What are the stages of a customer journey map?

A common set is awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and loyalty, which is what this template uses. Some teams add advocacy, or split purchase into onboarding and first use. The point is to break the relationship into the meaningful steps a customer actually moves through, then map their actions, feelings, and friction at each one. Relabel the five stages to match your own business.

How do you create a customer journey map?

Start with one real persona, then lay out the stages they move through. For each stage, add what the customer does, where they interact with you, how they feel, and where they get stuck, all drawn from research rather than guesses. Finish by turning each pain point into a fix. Build it with the team so marketing, product, and support share one picture.

What are some customer journey map examples?

Most examples map a specific industry. An ecommerce journey runs from ad click to browsing, checkout, delivery, and repeat purchase. A retail banking journey covers research, account opening, onboarding, and support. A hotel journey spans booking, stay, and follow-up. This template's worked example follows a coffee subscription, from first ad to loyal member, so every lane is filled in before you adapt it.

TemplatesStrategy & canvasesCustomer Journey Map

Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map is a visual of every stage a person moves through with a brand, from first hearing about it to becoming a regular, and what they do, feel, and struggle with at each one. This template lays that out as a five-stage grid, Awareness to Loyalty, with lanes for actions, touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and solutions, filled in with a worked example. Product, UX, marketing, and support teams use it to turn scattered research into one shared picture of the experience.

Use this template

Five stages from Awareness to Loyalty, with lanes for actions, touchpoints, emotions, and fixes.

What's included

Five lifecycle stages. Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Retention, and Loyalty across the top, ready to relabel to fit your own journey.
Five analysis lanes. Customer Actions, Touchpoints, Emotions & CX, Pain points, and Solutions, so each stage reads top to bottom.
A worked example throughout. Every cell filled for one persona, so you adapt a real map rather than stare at a blank grid.
A persona card. Needs, pain points, goals, and motivations beside the grid, anchoring the map to one specific customer.
Paired pain points and solutions. Each friction sits right above its fix, so the map points at what to do next.
An emotion curve. Feelings tracked stage by stage, including the dip where the experience sags.

Why build a customer journey map?

See the experience as one story. Stages and emotions in a single view, instead of scattered tickets, dashboards, and gut feel.
Find the low point. The emotion lane shows where customers get frustrated, which is usually where to invest first.
Align the whole company. Product, marketing, support, and sales read one artifact rather than arguing from different mental models.
Move from opinions to evidence. Touchpoints and pain points come from research and data, not from assumptions about what customers want.
Give retention real attention. Loyalty and retention get their own stages, where most repeat revenue actually comes from.

How to use this template

Pick one persona. Base the map on a real segment, like a first-time subscriber, not a generic 'everyone'.
Lay out the stages. Name the steps the customer moves through, from awareness to loyalty or whatever fits your business.
Map actions and touchpoints. For each stage, note what the customer does and where the interaction happens.
Add emotions and pain points. Record how they feel and where they get stuck, drawn from interviews and analytics.
Mark the solutions. Turn each pain point into a specific fix or opportunity, owned by a team.
Share and keep it current. Invite the team to add evidence and update the map as the experience changes.

Map your customer journey

Customer journey map vs user journey map

A customer journey map and a user journey map look alike but work at different scopes. A customer journey map covers the whole relationship with a brand, every stage from awareness through purchase, retention, and loyalty, across online and offline touchpoints. A user journey map zooms in on how one person moves through a single product or flow to finish a task. Reach for a customer journey map to improve the end-to-end experience; reach for a user journey map to fix usability inside the product. Many teams keep both.

Frequently asked questions

A customer journey map is a visual of the stages a customer moves through with a brand, and what they think, feel, and struggle with at each. It runs left to right by stage, with lanes for actions, touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and opportunities. Teams use it to build a shared, research-based view of the whole experience, from first awareness through to loyalty, across online and offline touchpoints.
A common set is awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and loyalty, which is what this template uses. Some teams add advocacy, or split purchase into onboarding and first use. The point is to break the relationship into the meaningful steps a customer actually moves through, then map their actions, feelings, and friction at each one. Relabel the five stages to match your own business.
A customer journey map covers the whole relationship with a brand, every stage from awareness through purchase, retention, and loyalty, across online and offline touchpoints. A user journey map zooms in on how one person moves through a single product or flow to finish a task. Customer maps are broader and used across marketing, sales, and support; user journey maps are tighter and tied to product and UX.

Start with one real persona, then lay out the stages they move through. For each stage, add what the customer does, where they interact with you, how they feel, and where they get stuck, all drawn from research rather than guesses. Finish by turning each pain point into a fix. Build it with the team so marketing, product, and support share one picture.
Most examples map a specific industry. An ecommerce journey runs from ad click to browsing, checkout, delivery, and repeat purchase. A retail banking journey covers research, account opening, onboarding, and support. A hotel journey spans booking, stay, and follow-up. This template's worked example follows a coffee subscription, from first ad to loyal member, so every lane is filled in before you adapt it.

Similar templates

Strategy & canvases

User Journey Map

Five journey stages with rows for thoughts, pain points, a sentiment curve, and opportunities.

Strategy & canvases

Customer Communication Touchpoint Map

Lifecycle triggers, the timed message sequences they fire, and a legend of the tools behind each.

Strategy & canvases

Customer Lifecycle

Six lifecycle stages across two swimlanes: what the customer does and what the company does.

Strategy & canvases

Starter Empathy Map

The classic Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants around one user, with example notes to start from.

Strategy & canvases

Customer Persona

Two persona cards: a filled example and a blank one ready for your customer.

Strategy & canvases

Problem Statement Map

A seven-column problem map: users, problems, solutions, metrics, stakeholders, risks, and limitations.

Strategy & canvases