Customer Journey Mapping: Definition, Methodology, Workshop Guide & B2B Example

Your sales team reports: 60% of qualified leads drop out during the decision process. Your CRM shows THAT they drop out. But it doesn’t show WHY. The reason: in B2B, multiple people with different priorities decide simultaneously — and your CRM only sees the one person who maintains contact. Customer Journey Mapping makes these invisible paths visible.

Customer Journey Mapping is a method that visually represents the customer experience across all touchpoints with a company — from first contact through well after the purchase [1]. Unlike a marketing funnel, a customer journey map doesn’t show the ideal sales pipeline but the actual experience from the customer’s perspective: What do they do? What do they feel? Where does the service fail?

The concept traces back to David Court and colleagues at McKinsey, who showed in 2009 that the classic linear funnel doesn’t reflect reality — customers jump between phases, add alternatives and remove them again [2]. Katherine Lemon and Peter Verhoef laid the academic foundation in 2016: their framework in the Journal of Marketing defines four touchpoint types and an experience model linking past, present, and future [1]. With over 3,500 citations, it is the most-cited work on the topic — and is not referenced by a single German-language SERP result.

What Is Customer Journey Mapping?

Customer Journey Mapping is the process of visualizing the entire experience a customer has with a company or service — chronologically, across all channels, and from the customer’s perspective, not the company’s.

The method emerged from a fundamental insight: companies optimize individual touchpoints (the website, sales, support), but the customer experiences a connected journey. Rawson, Duncan, and Jones documented this in the Harvard Business Review in 2013: at one telecommunications provider, overall satisfaction dropped 40% across the complete journey, even though every individual touchpoint was rated positively [3]. The transitions between touchpoints — not the touchpoints themselves — were the problem.

Four Touchpoint Types

Lemon and Verhoef [1] distinguish four touchpoint types that should be considered in a journey map:

Type	Description	Example (IT Service Provider)	Controllability
Brand-Owned	Designed and controlled by the company	Website, sales presentation, onboarding process	High
Partner-Owned	Managed jointly with partners	Reseller demo, system integrator workshop	Medium
Customer-Owned	Customer actions outside company control	Internal evaluation meetings, procurement policies, independent research	Low
Social/External	Influence from third parties (peers, media, reviews)	Analyst reports, peer recommendations, online reviews	Minimal

Most journey maps only capture brand-owned touchpoints — precisely the ones the company already knows about. The truly revealing touchpoints (customer-owned and social/external) are almost always missing, even though they often dominate the purchase decision [1].

Mapping vs. Proposition: Two Different Activities

Følstad and Kvale identified a distinction in their 2018 systematic literature review that no German-language competitor makes [4]:

• Journey Mapping (as-is analysis): Captures what customers actually experience. Data-based: interviews, diary studies, analytics, observation. Output: current-state map.
• Journey Proposition (to-be design): Designs what customers should experience. Co-design: workshops with customers and stakeholders. Output: future-state map.

Most teams mix both activities in a single workshop — and produce a map that neither accurately reflects reality nor constitutes a concrete design proposal. The sequence matters: map first (as-is), then design (to-be). Those who design directly optimize assumptions instead of facts.

The Anatomy of a Customer Journey Map

A complete customer journey map consists of seven core elements:

Element	Function	What to Watch For
Persona / Actor	Who is being mapped?	Behavior-based (not demographic). In B2B: one role per map, not one “company”
Phases	Broad chronological sections of the journey	From the customer’s perspective, not the company’s (not: “lead qualification”)
Touchpoints	Specific contact points per phase	All four types per Lemon & Verhoef [1] — not just brand-owned
Channels	Through which channel does the touchpoint occur?	Website, phone, email, in-person, social media, mail
Emotion Curve	How does the customer feel at this point?	Scale -2 to +2 (Stickdorn 2018) or free text [9]
Pain Points	Where does frustration or drop-off risk arise?	Be specific: “waits 5 days for a quote,” not “waits too long”
Moments of Truth	Decisive moments that shape the overall impression	Not every touchpoint is a moment of truth — Rosenbaum et al. showed that the assumption of equal importance is wrong [6]

What Distinguishes a Good Journey Map from a Bad One

Kuehnl, Jozić, and Homburg (2019) empirically investigated what makes effective journey design — with 4,814 consumers in two countries [8]. Three qualities distinguish successful journeys:

1. Thematic cohesion — all touchpoints tell the same story
2. Consistency — the quality level remains stable across the entire journey
3. Context sensitivity — the journey adapts to the channel and situation

If your journey map reveals gaps in any of these three dimensions, you have a starting point for improvement.

