Omni Core · Customer Journey Mapping · Module

Mapping the journey

What the customer actually experiences, in order, from their side — including the waiting, the repetition and the parts the organisation never sees.

The idea

How it works

A map drawn from internal process describes what the organisation does. A map drawn from customer accounts describes what happens to them, and the two differ most at exactly the points that matter.

The service-blueprint form is more useful than a plain journey map because it pairs the customer’s experience with the internal activity behind it, which is where the causes of the experience live.

Working with it

In practice

  1. 01

    Build it from customer accounts

    Ask fifteen customers what happened, in order. Their version contains steps the organisation does not know about.

  2. 02

    Include what happens between contacts

    The waiting, the wondering and the asking a colleague. Most of the journey is not an interaction.

  3. 03

    Pair each step with the internal activity

    What the organisation is doing while the customer is experiencing this. That pairing is where causes become visible.

  4. 04

    Map the whole relationship

    Through renewal and departure. The parts after the purchase are longer and less designed.

One level in

The components of mapping the journey

A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.

  1. The stages

    What happens to the customer, in order, from their account.

    Learn
  2. The internal activity

    What the organisation is doing behind each stage.

    Learn
  3. The invisible parts

    What happens to the customer that the organisation never sees.

    Learn

Ask fifteen customers what happened, in order. Their version contains steps you did not know existed.