Customer Journey Mapping Tools: Understanding and Optimizing the Customer Experience

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on Customer Journey Mapping Tools. In today’s customer-centric business landscape, understanding and improving the customer journey is paramount for success. These tools have emerged as invaluable assets, enabling businesses to visualize and analyze customer touchpoints and interactions with their brands. By gaining insights into customer experiences, pain points, and preferences, businesses can make data-driven decisions to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this blog, we will explore a variety of top-notch tools that empower businesses to create seamless and personalized experiences for their customers. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer, a business owner, or a CX enthusiast, this resource will equip you with the knowledge and tools to optimize your customer journeys and drive exceptional results. So, let’s embark on this journey together and discover the power of these tools in elevating your business to new heights of customer success.

Customer Journey Mapping Tools

Sketch

A long-time industry standard, Sketch is beginning to see more competition these days, but you can’t beat the pure history of the tool when looking for templates. Since Sketch was released in 2010, hundreds of free templates have been created by the user community, and many are free online.

Just find a template you like, tweak it to make it your own, and you’re ready to start designing at high speed. If you’re already familiar with Sketch, you can still use all the shortcuts and interfaces you know and love.

Pricing:

Templates are free, and Sketch has options for a $99 one-time payment or $9 per contributor per month for subscription plans.

Adobe XD

Compared to Sketch, Adobe is a relative newcomer to the prototyping space, which means its template library isn’t as robust. Still, you can find a few online (and linked below) that you can use to speed up your workflow. Plus, with Adobe’s built-in collaboration features, you can easily work with other team members and stakeholders if you need to build a hypothetical journey map before testing.

Pricing:

Templates are free, and Adobe XD offers plans ranging from free to $9.99 per user per month. You can also roll it into a larger Creative Cloud subscription if desired.

Figma

Figma’s popularity has exploded over the last few years thanks to an effective freemium model and collaboration tools, but its template library still lags behind Sketch. Fortunately, some options are still available, including the featured journey map template below.

Pricing:

Templates are free. Figma comes with a free Starter plan, and paid plans start at $12 per editor per month.

Axure RP

Axure may not seem as popular as other tools on this list, but it’s still a hit with many research-focused UX professionals. It’s fully featured enough to illustrate a customer’s experience⁠ — especially if you have a handy template like the one provided below.

Pricing:

Axure has a free trial, and paid plans start at $29 per monthly user.

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Omnigraffle

Omnigraffle is another niche tool that hasn’t become popular, but it is still effective for mapping customer needs. Their templates are called “stencils,” the selection is surprisingly extensive, with both paid and free options.

Pricing:

Stencils are free, and Omnigraffle costs $249 for a one-time purchase or $12.49 per user per month on a subscription basis.

Nielsen Norman Group

The template above comes from industry heavyweight NNG. They were among the first to formalize and standardize the contents of a customer journey map, so you know you’re including the right info when you use this template. As a bonus, the PDF comes with a helpful guide if you need a quick refresher on the process behind journey map creation.

Pricing:

Free

MightyBytes

This template comes to you courtesy of MightyBytes, a digital agency based in Chicago. Though MightyBytes isn’t known as NNG, this template is still solid. If you want to use paper, we recommend downloading both of them and seeing which you prefer.

Pricing:

Free

Custellence 

Most customer journey mapping tools help you create buyer personas or stakeholder maps in addition to customer journey maps, but not with Custellence. Their product focuses on one functionality, and they’re mentioned online for that specific reason.

They offer a variety of pre-made assets, including a library of unique storyboard images, cards, and lanes to use in your map. If you want a simple tool that helps you get the job done quickly, Custellence is worth a look.

Pricing:

Your first project is free, with paid plans starting at €20 (roughly $23.50) per user monthly.

UXPressia

UXPressia offers several design tools, including one for mapping your customer’s experience. The tool has many helpful features, including a built-in “experience graph” that includes smiley faces to indicate emotions, a dedicated image library full of comic-book-style illustrations, and the ability to collaborate with multiple people on the same document in real-time.

They also offer a basic online academy with courses showing how to build journey maps and customer personas if you want to brush up on your technique.

Pricing:

The first project is free, with paid monthly plans starting at $20 per user.

Smaply

Smaply offers tools to help you create customer journey maps, personas, and stakeholder maps. Like others on this list, they offer a range of pre-built assets to help map out customer pain points across Google, social media, and more. You can even find a full customer journey map template online.

Pricing:

Smaply offers a free plan for 3 journey maps. Paid plans with unlimited journey maps start at €19 (roughly $21) per user per month.

Also read : Heatmap Tools: Understanding User Behavior and Interaction in SEM

FlowMapp

FlowMapp offers dedicated tools for several user experience deliverables, including customer journey maps. They offer pre-built blocks for every section of the journey map and allow you to easily integrate any personas you’ve created on the platform into your maps.

Pricing:

The first project is free, with paid plans starting at $8.25 per month for a single user (note that $8.25 is a promotional price as of the time of this writing in July 2020. Normal pricing starts at $15/month for a single-user plan).

Visual Paradigm 

Visual Paradigm sneaks into this section with its dedicated customer journey map tool/template hybrid. Visual Paradigm is only partially focused on journey maps or even UX deliverables. But when you create a new project on the platform, you must select a type of project, and “customer journey map” is listed as an option by default.