Customer Journey Map vs. Marketing Funnel vs. Service Blueprint

One of the most common questions: how does a customer journey map differ from a marketing funnel or a service blueprint? The instruments have different perspectives and use cases:

Dimension	Customer Journey Map	Marketing Funnel	Service Blueprint
Perspective	Customer experience	Company process	Both sides: customer + organization
Core question	How does the customer experience the service?	How many leads convert to customers?	How do frontstage and backstage work together?
Form	Non-linear, cross-phase	Linear, funnel-shaped	5 horizontal swim lanes
Emotions	Central (emotion curve)	Not present	Optional (secondary element)
Internal processes	Not mapped	Partially (sales pipeline)	Main focus (backstage + support)
Data basis	Qualitative + quantitative	Primarily quantitative (conversion rates)	Qualitative (workshop-based)
Typical use	Discovery, empathy, prioritization	Sales management, reporting	Service redesign, error diagnosis

When to use what?

• Customer Journey Map when you want to understand what the customer actually experiences — and where their expectations diverge from reality.
• Marketing Funnel when you want to quantitatively measure where in the sales process leads are lost.
• Service Blueprint when your journey map shows THAT something is going wrong, and you want to understand WHY — which internal processes cause the frontstage problems.

The natural sequence: journey map captures the customer experience -> pain points become visible -> service blueprint investigates the backstage causes -> improvement measures are derived.

When Customer Journey Mapping Is NOT the Right Tool

CJM is not always the answer. If you already have quantitative data pointing to a specific touchpoint (e.g., 80% drop-off rate on a particular landing page), fix the problem directly — you don’t need a map. If the problem is operational and you’re looking for internal causes, start directly with a service blueprint. And if the journey is so simple that it consists of a single touchpoint (e.g., self-service kiosk), CJM is overkill — a process analysis will suffice.

How to Create a Customer Journey Map: 120-Minute Workshop Protocol

The following workshop guide is based on the methodology of Stickdorn et al. (2018) [9], supplemented with insights from the NN/g survey of 343 companies [10] and the validation principles of Rosenbaum et al. (2017) [6]. You need 120 minutes, a room with a large wall (or a digital whiteboard), sticky notes in four colors, markers, and 6-12 participants from different departments.

Workshop Checklist: Sticky notes (4 colors: touchpoints, phases, pain points, ideas), markers, timer, whiteboard or brown paper (3 m wide), red dot stickers (for pain points), stars (for moments of truth), voting dots (3 per person). Optional: laptop with CRM data, complaint statistics, web analytics for reference.

Before the workshop: Create a hypothesis map based on available data (CRM logs, complaint statistics, web analytics, support tickets). NN/g research shows that 62% of teams start with a hypothesis map [10]. This is necessary — but also dangerous if the hypothesis is never validated. Label every assumption on your hypothesis map explicitly as “Assumption” — this makes visible during the workshop what needs validation and what is based on facts. Marc Stickdorn (SDN 2024) recommends: “Start small, start with a high level map and 1, 2, 3 sub level journeys, not more” [9]. Don’t try to map the entire customer relationship in a single workshop.

From our practice: We see this pattern increasingly: teams present an AI-generated journey map as a workshop result, without ever validating it with a real customer. Stickdorn warns explicitly: “AI might not help, but actually harm” [9]. An AI-generated map is at best a hypothesis — treat it as a starting point for customer research, not as a result.

Phase 1: Define Scope and Persona (20 Minutes)

1. Present the workshop goal: “Today we’re mapping the actual journey of [Persona X] through [Service Section Y].”
2. Define the persona based on behavior, not demographics. Not: “Marketing director, 42, mid-market.” Instead: “Decision-maker evaluating an external IT service for the first time who needs to build internal consensus.”
3. Limit the scope to a complete episode — from the triggering moment (“I have a problem”) to the outcome (“Problem solved” or “Switched providers”).
4. Facilitation tip: Start with the question: “Which moment in our customer relationship frustrates us or our customers the most?” Answers typically cluster around 2-3 phases. Take the most painful one as your scope. In enterprise environments, the most common scope trap is the attempt to map the entire customer relationship in a single workshop — from first contact to contract renewal. Resist this impulse.

