Create a customer journey map across stages, touchpoints, actions, emotions, and metrics. Use when diagnosing a broken experience or aligning a team on the full customer flow.

Purpose Create a comprehensive customer journey map that visualizes how customers interact with your brand across all stages—from awareness to loyalty—documenting their actions, touchpoints, emotions, KPIs, business goals, and teams involved at each stage. Use this to identify pain points, align cross functional teams, and systematically improve the customer experience to achieve business objectives. This is not a user flow diagram—it's a strategic artifact that combines customer empathy with business metrics to drive actionable improvements. Input Works best with: The customer (persona or segment) and the scenario or goal the journey covers. Also useful: Known stages, touchpoints, pain points, supporting research, and the business objective behind the map. Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re ask. Arriving empty handed? That works too. The skill asks for persona and scenario first — a journey map without a specific actor and goal turns into a generic funnel diagram. Example invocation: Map the journey for a mid market ops manager going from free trial to paid rollout across their team. Key Concepts The Customer Journey Mapping Framework Adapted from NNGroup's framework and Carnegie Mellon's PM curriculum, a customer journey map documents: Horizontal structure (stages): Awareness: Customer first learns about your brand Consideration: Customer evaluates your offering Decision: Customer makes a purchase Service: Customer uses the product/service post purchase Loyalty: Customer becomes a repeat buyer and advocate Vertical structure (for each stage): Customer Actions: What customers do Touchpoints: Where/how they interact with your brand Customer Experience: Emotions and thoughts KPIs: Metrics to measure success Business Goals: What you're trying to achieve Teams Involved: Who owns this stage Why This Works Empathy driven: Centers on customer emotions, not just actions Cross functional alignment: Shows which teams affect which stages Metric focused: Ties customer experience to measurable outcomes Gap identification: Makes pain points and opportunities visible Actionable: Clear KPIs and goals enable prioritization Anti Patterns (What This Is NOT) Not a user story map: Journey maps are broader (all touchpoints, not just product use) Not a service blueprint: Less detailed on internal processes, more focused on customer experience Not static: Journey maps evolve as customer behavior changes When to Use This Understanding customer experience across all touchpoints (not just product) Aligning cross functional teams (marketing, sales, product, support) Identifying pain points and prioritizing improvements Onboarding new team members to customer perspective Auditing the end to end customer experience When NOT to Use This For deep product specific workflows (use story mapping instead) Before defining personas (need to know who you're mapping) As a one time exercise (journey maps require ongoing updates) Application Use template.md for the full fill in structure. Step 1: Prepare Prerequisites Before mapping, ensure you have: 1. Key stakeholders: Marketing, sales, product, customer service representatives 2. Buyer personas: Detailed personas with demographics, psychographics, goals, challenges (reference skills/proto persona/SKILL.md ) 3. Defined stages: Main stages of your buying process (typically: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Service, Loyalty) 4. Touchpoint inventory: All places customers interact with your brand (website, social, email, store, support, etc.) If missing: Run discovery interviews, persona definition work, or touchpoint audits first. Step 2: Set Clear Objectives Define what you want to achieve: Quality checks: Specific: Not "understand customers" but "identify drop off causes in Consideration stage" Actionable: Results should inform decisions, not just document observations Step 3: Choose a Buyer Persona Select one persona to focus on (create separate maps for each persona): Why one persona per map: Different personas have different journeys. Mixing them creates confusion. Step 4: Map Each Stage For each stage (Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Service, Loyalty), document: Customer Actions What customers do at this stage: Quality checks: Observable: You can see or measure this action Specific: Not "research products" but "Google 'best roadmap software' and read comparison articles" Touchpoints Where/how customers interact with your brand: Quality checks: Comprehensive: Include both digital and physical touchpoints Specific: Not "social media" but "LinkedIn Ads," "Twitter mentions," etc. Customer Experience Emotions and thoughts customers have: Quality checks: Authentic: Use customer quotes from research when possible Emotional: Capture feelings, not just thoughts Specific: Not "interested" but "curious but skeptical—worried about setup time" KPIs Key performance indicators for this stage: Quality checks: Measurable: Can you track this? Stage appropriate: Awareness KPIs differ from Decision KPIs Business