How to conduct a Customer Journey Mapping workshop in order to better understand your customers

Before building a product, it’s crucial to ask who your target audience is and to find out what their needs are. Why? Well, you’re building a product targeted at them, not for yourself. The best way to do that is to empathize with customers by standing in their shoes and seeing the business from their perspective.
Let’s talk about this.

There are plenty of exercises that can help you understand your customers, and each one is helpful in a different way. Right now, I want to share my experience with one design thinking tool that I find really useful — Customer Journey Mapping. It’s a visual representation of every experience the customers have while using a service/product. It also provides insights into common customer pain points and how the company can improve the customer experience. Then, you can define what the customers and prospective customers need in order to achieve their goals.

By the end of this workshop, you’ll have identified specific pain points and developed some ideas on how you can address these pain points.

There are many variations of the Customer Journey Mapping, but all of them have two things in common:

• they break down seemingly long and complex processes into smaller chunks,
• they represent how the user feels at each step of the journey.

Also, there are a few key components that should be included in each map.

1️⃣ Persona

• Before Customer Journey Mapping, create a persona — the profile of the user who experiences the journey. You can do this based on research or interviews with end-users.
• Remember to include the user’s goals, motivations, and frustrations. It’s also worth adding a short background of this particular user.

2️⃣ Scenario

• The scenario describes the situation that the journey map addresses and experienced by the user.
• Split scenario into a sequence of events.
• Scenarios can be real (for existing products/services) or anticipated.

3️⃣ Actions, Mindsets and Feelings

• Actions are the behaviors and steps taken by users.
• Mindsets are users’ thoughts, questions, and motivations.
• Feelings — users’ happy moments and downs/pain points.

4️⃣ Opportunities

• Opportunities for the product you want to build.
• How the user experience can be optimized.

Let’s look at a simple example of a Customer Journey Map, to illustrate how all of these components come together.

Created by Magdalena Gołza.

Now let’s talk about running an effective workshop and putting the Customer Journey Mapping theory into practice — how can we achieve it💡

First, some basic information…

👉 Who can participate?
Product Owner (as a facilitator)
Stakeholders (Business Owners, etc.)
UX Designer
Tech expert/ Development Team
Scrum Master

👉 How many people can participate?
There is no limit. But if the group is bigger, e.g. 10 people, it may be better to split them into 2 separate groups, each with their own facilitator. Each group could also prepare a customer journey for a different persona.

🕐 Time: 2-4 hrs*
* depending on the process complexity

How to prepare for the workshop?

Version 1: in-house workshops:

• a big piece of paper/wall where you can add post-it notes
• Post-it notes in different colors
• markers
• photos + description of personas
• tape

Version 2: remote workshops:

• online whiteboard (I usually use miro.com) or another dedicated tool
• zoom application for remote meetings with breakout rooms option

That’s right, from my experience both versions are possible to organize. Remote workshops require more flexibility and familiarity with the tools you intend to use. But, if there’s a will, there’s a way!

Make sure that everyone:

• knows the product vision
• knows the personas with their pain points identified
• understands the client’s business goals
• has access to the agenda of the workshops
• has access to your online tools

How to conduct the workshop?

1. Start with your agenda. Make sure that everyone understands the vision, the business goals, and personas. Also, remember to keep personas in a visible place so participants can reference them at any time. 5 min
2. Make the introduction and show an example of Customer Journey Mapping as a method. 5 min
3. Explain how the workshop will run. 5 min
4. Split attendees into teams (depending on the number of personas you have). Try to have cross-functional teams.
5. Assign one persona per team
   - the goal of the team is to create a journey for this particular persona.
6. Teams work on journeys. +/- 1h
   * If you want to prepare 2 journeys for 1 persona. Include a short break and an additional.
7. Brainstorm pain points and opportunities from the user’s perspective. 20 min = 10 min each team
   * There are many great brainstorming techniques you could use. Depending on what you choose, include that in your timeslot
8. Relaying journeys and opportunities 20 min = 10 min each team
9. Ask questions if everything is clear.

Hope you like the article! Feel free to use the comment section as a place to share your experiences or ask questions.
Good luck with your Customer Journey Mapping 💪