Phase 2: Map Phases and Touchpoints (30 Minutes)

1. The group defines 4-6 phases of the journey from the customer’s perspective. Use customer language, not internal terms: “comparing options” instead of “lead qualification.”
2. For each phase: What does the customer actually do? Which touchpoints do they use? One touchpoint per sticky note, sorted chronologically.
3. Add channels: through which channel does each touchpoint occur?
4. Facilitation tip: For each touchpoint, ask: “Do we control this touchpoint, or does the customer?” Mark customer-owned and social/external touchpoints in a different color — they are almost always forgotten, but are often the most influential [1].

Phase 3: Draw Emotion Curve and Pain Points (30 Minutes)

1. Draw a horizontal line across all phases. Above: positive emotions (+1, +2). Below: negative (-1, -2). The midline is neutral.
2. For each touchpoint: How does the customer feel? The group agrees on a point on the scale. Connect the points to form a curve.
3. Mark pain points (red dots) at the low points of the emotion curve.
4. Mark moments of truth (stars) at the touchpoints that disproportionately shape the overall impression.
5. Facilitation tip: The most valuable moment in the workshop is when the emotion curve shows a low point the team didn’t expect. This is where real learning happens. Pause the facilitation and ask: “Why does the customer feel this way here? What happens between this and the previous touchpoint?” The answer often lies in a waiting period, a channel break, or missing feedback.

Phase 4: Analyze Causes and Collect Ideas (25 Minutes)

1. Focus on the 3-5 most severe pain points. Ask: “Why does this happen?” Collect causes on sticky notes below the map.
2. For each pain point: What could improve the experience? Collect ideas without evaluating.
3. Mark which causes lie in the backstage area — this is the bridge to the service blueprint. If the cause isn’t at the surface, you need a blueprint to investigate the internal processes.
4. Facilitation tip: Use the Ishikawa diagram for root cause analysis of the most severe pain points. Categorize by: people, process, technology, information, policy.

Phase 5: Prioritize and Define Next Steps (15 Minutes)

1. Each person receives three dot stickers and marks the three most impactful improvement ideas.
2. The top 3 ideas become concrete actions with owners and timelines.
3. Define the next validation step: How will you check whether your map reflects reality? (Customer interviews, diary study, shadowing)
4. Documentation: Take two photos (overview + detail of each phase) and digitize within 48 hours. NN/g research shows: visual design is the least important success factor — customer involvement and cross-functional team composition are the most important [10].

After the Workshop

The workshop is not the end but the starting point. The three critical steps afterward:

1. Validate. Schedule 3-5 customer interviews within 2 weeks to verify your workshop map. Even more powerful: start a 2-week diary study where 3-5 customers document their interactions with your service daily. Diary studies are, according to NN/g, the most underrated method (only 12% use them), but particularly valuable for multi-channel journeys [10].

2. Present. Share the results with stakeholders who were NOT in the workshop — especially senior leadership. Lead with the 3-5 pain points and planned actions, not with the map itself.

3. Iterate. Plan the first review in 3 months. Use the four deviation types from Halvorsrud et al. [5] as a checklist: Have new ad-hoc touchpoints emerged? Has the sequence changed? Have touchpoints failed or are new ones missing?

From our practice: In our work with service companies, we regularly observe that the transition from the journey map to the service blueprint is the most politically difficult moment in the project — because for the first time it becomes visible which department actually causes the customer experience. Plan time deliberately to process this realization before jumping to solutions.

Customer Journey Mapping in B2B: Mastering Buying Center Complexity

Every other article on this topic treats B2B as “B2C, but with longer cycles.” This doesn’t do justice to reality. Purmonen, Jaakkola, and Terho presented the first scientifically grounded B2B customer journey framework in 2023 [7] — and it shows that B2B journeys differ structurally from B2C:

Three Fundamental Differences

1. Buying center instead of individual. In B2B, multiple people typically decide — industry estimates vary between 4 and 10 — with different roles and perspectives [7]. Each goes through their own journey with their own touchpoints and priorities: the IT director evaluates integration capabilities, procurement compares prices, the CEO assesses risks. A single-persona map misses this reality.

2. Purchase journey and usage journey are separate. Purmonen et al. [7] distinguish the purchase journey (evaluation -> decision -> contract signing) from the usage journey (onboarding -> usage -> renewal). Most B2B journey maps end at contract signing — but the usage journey determines whether the customer stays.

3. Relationship history shapes every new journey. In B2B, every journey is embedded in a relationship history. Past projects, built trust, or disappointed expectations fundamentally shape the current journey. A B2B map without relationship context is incomplete [7].

