Here is the customer journey map explained in plain terms: it is a single page that shows the stages a buyer goes through, what they do and feel at each one, where they touch your business, and where you lose them. This article is for the owner or director who has been handed a map by a consultant or a marketing lead and wants to know how to read it, what each row means, and how to check it against the real records held in the levelpartner.ai platform.
The rows of a typical map
Most maps are a grid. Columns are stages, left to right. Rows describe what happens in each stage.
- Stage: the phase the buyer is in, such as aware, considering, deciding, onboarding.
- Actions: what the buyer actually does, such as searches, reads reviews, fills in a form.
- Touchpoints: where they meet you, such as your website, a phone call, an email.
- Thoughts and feelings: what they are worried about or hoping for.
- Pain points: where the experience breaks down.
- Opportunities: what you could change.
The top rows describe the buyer. The bottom rows describe what you will do about it. A map without the bottom rows is a description, not a plan.
How to tell a good map from a decorative one
A good map is built from evidence. Each pain point should trace to something you can check: a form abandonment, a complaint, a long gap between two stages in your pipeline data. A decorative map is built in a workshop from assumptions and never checked.
Ask the author one question per pain point: where does this come from? If the answer is "we felt it in the room", treat it as a hypothesis to test.
Before you start
- The map you want to check, printed or on screen.
- Access to Contacts, Opportunities and Dashboard in the platform.
- At least three months of enquiry and sales records in the platform.
- Thirty minutes with whoever built the map.
How to set it up
- Write each stage on the map next to the pipeline stage that best matches it in Opportunities.
- Mark any map stage with no matching pipeline stage, as it currently cannot be measured.
- For each touchpoint listed, find the platform source that records it, such as a form, calendar or phone number.
- Add a Funnel widget to your dashboard covering the last three months.
- Circle the stage with the lowest conversion rate on the printed map.
- Compare that stage with the pain points the map lists there.
- Add a tag to contacts who hit the pain point, so you can count them from now on.
- Note any pain point you cannot verify and set a date to collect evidence for it.
Imagine the agency's map lists six stages and eleven pain points. Checked against the platform, say four stages match pipeline stages and two have no records at all. Of the eleven pain points, perhaps five trace to real data, such as 140 viewing requests in a quarter with no follow-up call, and six are assumptions. The five with evidence would be the ones to act on first. These figures are illustrative.
What the map is for in a 10 to 250 person company
In a company of this size, nobody sees the whole journey. Marketing sees the front, sales the middle, delivery the end. The map is the only document that puts the three side by side.
Its real job is to settle where to spend the next quarter's effort. Read it for the one or two stages where the buyer most often leaves, and fix those first. If you want to build your own rather than read someone else's, see the guide on customer journey mapping.
Time it takes
Checking an existing map against platform data takes about two hours. Keeping the map honest afterwards takes 20 minutes a month: re-read the Funnel widget and see whether the weakest stage has moved.
The mistake most people make
Treating the feelings row as decoration. The thoughts and feelings row explains why a buyer stalls. If it says buyers worry about hidden fees at the proposal stage, your proposal template, not your ads, is the fix.
When a map is the wrong tool
If the question is "which campaign produced our clients", a map will not answer it. That is an attribution question. If the question is "what happens when a prospect says no", you need a flowchart, covered in customer journey flowchart. Maps are for seeing the whole experience, not for counting sources or designing branches.
Troubleshooting
Map stages do not match pipeline stages
They were designed separately. Either rename pipeline stages to match or add a note mapping one to the other. Do not run two vocabularies.
Pain points cannot be found in the data
The platform is not recording that moment. Add a form field, tag or workflow step that captures it, then wait a month.
The map lists touchpoints you do not use
It was copied from a template. Remove them. A map should show your touchpoints, which the touchpoints customer journey guide helps you list.
Frequently asked questions
How many stages should a map have?
Four to seven. Fewer and you lose detail; more and nobody reads it.
Is a journey map the same as a sales funnel?
No. A funnel counts how many prospects pass each stage. A map explains what they experience. You need both, and the platform holds the data for the funnel.
How often should a map be updated?
Review it twice a year, or whenever you add a new service or channel.