Before you launch into new research, spend time excavating what your organization already has. Most companies have scattered data about their customer journey buried across different teams and systems. Customer support call logs. Past focus group notes. Analytics data. NPS scores. Feedback from sales conversations. This existing data—both qualitative and quantitative—can reveal patterns and help you shape your research efforts more efficiently.
This step serves two purposes. First, it saves time and budget by preventing duplicate research. Second, it helps you identify gaps. Where does your existing data tell you nothing? Where do stakeholder assumptions conflict with what the data shows? These gaps become your research priorities.
Most journey mapping efforts are focused on evaluating and improving existing experiences, but they often struggle to capture the true end-to-end journey that cuts across organizational silos.
Our research shows that journey mapping is overwhelmingly used as a tool for introspection and optimization. An overwhelming 95% of practitioners use it to evaluate the current-state experience of their existing products and services. A similarly high number, 80%, use it to brainstorm and communicate a future-state vision for those same offerings. Far less common is using maps for pure innovation; only 50% of organizations use them to brainstorm entirely new products or services that do not yet exist.
When we look at the types of experiences being mapped, a clear pattern emerges. Teams are most comfortable mapping journeys within their direct control.
While 60% of organizations claim to map “end-to-end” customer journeys, the reality is that most are mapping a series of connected touchpoints within a specific domain. However, true end-to-end journeys cut across the entire organization, traversing both legacy functional silos and modern product silos in what we term the “Double Bind”. The fact that only 50% of organizations are mapping the support journey and only 40% are mapping the pre-sales and awareness phases suggests that many “end-to-end” maps are missing the true beginning and end of the customer’s experience.
Most organizations start with internal assumptions, not external research. While a wide range of research methods are used, there is a heavy reliance on interviews and surveys, with longitudinal methods that capture experience over time being largely neglected.
There are two primary approaches to starting a journey mapping initiative: the hypothesis-first approach, which begins with a workshop to capture existing internal knowledge, and the research-first approach, which starts with foundational customer research. Our data shows a clear preference for the former.
A significant 60% of practitioners use a hypothesis-first approach, relying on the knowledge of internal team members and stakeholders to create the initial map. Only 40% begin the process with a dedicated customer research phase. This inside-out approach, while faster and easier to organize, carries a significant risk: it can bake organizational biases and flawed assumptions directly into the map, creating a document that reflects the company’s desired state rather than the customer’s lived reality.
When it comes to the specific research methods used to inform these maps, there is a heavy reliance on traditional qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Interviews are a workhorse method, used by 90% of organizations to gather data from either customers or internal colleagues. Surveys are even more prevalent, at 95%. However, the most striking finding is the underutilization of methods that capture experience over time. Diary studies, which are uniquely suited to understanding the nuances of a journey as it unfolds across multiple channels and touchpoints, are used by a mere 12% of organizations. This suggests that most journey maps are built from static snapshots of the experience, rather than a continuous view of the customer’s world.
Journey mapping is a team sport, most frequently led by internal experts and involving a cross-functional mix of product, marketing, and CX roles. Digital collaboration tools have become the standard for bringing these teams together.
Journey mapping is no longer the sole domain of a specialized team. It has become a highly collaborative process. Our survey shows that 75% of journey maps are created by a collaborative team, with only 20% being created by an individual. This collaboration is happening primarily in digital spaces, with 50% of teams using digital tools like Miro or Mural, compared to just 25% using physical tools like whiteboards and sticky notes.
The composition of these collaborative teams is revealing. While dedicated CX and UX teams are heavily involved, the most common participants are from the product and marketing departments.
This high level of involvement from product and marketing teams (70% and 60%, respectively) is a positive sign, indicating that journey mapping is being integrated into the core functions that design and deliver the customer experience. The significant presence of executive leadership (40%) is also encouraging, as it suggests that journey mapping is being seen as a strategic activity, not just a tactical one.
These collaborative efforts are most often led by an internal expert. 65% of organizations rely on an internal team member with journey mapping expertise to facilitate their sessions, while 20% bring in an external consultant. This reliance on internal expertise is a sign of the growing maturity of the CX discipline within organizations.
Most organizations leverage existing personas and journey phases, but there is a significant disconnect between how phases are defined and what truly matters to customers.
Journey maps are built on two key components: the actor (the persona experiencing the journey) and the phases (the high-level stages of the journey). Our research shows that most organizations are not starting from scratch.
A majority of practitioners (55%) use existing personas or customer segments to define the actor in their journey maps. Only 25% develop new personas as part of their research, and just 10% create them during a workshop. This reliance on existing personas can be efficient, but it also carries the risk of using outdated or inaccurate representations of the customer.
Similarly, 55% of organizations use a pre-existing set of journey phases, while only 30% create them during the mapping process itself. The problem lies in how these phases are defined. A concerning 30% of organizations define their journey phases based on their own internal business processes, and another 20% define them based on touchpoints and channels. Only 50% of organizations define their journey phases based on customer goals and objectives.
This is a critical disconnect. When journey phases are defined by the organization’s structure rather than the customer’s goals, the resulting map will inevitably reflect an inside-out perspective. It will show how the customer interacts with the company’s silos, not how the customer is trying to achieve their own objectives. This is a primary reason why so many journey maps fail to identify the most significant opportunities for improvement.
Our research paints a clear picture of the state of journey mapping today. It is a widespread, collaborative, and increasingly mature practice. However, it is also a practice that is often hampered by an inside-out perspective, a reliance on static research methods, and a fundamental disconnect between the way organizations are structured and the way customers experience the world.
To move from creating artifacts to driving action, organizations must make three key shifts:
- While hypothesis-first mapping can be a useful starting point, it must be quickly followed by robust customer research. Organizations must be willing to challenge their own assumptions and build their maps on a foundation of real-world evidence.
- The journey map must be a tool for breaking down silos, not reinforcing them. This requires defining journey phases based on customer goals, not internal processes, and creating cross-functional “Journey Teams” with the authority to manage and improve the end-to-end experience.
- The ultimate goal of journey mapping is not to create a beautiful map, but to improve the customer experience and drive business results. This requires integrating the journey map into the operational rhythm of the business, using it to inform product backlogs, prioritize investments, and measure success.
The journey map is not a wall decoration. It is a treasure map that reveals where value is being destroyed and where it can be created. By embracing a more data-driven, customer-centric, and action-oriented approach to journey mapping, organizations can unlock the full potential of this powerful tool and build experiences that are not just better for customers, but better for the business.
(1)The Journey-First Enterprise, CXM Academy Industry Report, 2026.
(2) CXM Academy Journey Mapping Practitioner Survey, June-October 2025.