B2B Journey Mapping in the DACH Region: What’s Different

For companies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, specific challenges arise that no international CJM guide addresses:

• GDPR data gap: Cookie consent rates in Germany are low — often half of users refuse tracking. This means: a significant portion of your digital journey data is structurally invisible. Consequence for CJM: combine digital analytics with analog methods (interviews, observation, diary studies) to close the data gap.
• Consensus culture: German B2B buying committees frequently require multilateral approval across multiple hierarchy levels. This makes single-persona maps even more useless than in other markets.
• Content intensity: In our work with service companies, we observe that German leads consume significantly more technical content before first contact than in comparable markets. The customer-owned phase of the journey is particularly long and data-intensive in Germany — and particularly easy to overlook in a journey map.

B2B Example: IT Service Provider Customer Acquisition

The following example shows a simplified B2B journey map for customer acquisition at a mid-sized IT service provider. Three buying center roles go through parallel journeys:

Scenario: A company with 500 employees evaluates a managed services provider for its IT infrastructure. The process typically takes 6 months or longer.

Phase	IT Director (Technology)	Head of Procurement (Cost)	CEO (Risk)
Problem Recognition	Sees rising downtime, researches solutions online	Receives budget request, reviews cost structure	Is informed about outages, demands solution
Vendor Search	Reads analyst reports, attends webinars, asks peers	Obtains initial price quotes	Uninvolved in this phase
Evaluation	Tests proof of concept, checks interfaces	Compares TCO models, requests references	Asks: “What happens if the vendor fails?”
Decision	Recommends technically preferred vendor	Negotiates terms	Gives final approval (or blocks)
Onboarding	Oversees migration, measures performance	Monitors invoices, SLA compliance	Expects status report after 90 days

What this map reveals:

1. The majority of the journey happens without vendor contact. Industry analyses consistently suggest that B2B buyers complete the majority of their decision process before contacting a vendor. The IT director has already created their shortlist before sales is even contacted. Touchpoints in this phase are customer-owned — the company can only influence them indirectly (through content, peer networks, analyst relations).
2. The CEO decides but doesn’t evaluate. Their journey has only 3-4 touchpoints, but each one is a moment of truth. If the risk question isn’t proactively answered during evaluation, they block in the decision phase.
3. The usage journey is missing. Most B2B journey maps end at contract signing. But the onboarding phase — the first 90 days — determines contract renewal or churn. A second map should start here.

7 Common Customer Journey Mapping Mistakes — and How to Avoid Them

The following mistakes are distilled from academic literature and practice research — not from opinions.

Mistake 1: The Assumption Map

The problem: The team maps its internal process and calls it a “customer journey” — without ever talking to a customer.

The evidence: Rosenbaum, Otálora, and Ramírez (2017) proved empirically that journey maps treating all touchpoints as equally important are “critically flawed” [6]. NN/g research confirms: teams relying on internal knowledge produce maps reflecting their idealized process, not the customer experience [10].

The solution: Conduct at least 5 customer interviews before the workshop. Use diary studies — according to NN/g the most underrated method (only 12% use them) — for multi-channel journeys [10].

Mistake 2: The Linear Lie

The problem: The journey is represented as a linear funnel (Awareness -> Consideration -> Purchase), even though real journeys contain loops, jumps, and setbacks.

The evidence: Court et al. (2009) showed: consumers add AND remove brands during evaluation [2]. In B2B, journeys are even less linear — buying center members enter and exit at different points [7].

The solution: Allow back-arrows and loops in your map. Mark the most common deviations from the “ideal” journey. Halvorsrud et al. (2016) identified four types of journey deviations: ad-hoc touchpoints, sequence irregularities, touchpoint failures, and missing touchpoints [5].

Mistake 3: The Beautiful Poster

The problem: The team invests weeks in a visually perfect journey poster that never leads to a decision.

The evidence: Kerry Bodine (former Forrester VP) puts it bluntly: “A journey mapping initiative isn’t about the maps. It’s about changing the way your organization works.” The NN/g survey confirms: visual design is the least important success factor [10].

The solution: Define before the workshop which decision the map should inform. A rough whiteboard diagram that leads to three concrete actions beats a design masterpiece gathering dust in the wiki.

Mistake 4: The Touchpoint Trap

The problem: Individual touchpoints are optimized in isolation (website relaunch, new CRM), but the transitions between them go unnoticed.

The evidence: Rawson et al. (2013) documented: companies managing complete journeys predict customer satisfaction 30% better than those optimizing individual touchpoints [3]. The transitions — the channel switch from website to phone, the wait between proposal and follow-up — are the most common source of frustration.

