Customer journey map examples you can actually steal.

A customer journey map traces the steps a specific kind of customer takes from first realizing they have a problem through becoming a repeat buyer or advocate. It has rows for the stages of that journey and columns for what the customer is doing, thinking, and feeling at each stage, plus the touchpoints where they encounter you and the moments where things break. The point is shared understanding: a single picture of the whole customer experience that sales, marketing, and support can all see at once.

The Nielsen Norman Group, which codified the modern format, has a clear primer in its journey mapping guide. Read it for the structure, then use the examples below to see that structure filled in for real businesses rather than in the abstract.

Before the examples, here is the skeleton they all borrow. Most maps run left to right through five stages: awareness, when the customer first realizes they have a problem; consideration, when they weigh their options; decision, when they buy or book; onboarding, their first real experience of what they bought; and retention and advocacy, whether they come back and tell others. Not every business leans on all five equally: a plumber's journey is mostly awareness and service, while a software company's is mostly consideration and onboarding. Down the other axis are the columns you fill in at each stage: what the customer is doing, what they are actually thinking, how they feel, the touchpoints where they meet you, and the pain points or opportunities that live there. The thinking and feeling columns are the ones people skip and the ones that matter most, because that is where you learn why customers stall or leave. Every example below fills this same grid, so once you have read one, you can build your own.

Picture a homeowner who needs a plumber. Their journey is short, urgent, and trust-driven, and a useful map for this business looks like this.

• Awareness. A pipe bursts. Thinking: "I need someone here today." Touchpoint: a panicked phone search for "plumber near me."
• Consideration. They scan the map results, glance at star ratings and recent reviews, and judge in seconds. Thinking: "Who looks legit and can actually come now?" Touchpoint: your Google Business Profile and reviews. Pain: a half-built profile or stale reviews loses them here.
• Decision. They call or message the first credible option. Thinking: "Please pick up." Touchpoint: your phone line and booking form. Pain: an unanswered call sends them straight to the next name.
• Service. The job gets done. Thinking: "Is this person honest, and will they clean up?" Touchpoint: the technician, the cleanup, the bill.
• Retention and advocacy. Will they review you, and call you next time? Touchpoint: your review request and follow-up. Opportunity: most businesses go silent here and lose the repeat and the referral.

The map immediately shows where this business should focus: the profile, the reviews, answering the phone, and the after-service follow-up almost everyone neglects.

Now an online shopper buying a considered product. The journey is longer and more research-heavy, and the map reflects that.

• Awareness. They discover the product through an ad, a social post, or a search. Thinking: "Oh, that's interesting." Touchpoint: the ad creative or the search result. Feeling: curious, not committed.
• Consideration. They compare options, read reviews, and check the price. Thinking: "Is this worth it, and is there something better?" Touchpoint: product pages, reviews, comparison content. Pain: thin product pages and missing reviews hand the sale to a competitor.
• Decision. They add to cart and check out. Thinking: "Fine, let's do it, as long as checkout does not fight me." Touchpoint: the cart and checkout flow. Pain: a slow site, a long form, or surprise shipping costs spike abandonment right at the finish line.
• Onboarding. The product arrives and meets, or misses, expectations. Thinking: "Did I make a good call?" Touchpoint: shipping, packaging, the product itself, any setup instructions.
• Retention and advocacy. Do they come back and tell others? Touchpoint: post-purchase email, loyalty, review requests. Opportunity: the email relationship that turns one sale into many.

For this business the map highlights the checkout flow and the post-purchase email program as the highest-leverage places to fix friction and earn repeat revenue.

Now software sold to other businesses, where the journey spans months and several people. The map gets longer and the stages reflect a committee, not a single buyer.

• Awareness. Someone on the team keeps hitting the limits of a spreadsheet or an aging tool. Thinking: "There has to be a better way to do this." Touchpoint: a search, a peer recommendation, a mention in an industry community.
• Consideration. They research quietly, compare tools, read reviews on sites like G2, and often start a free trial without talking to sales. Thinking: "Which of these actually fits how we work?" Touchpoint: your website, comparison content, docs, and the trial itself. Pain: if you are not findable here, or the trial confuses them, you are never on the list.
• Decision. The champion has to sell it internally and clear finance and security. Thinking: "How do I justify this to my boss?" Touchpoint: case studies, pricing clarity, ROI proof, security documentation. Pain: thin proof stalls the deal inside their building.
• Onboarding. The contract is signed and now the team has to actually adopt it. Thinking: "Please let this be worth the switch." Touchpoint: setup, data import, training, your customer success team. Pain: a rocky first month quietly predicts churn at renewal.
• Retention and expansion. Renewal, and more seats if it is working. Touchpoint: ongoing value, support, regular check-ins. Opportunity: expansion revenue lives here, and it is far cheaper than winning a new logo.