Goals What you're trying to achieve at this stage: Quality checks: Outcome focused: Not "run ads" but "increase brand awareness" Aligned with stage: Don't expect conversions at Awareness stage Teams Involved Who owns this stage: Quality checks: Cross functional: Multiple teams usually touch each stage Specific roles: Not just "marketing" but "marketing (ad campaigns, SEO)" Step 5: Visualize the Map Create a table or visual diagram: Stage Awareness Consideration Decision Service Loyalty Customer Actions See ad, hear from peers, Google search Compare features, read reviews, request demo Free trial signup, test with real data, evaluate ROI Onboard team, build first roadmap, integrate with Jira Use daily, recommend to peers, share wins on LinkedIn Touchpoints LinkedIn Ads, conferences, Google, review sites Website, demo calls, sales emails Product (free trial), onboarding emails Product, support chat, knowledge base Product, community forums, customer success check ins Customer Experience Curious but skeptical Excited but overwhelmed by options Anxious about setup time, hopeful about time savings Relieved if easy, frustrated if complex Satisfied and confident, proud of wins KPIs Impressions: 100k/month, traffic: 5k/month Demo requests: 100/month, trial signups: 50/month Conversion rate: 20%, time to value: <2 hours Activation rate: 70%, support ticket volume Retention rate: 85%, NPS: 50, referral rate: 15% Business Goals Increase brand awareness, generate 500 leads/month Improve lead quality, reduce sales cycle to 30 days Increase trial to paid conversion, optimize onboarding Reduce churn, improve activation, minimize support costs Increase LTV, generate referrals, upsell premium features Teams Involved Marketing, Content Marketing, Sales, Product Sales, Product, Onboarding Product, Support, Customer Success Product, Customer Success, Marketing Step 6: Analyze and Prioritize Review the map and ask: 1. Where are the biggest pain points? (Look for negative emotions + high drop off rates) 2. Which stages have the weakest KPIs? (Prioritize low performing stages) 3. Are teams aligned? (Do teams understand their role in each stage?) 4. What opportunities exist? (Where can small improvements create big impact?) Prioritization criteria: Impact: How much would fixing this improve the customer experience? Feasibility: How easy is this to fix? Alignment: Does this support business goals? Step 7: Test and Refine Update regularly: Customer behavior changes—revisit the map quarterly Validate with data: Use analytics, surveys, and customer interviews to confirm assumptions Track improvements: After making changes, measure impact on KPIs Examples See examples/sample.md for a full customer journey map example. See examples/meta product manager skills.md for a meta dogfooding example mapping this repository's own customer journey. Mini example excerpt: Common Pitfalls Pitfall 1: Generic Emotions Symptom: "Customer feels happy" or "Customer is satisfied" Consequence: No insight into why they feel that way or what to improve. Fix: Be specific: "Relieved that setup took 30 minutes, not 3 hours as feared." Pitfall 2: Missing Touchpoints Symptom: Only documenting digital touchpoints (website, app) Consequence: Miss offline interactions (conferences, word of mouth, support calls). Fix: Include all touchpoints: physical, digital, human, and automated. Pitfall 3: Internal Perspective Symptom: Mapping what you want customers to do, not what they actually do Consequence: Journey map reflects wishful thinking, not reality. Fix: Validate with customer research, analytics, and support tickets. Pitfall 4: No KPIs or Goals Symptom: Journey map has actions and emotions but no metrics or business objectives Consequence: No way to measure success or prioritize improvements. Fix: Add KPIs and business goals for each stage. Make them measurable. Pitfall 5: One and Done Exercise Symptom: Journey map created once, never updated Consequence: Map becomes outdated as customer behavior evolves. Fix: Review quarterly. Update based on new data, product changes, or market shifts. References Related Skills skills/proto persona/SKILL.md — Defines the persona for the journey map skills/jobs to be done/SKILL.md — Informs customer actions and goals skills/problem statement/SKILL.md — Identifies pain points at each stage skills/user story mapping/SKILL.md — Complementary (story mapping focuses on product usage, journey mapping covers all touchpoints) External Frameworks NNGroup, Customer Journey Mapping (2016) — Foundational framework Carnegie Mellon University, Product Management Curriculum — Academic approach Chris Risdon & Patrick Quattlebaum, Orchestrating Experiences (2018) — Journey mapping for service design Dean's Work Customer Journey Mapping Prompt Template (adapted from NNGroup and CMU frameworks) Provenance Adapted from prompts/customer journey mapping prompt template.md in the https://github.com/deanpeters/product manager prompts repo. Skill type: Component Suggested filename: customer journey map.md Suggested placement: /skills/components/ Dependencies: References skills/proto persona/SKILL.md , skills/jobs to be done/SKILL.md , skills/problem statement/SKILL.md

customer-journey-map