The solution: Explicitly map the transitions between touchpoints. For each transition, ask: “What happens in between? How long does it take? Who is responsible? Does the customer receive feedback?”

Mistake 5: The Silo Map

The problem: The CX department creates the map alone. The result is ignored by other departments because they weren’t involved.

The evidence: The NN/g survey shows: customer involvement is success factor #1, cross-functional teams success factor #2 [10]. Many practitioners report that organizational silos are the biggest barrier to journey improvement.

The solution: Ensure the workshop includes at least one person each from sales, service, IT, and the customer-facing frontline. Position the workshop as “We’re understanding our customers together,” not as a “CX project.”

Mistake 6: The Static Snapshot

The problem: The map is created once and never updated. After 6 months, it depicts a past that no longer exists.

The evidence: B2B buying cycles frequently last 6 months or longer. A map created in month 1 is outdated by month 6. Stickdorn (SDN 2024) therefore explicitly distinguishes: workshop maps (one-time artifacts), project maps (sprint-bound), and management maps (living systems) [9].

The solution: Appoint a map owner responsible for keeping it current. Plan quarterly reviews. Use version numbers and change dates. If your goal is operational, you need a management map — not a workshop map.

Mistake 7: The Company-Centric Map

The problem: The map depicts the company’s internal processes, not the customer’s experience world.

The evidence: Lemon and Verhoef [1] showed: most companies only map brand-owned touchpoints. Customer-owned touchpoints (customer’s internal meetings, peer recommendations, independent research) and social/external touchpoints (analyst ratings, online reviews) remain invisible — even though they are often purchase-decisive.

The solution: Start each phase with the question: “What does the customer do when they are NOT interacting with us?” The answer reveals the customer-owned and social touchpoints that company-centric maps miss.

From Mapping to Management: Why the Map Is Just the Beginning

The seven mistakes reveal a pattern: teams treat journey mapping as a workshop deliverable, not a management discipline. Journey mapping has an image problem. Forrester analyst Maxie Schmidt (2025) puts it sharply: “Business leaders have taken little to no interest in journey mapping. Stop talking about journey maps. Ask what is your problem.” Teams start with the map instead of the problem and produce end-to-end journeys without a clear question.

The solution lies not in better maps but in the evolution from mapping to management. Rawson et al. (2013) provide the empirical foundation: companies that operate journeys as an ongoing management discipline — not as a one-time workshop result — predict customer satisfaction significantly better [3].

Three elements of journey management:

1. Ongoing deviation analysis. Halvorsrud, Kvale, and Følstad (2016) identified four types of journey deviations [5]: ad-hoc touchpoints (unplanned interactions), sequence irregularities (steps in wrong order), touchpoint failures (planned touchpoints that don’t work), and missing touchpoints (expected interactions that don’t occur). These four types serve as a checklist for regular journey quality reviews.

2. KPI triangulation. Stickdorn recommends: “Never use one KPI — always triangulate.” Per journey: ~3 experience KPIs (NPS, CES, CSAT at critical touchpoints) plus ~3 business KPIs (conversion rate, time-to-resolution, churn rate). A single KPI never tells the complete story.

3. Governance structure. Stickdorn warns: “No tool will make up for lack of governance structure.” Journey management needs a journey owner, regular reviews (at least quarterly), and the authority to initiate cross-functional improvements. Without governance, every map degenerates into a poster artifact.

The PDCA cycle provides the operational framework for this ongoing improvement: Plan (analyze journey map) -> Do (implement improvement) -> Check (measure KPIs) -> Act (update map and start next iteration).

Customer Journey Mapping Tools Overview

Tool	Type	Best For	Price
Sticky notes + wall	Analog	Initial workshop, team discussion	Free
Miro / Mural	Digital whiteboard	Remote workshops, collaborative mapping	Freemium
Smaply	Specialized CJM tool	Professional journey maps, stakeholder maps	From ~19 EUR/month
UXPressia	Specialized CJM tool	Template-based mapping, personas	Freemium
Custellence	Specialized CJM tool	Management maps, ongoing updates	On request
Figma / FigJam	Design tool	Design teams already using Figma	Freemium

Recommendation for beginners: Start analog — sticky notes on the wall. Only digitize once the basic structure is in place.

FAQ

What is the difference between a customer journey and a user journey?