This map makes clear why content and proof matter so much in B2B: most of the journey happens before anyone contacts you, so your job is to be findable and convincing during the quiet research the buyer does alone.

A restaurant journey is fast and almost entirely reputation-driven. Most of it happens on a phone before anyone walks in, which is why the map pushes a restaurant to obsess over photos, menus, and reviews: the meal is booked or lost long before the food arrives.

• Awareness. Someone is hungry or planning a night out. Thinking: "Where should we eat Friday?" Touchpoint: Google Maps, Instagram, a delivery app, a friend's suggestion.
• Consideration. They check your photos, the menu, the rating, recent reviews, and the distance. Thinking: "Does this look good, and is it a safe bet?" Touchpoint: your photos, menu, reviews, and Maps listing. Pain: no menu online, or dark and dated photos, loses the table.
• Decision. They book a table or simply show up. Thinking: "Let's try it." Touchpoint: your reservation system, your phone, the walk-in welcome. Pain: a clunky booking flow or a long, unacknowledged wait.
• The visit. Seated, served, fed. Thinking: "Was this worth leaving the house for?" Touchpoint: the host, the server, the food, the check. This single moment is most of the journey.
• Retention and advocacy. Do they come back, follow you, post a photo, or leave a review? Touchpoint: the review request, your social feed, an email or loyalty list. Opportunity: regulars and word of mouth are the whole game, and most places never ask.

A practice sells trust and convenience as much as care, and insurance shapes the whole path. The map points it at insurance clarity, easy online booking, and honest cost conversations, which are where trust is usually won or lost.

• Awareness. A nagging toothache, or a recent move and no dentist yet. Thinking: "I should really get this looked at." Touchpoint: a search for "dentist near me," an insurance directory, a referral from a friend.
• Consideration. They check reviews, whether you take their insurance, and how easy it is to book. Thinking: "Will this be a hassle, and will they take my plan?" Touchpoint: your website, reviews, insurance details, online scheduling. Pain: no insurance clarity or a phone-only booking loses busy people.
• Decision. They book the first appointment. Thinking: "Okay, I'll give them a try." Touchpoint: the scheduling flow, intake forms, appointment reminders. Pain: heavy paperwork and no reminders drive no-shows.
• First visit. Check-in, the exam, the treatment plan and its cost. Thinking: "Do I trust these people, and can I afford this?" Touchpoint: the front desk, the hygienist and dentist, the way cost is explained. Pain: a surprise bill or a hard upsell breaks trust fast.
• Retention and advocacy. Do they book the next cleaning and refer family? Touchpoint: recall reminders, follow-up, review requests. Opportunity: recurring recall visits and family referrals are the backbone of the practice.

You do not need software for any of this. A spreadsheet with the stages down the side and those columns across the top does everything the examples above show, and a whiteboard with sticky notes is better still for a first draft, because everyone in the room can argue with it. Dedicated tools like Miro or FigJam are genuinely nice once a map is shared across a large team and updated often, but they add polish, not insight. Do not let choosing a tool become the reason you never start. Build the first version in whatever you already have open.

The danger with examples is copying the surface. Your journey will not match any of these exactly, so use them as a starting shape, not a template to fill in by rote. Ground your version in real evidence, not guesses: pull your analytics to see where people actually go and leave, talk to a handful of recent customers about how they really decided, and read your support tickets and sales notes for the recurring friction. Harvard Business Review's work on using customer journey maps stresses that the value lives in operational usefulness, not visual polish.

Then keep it alive. A map that goes on a wall and is never opened changes nothing. Give it an owner, tie it to a recurring planning decision, and revisit it as the journey shifts. McKinsey's research on customer experience, including its work on the consistency that drives satisfaction, finds that operationalizing the journey, not just drawing it, is what produces the retention gains.

A journey map is a tool for finding where to focus, not a deliverable to admire. The examples above will get you started faster than a blank page, but a map built on assumptions and then filed away changes nothing. Anyone treating the artifact as the goal has missed the point. The value is in the decisions it drives, and those only happen if the map is honest and actually used.

Helping teams build a journey map grounded in real research and tied to real decisions is part of what we do at Mining Wells through our growth and go-to-market work. But you can adapt the examples here yourself. Pick the one closest to your business, ground it in your own data and customer conversations, mark where the experience breaks, and fix the worst gap first.