sponsorship]
Emotion	[😊 Proud — the tool is part of their professional identity; they feel smart for choosing it]
Pain points	[Referral programme is clunky / no structured way to connect with peers / case study process is slow and effortful for them]
Opportunities	[One-click G2 review request at high-satisfaction moment / peer community / referral programme with meaningful reward / case study process that does most of the work for them]

---

Emotion Curve

Plot the customer's emotional experience across the journey:

High  😊 │        *                              *          *
          │                                   *
Neutral 😐│  *         *
          │                  *
Low   😤 │                        *    *
          └────────────────────────────────────────────────────
            Aware   Consider  Decide  Onboard  Adopt   Advocate

Lowest point: [Which stage has the worst experience — and why?] Highest point: [When is the customer most delighted — what drove it?] Biggest drop: [Where does sentiment fall most sharply — this is usually the biggest opportunity]

---

Prioritised Opportunities

Opportunity	Stage	Impact on customer	Effort to fix	Priority
[Self-serve product tour before sales call]	Consideration	[High — removes top buying barrier]	[Medium]	P1
[Quick win email at day 3]	Onboarding	[High — builds early habit]	[Low]	P1
[IT SSO setup template]	Onboarding	[Medium — removes specific blocker]	[Low]	P2
[30-day proactive CSM check-in]	Adoption	[Medium — catches churn signals early]	[Medium]	P2
[Peer referral programme]	Advocacy	[High for growth — reduces CAC]	[High]	P3

---

What We Don't Know (Research Gaps)

Gap	How to close it	Priority
[What actually triggers the decision to start looking?]	[5 JTBD interviews with recent buyers]	[High]
[What causes customers to stall in onboarding?]	[Drop-off analysis in onboarding funnel + 3 interviews with churned customers]	[High]
[What % of customers have reached the advocacy stage?]	[Product analytics — identify power users; NPS by cohort]	[Medium]

---

Deeper Materials

This skill ships with support files — use them when they are available:

• references/evidence-based-mapping.md — Journey Maps Built on Evidence (Not Conference-Room Fiction). Apply it while producing the output; it carries the calibration and judgment calls the method summary above compresses.
• templates/journey-canvas.md — a fill-in version of the deliverable with the quality gates inline. Offer it when the user wants to work the document themselves rather than have it generated.

Scoring Rubric (0–40)

Score any output of this skill before handing it over; 32+ is ship-quality.

Dimension	0	5	10
Persona specificity	"All customers" or a demographic sketch that could be anyone; touchpoints generic to any product	One persona named but thin — goals and frustrations could apply to any buyer in the category	One vivid persona with role, goal, frustrations, and decision power; every touchpoint and pain point is recognisably this product and this person
Evidence grounding	Map is conference-room fiction — no data sources cited, pain points invented	Some sources named but pain points not traced to them; assumed sections not distinguished from researched ones	Sources listed in the header, key pain points tied to specific data (ticket categories, survey %, interview quotes), assumed stages labelled, and a research-gaps table covering the claims the recommendations lean on
Emotional truthfulness	No emotional layer — a process flow wearing a journey map's clothes	Emotions listed per stage but the curve is aspirationally smooth; lowest point unnamed or softened	Emotion at every stage, a curve with a real low, and the lowest point / biggest drop named with evidence — including customer pain that conflicts with an internal team's metric
Opportunity actionability	Opportunities missing, unranked, or platitudes ("improve onboarding")	Opportunities listed but vague, or ranked without impact/effort reasoning; not weighted toward the worst friction	Every opportunity written as a backlog-ready item, ranked by impact and effort, with P1s targeting the highest-friction moment the curve identified

Quality Checks

• Map covers one specific persona — not "all customers"
• Each stage includes the customer's emotional state — not just actions
• Pain points are the customer's pain — not the company's pain
• Opportunities are specific enough to become backlog items or design prompts
• Emotion curve shows the real experience — not an aspirationally positive version
• Research gaps are documented — the map reflects what is known, not assumed

Anti-Patterns

• Do not build the map from assumptions alone — ground at least the pain points in real customer data or research
• Do not treat all journey stages as equally weighted — identify the highest-friction moments explicitly
• Do not omit the emotional layer — a journey map without emotions is a process flow, not a customer map
• Do not create generic touchpoints that apply to any product — each touchpoint must be specific to this product and customer
• Do not leave opportunities unranked — prioritise by impact and feasibility

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Map the customer journey for [product]"
• "Build a user journey from awareness to advocacy"
• "Create a journey map for our onboarding experience"
• "Map out the touchpoints and pain points for [customer type]"
• "Design an experience map for [process or product]"