A customer journey encompasses the entire experience a customer has with a company — from first awareness through purchase to long-term use, across all channels. A user journey (or user flow) describes a user’s interaction with a specific digital product, typically within a single session. Customer journeys are broader (multi-channel, multi-touchpoint); user journeys are deeper (click paths, screen flows).

What types of touchpoints exist in the customer journey?

Lemon and Verhoef (2016) distinguish four types [1]: brand-owned (controlled by the company, e.g., website, sales), partner-owned (jointly managed, e.g., resellers), customer-owned (controlled by the customer, e.g., internal evaluation meetings), and social/external (third parties, e.g., online reviews, peer recommendations). Most journey maps only capture brand-owned touchpoints — missing the often purchase-decisive customer-owned and social touchpoints.

How often should a customer journey map be updated?

At least quarterly for operational management maps. Workshop maps (one-time discovery artifacts) don’t need updating. Project maps (sprint-bound) are adjusted per sprint cycle. Stickdorn recommends version numbers, change dates, and a named map owner [9]. B2B journeys change with every new buying center member and every organizational change at the customer.

What are the 5 phases of the customer journey?

The common 5-phase model (Awareness -> Consideration -> Purchase -> Retention -> Advocacy) derives from the AIDA framework and is presented by most guides as universal truth. Court et al. (2009) showed, however, that customers don’t move linearly through a funnel [2]. In practice, you should derive the phases from your specific service context — not from a generic template. An IT service provider has different phases than an insurer. Start with the question: “Which stages does our customer go through — from their perspective, not ours?”

How many touchpoints does a typical customer journey have?

The number varies greatly depending on industry, service complexity, and journey scope. A typical B2C journey includes 8-15 touchpoints; a B2B journey 15-25 — per buying center role. More important than the number is coverage of all four touchpoint types per Lemon and Verhoef [1]: if your map only shows brand-owned touchpoints, you’re missing the often purchase-decisive customer-owned and social/external touchpoints.

How does the customer journey differ in B2B vs. B2C?

In B2B, 4-7 people with different priorities decide in parallel (buying center). The cycle typically lasts 6 months or longer rather than minutes to days. The majority of the journey takes place without vendor contact. Purmonen et al. (2023) also show: in B2B, purchase journey and usage journey are two separate processes, and the relationship history between companies fundamentally shapes every new journey [7].

Related Methods

In our Integrated Service Development Process (iSEP), Customer Journey Mapping serves as the diagnostic entry point — before we design solutions, the customer’s lived reality must be understood. The journey map provides the diagnosis; the following methods help with analysis and implementation:

• Service Blueprint — When your journey map shows THAT customers suffer at a point, the service blueprint shows WHY — which internal processes cause the frontstage problems.
• Ishikawa Diagram — Use it for root cause analysis of the most severe pain points in your journey map.
• Kano Model — Prioritize which touchpoint improvements have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction: basic factors, performance factors, or delight factors.
• PDCA Cycle — The operational framework for ongoing journey improvement: analyze map -> implement measure -> measure impact -> update map.
• Gemba Walk — Validate your journey map on site: accompany a customer through the real service and check whether the map reflects reality.

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Methodology & Disclosure

This article is based on a systematic evaluation of 10 directly cited sources (academic studies, practice research, practitioner books) and 32 additional context sources. The research was conducted on February 20, 2026. All DOIs were verified before inclusion. The IT service provider example is a realistic scenario based on industry-typical processes, not a documented individual case.

SI Labs advises companies on the design and innovation of services, including Customer Journey Mapping. This article presents the method in an evidence-based manner; readers should consider our potential self-interest.

Bibliography

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[7] Purmonen, Anna, Elina Jaakkola, and Harri Terho. “B2B Customer Journeys: Conceptualization and an Integrative Framework.” Industrial Marketing Management 113 (2023): 74-87. DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2023.05.002 [Conceptual framework | First rigorous B2B CJ framework | Citations: Growing rapidly | Quality: 85/100]

[8] Kuehnl, Christina, Danijel Jozić, and Christian Homburg. “Effective Customer Journey Design: Consumers’ Conception, Measurement, and Consequences.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 47, no. 3 (2019): 551-568. DOI: 10.1007/s11747-018-00625-7 [Empirical study | N=4,814 consumers, 2 countries | Citations: ~250+ | Quality: 88/100]

[9] Stickdorn, Marc, Markus Edgar Hormess, Adam Lawrence, and Jakob Schneider. This Is Service Design Doing: Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media, 2018. ISBN: 978-1-4919-2718-2 [Practitioner handbook | 25+ methods documented | Quality: 88/100]

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