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The 6 most common mistakes in Customer Journey Mapping – and how to avoid them

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The 6 most common mistakes in customer journey mapping – and how to avoid them
Customer Journey Maps are now a standard tool for many companies. According to Gartner, nearly a third of all companies use Journey Maps, but struggle to utilize them effectively. The reason: Journey Maps alone do not create customer value. Only concrete actions lead to tangible results.

We’ll show you the 6 most common mistakes companies make when working with Customer Journeys. We’ll also present practical solutions you can implement immediately—proven in real-life projects.

These insights come directly from projects with companies in industries like insurance, energy, and transportation.

1. Journey Maps not tied to revenue or business goals

Many CX teams start with secondary products or internal processes because they’re easier to analyze. But if a journey doesn’t directly impact key KPIs like revenue, churn, or customer satisfaction, relevant departments won’t engage.

Solution:
Start with business processes that are critical to your company—those that impact revenue and contribute to your business objectives, such as product onboarding, contract renewals, or upselling journeys.

2. Journey Maps include vague, non-actionable insights

Journey Maps often include statements like “Customer feels lost when looking for contact info”—but without context and actionable recommendations, this isn’t helpful for teams like Product or Operations.

Solution:
Use clear and especially actionable insights. Apply the following three-step format for your insights:

  1. What’s happening?
  2. Why is this relevant?
  3. What exactly do we recommend?

This helps other teams (e.g. Product or Operations) understand your findings and take action—turning insights into concrete measures.

3. You don’t know the maturity level of your journey work

Many companies invest time and resources in customer journey mapping – reating journeys, discussing pain points, and using various tools – yet they often lack a clear understanding of where they currently stand.

Without knowing how effectively journeys are being used, it’s difficult to make targeted decisions or advance the overall strategy. As a result, journey initiatives often remain a patchwork of isolated efforts rather than forming a strategic, organization-wide approach.


Why a maturity assessment makes sense:

  • It reveals which areas are already approached systematically and where development is needed.

  • It helps set priorities and define next steps—based on the company’s specific situation.

Working with customer journeys is not a standardized process—every organization starts from different conditions and pursues unique objectives. A maturity assessment provides an objective view of the current state and creates the foundation for sound decision-making.

It shows where an organization stands today and identifies meaningful next steps.

Depending on the underlying model, a structured maturity assessment evaluates dimensions such as strategy and governance, tools, processes, data integration and measurability, as well as awareness and team competencies. This creates transparency about how professional and integrated the journey work truly is, not just from the perspective of individual teams, but across the entire organization.

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4. No structured workflow after mapping

Many companies treat their Journey Maps as one-off projects—afterwards, nothing happens. Without defined processes, responsibilities, and feedback loops, the map remains ineffective.

Solution:
Establish a workflow with clear responsibilities for insights, regular reviews, and direct linkage to roadmaps or backlogs.

Tip: Ideally, use a platform where insights can be assigned and tracked directly.

Assigning a journey owner
Assigning a journey owner

5. Lack of involvement from other departments

When CX teams create Journey Maps on their own and then hand them off to other teams, there’s often a lack of buy-in. Product teams in particular feel left out and deprioritize the results.

Solution: Involve relevant stakeholders, such as Product, Sales, or Support, already during goal-setting. Co-creation fosters ownership and drives implementation.

6. Too many touchpoints per journey step

A single step in the journey, such as “Looking for contact information,” might include 10 touchpoints: Chat, website, phone, email, customer portal, etc. Too many touchpoints in one step overload the Journey Map, complicate analysis, and dilute the customer story.

Solution: Limit each step to 3–4 relevant touchpoints. Use separate variations or paths for alternative contact methods. Focus on decisions, not on channels.
Limit each step to 3-4 relevant touchpoints & use paths to show different variations

Summary: Follow these 6 Journey Mapping Tips

Customer Journey Mapping is not an end in itself. The goal isn’t to visualize as much data as possible, but to translate relevant insights into concrete actions. Only then will you create better customer experiences and measurable business impact. Recap of the 6 tips:
  1. Only create maps that truly help the business
  2. Formulate insights clearly, specifically, and in actionable terms
  3. Know the maturity level of your Journey work
  4. Plan for the process after mapping
  5. Actively involve other departments
  6. Focus on relevant touchpoints
If one or more of these mistakes sound familiar—you’re not alone. Mistakes are part of the process. But with these tips, you can avoid them in advance.

In this video, we explain 5 mistakes with real-world examples and show how to avoid them in practice:

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