They also have a dedicated page on their site for customer journey mapping, but it’s just one among many. Visual Paradigm seems to cater to a wide variety of users and can be used to map out architecture plans, systems modeling, and more.

Pricing:

A 30-day free trial is available, and paid plans start at $6 monthly for a single user.

Milkymap

Milkymap is a simple customer journey mapping tool made by a user experience consultancy of the same name. However, their website leads with the product, and you can sign up for a free trial or paid plan just like any other SaaS tool. (As you’ll see later, similar companies often require you to contact the agency to start mapping rather than easily signing up for a tool).

Compared to other options on this list, the Milkymap tool is rather simple, but that’s the point. They tout that their tool makes it quick to map out customer touchpoints, even for relative UX beginners.

Pricing:

Your first project is free; paid plans start at $7 monthly.

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Lucidchart 

Lucidchart’s website boasts that 50 diagrams are created every minute using their platform. This is undoubtedly in part because they appeal to so many different kinds of users, from system designers to Agile managers.

However, the site prominently features UX use cases and has positive reviews on Capterra, specifically mentioning Lucidchart’s usefulness for customer journey mapping. Plus, you can select from various journey map templates to get started.

Pricing:

Your first three documents are free on Lucidchart, with paid monthly plans starting at $7.95 for a single user.

Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio is a powerful diagramming tool that can be purchased as part of the Office365 suite of products or with a standalone plan. In general, the tool isn’t all that popular with the UX community, instead being favored for IT, organizational, and business process flowcharts.

However, it is mentioned in many articles online as a customer journey mapping tool, so if you’re already deeply integrated with the Microsoft suite of products, it’s probably worth a look.

Pricing:

Visio plan to start at $5 per user per month, though you can also roll it into a larger Microsoft Office plan if desired.

Also read : User Experience Testing Tools: Improving Website Usability for SEM

Gliffy 

Gliffy is a web-based diagramming tool in the Atlassian suite of products (makers of Jira and Trello). This tool can map customer touchpoints but is aimed at highly technical users. They even have Amazon Web Services symbols built into their default icon pack to create visually correct technical diagrams. If you don’t know what that means, you’re probably not the target user for Gliffy. If you’re highly technical, it should be on your shortlist.

Pricing:

Gliffy includes a 14-day free trial, followed by paid plans starting at $4.99 per user per month.

Miro

Miro is a popular all-in-one diagramming tool adaptable to many use cases, including customer journey mapping. They have a page dedicated to journey maps, including links to a template and a guide on utilizing the tool best.

In general, the tool’s UI looks clean and polished. Users are offered an infinite canvas, tons of virtual sticky notes, arrows, and other diagramming tools. Plus, you can work with team members on the same document in real time, making collaboration painless.

Pricing:

Your first three boards are free, then paid plans start at $8 per monthly user.

Mural

Mural leans into design thinking and facilitation, most of all the general diagramming tools on this list. Content across the site highlights messaging about empathy and design and features testimonials from prominent design-thinkers such as Phil Gilbert, Head of IBM Design.

Of course, content and testimonials aren’t what makes a customer journey map great, but Mural’s tool can help you with that. It integrates with The Noun Project by default, so you’ll never run out of icons, and they offer many templates for various design assets. Technically, none of them are purpose-built for customer journey maps, but check out “MVS 3 – Hero Quest” if you decide to give Mural a go.

Pricing:

30-day free trial, then starting at $12 per user per month.

Must read : How To Create A Customer Journey Map Template To Identify Potential Gaps

Conclusion

In conclusion, customer journey mapping tools play a pivotal role in shaping the success of modern businesses. By putting the customer at the center of decision-making, these tools provide valuable insights that can lead to transformative improvements in products, services, and overall customer experiences. Understanding and optimizing customer journeys becomes crucial for staying competitive as customer expectations evolve. With the help of cutting-edge tools, businesses can bridge the gap between customer needs and their offerings, fostering stronger relationships and brand loyalty. As you improve your customer experiences, remember that continuous monitoring and adjustments are key to staying attuned to changing preferences and demands. Embrace the power of these tools. Let them guide you towards creating remarkable experiences that leave a lasting impression on your customers, driving your business towards sustained growth and success in the dynamic marketplace.

FAQs

What is customer journey mapping, and why is it essential for businesses?

Customer journey mapping is visualizing and understanding the customer’s end-to-end experience with a business. It is essential for businesses as it helps identify pain points, optimize touchpoints, and create a more seamless and satisfying customer journey.

How do customer journey mapping tools work, and what data do they use?

Customer journey mapping tools gather data from various sources, such as customer feedback, surveys, website analytics, and CRM systems. They use this data to visually represent the customer journey, allowing businesses to gain insights and make informed decisions.

What are the benefits of using customer journey mapping tools?

Customer journey mapping tools offer numerous benefits, including improved customer satisfaction, increased customer retention, enhanced brand loyalty, and more efficient allocation of resources. They empower businesses to deliver personalized, memorable experiences that drive customer loyalty and advocacy.

Can small businesses benefit from customer journey mapping tools as well?

Absolutely! Customer journey mapping tools are valuable for businesses of all sizes. They allow small businesses to gain a deep understanding of their customer’s needs and preferences, enabling them to tailor their offerings and interactions accordingly. With a clear view of the customer journey, small businesses can stand out and build strong, long-lasting relationships with their customer base.