> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hiveku.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Build a Customer Journey Map

> Visualize and track your customer's path from awareness to advocacy

A customer journey map is a visual of the stages a customer moves through with your brand — what they do, think, and feel at each step, and where your content and touchpoints fit in.

<Info>
  Journey maps align marketing, sales, and product around the same picture of the customer experience. They surface friction points ("no one ever converts here — why?") and content gaps ("we have nothing for the consideration stage").
</Info>

## Three Paths

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="AI Chat (Fastest)">
    Ask the project AI:

    ```
    Build a customer journey map for a B2B SaaS that sells project
    management tools to small marketing agencies (5–20 people).
    Use the standard 6 stages. Focus on the decision and onboarding
    stages — that's where we see the most drop-off.
    ```

    The AI generates a first pass with stages, actions, emotions, and touchpoints. You refine from there.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Template Library">
    Start from a pre-built template. Covers common industries:

    * E-commerce (product discovery → purchase → retention)
    * B2B SaaS (awareness → trial → conversion → expansion)
    * Agency / services (inquiry → pitch → kickoff → renewal)
    * Marketplace (acquisition → activation → re-engagement)

    Good for teams that want structure without starting blank.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="From Scratch">
    Blank canvas. Best if your business doesn't fit the templates — complex multi-party flows, non-linear journeys, or internal stakeholder journeys.
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Open the Canvas

**Marketing > Customer Journey**

Pick **+ New Journey**, then pick one of the three paths above.

## What Goes on the Map

A journey map has several layers. Not all are required — start with Stages and Actions and layer in the rest.

### Stages

Chronological phases of the customer experience. The classic six:

1. **Awareness** — realizes they have a problem
2. **Consideration** — researches solutions
3. **Decision** — picks a solution (yours, hopefully)
4. **Onboarding** — first days/weeks using your product
5. **Retention** — ongoing use, renewal
6. **Advocacy** — refers others, leaves reviews

You can add or remove stages. E-commerce might collapse Awareness and Consideration; B2B might split Decision into Evaluation and Purchase.

### Actions

What the customer does at each stage:

* Awareness: googles "project management for agencies"
* Consideration: signs up for your newsletter, watches a demo video
* Decision: starts a trial, schedules a sales call
* Onboarding: invites 3 teammates, creates first project
* Retention: logs in weekly, uses 4+ features
* Advocacy: leaves a G2 review, refers a peer

### Thoughts and Feelings

Their inner experience. This is where journey maps stop being theoretical.

* Awareness: "We're losing hours to Slack chaos. There has to be a better way."
* Onboarding: "Okay, this is more setup than I expected. Is this worth it?"
* Retention: "Confident. This is now part of how we work."

<Tip>
  Interview 5–7 real customers for this column. Guessing at feelings produces generic journeys. Real phrases — from real people — make the map actionable. Record the calls and pull direct quotes.
</Tip>

### Touchpoints

Where the customer interacts with you:

* Website, blog, YouTube videos
* Email (welcome, nurture, billing)
* Sales calls, chat, support
* Product UI, in-app messages, push notifications
* Reviews, social media, community

Each touchpoint is a chance to design the experience deliberately.

### Opportunities

Gaps, friction, or moments you could make better:

* "The trial sign-up form asks for a phone number — 30% abandonment spike here"
* "No onboarding email if the user doesn't invite teammates in week 1"
* "The advocacy stage has no asset — we don't ask customers for reviews"

This column drives your roadmap.

## Build Your First Map

<Steps>
  <Step title="Pick a starting path">
    For most teams, **Template Library** is the right starting point — less staring at a blank canvas.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Customize the stages">
    Rename, add, or remove stages to match your actual funnel. Don't force a 6-stage template if your journey is really 4 stages.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Fill in Actions from analytics">
    Pull Actions from real behavior data: top pages in GA, funnel steps in Mixpanel, CRM stages. Don't invent actions — use what you observe.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Interview customers">
    Schedule 5–7 calls. 30 minutes each. Transcribe. Pull 3–5 quotes per stage into the Thoughts/Feelings row.
  </Step>

  <Step title="List touchpoints">
    Walk through each stage and write down every channel/asset the customer encounters.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Mark the opportunities">
    For each stage, identify 1–3 gaps or friction points. Assign an owner and a target date.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Share it">
    Export as PDF (**File > Export > PDF**) and walk the team through it. Pin the canvas URL in your team's shared doc.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Link to Content and Campaigns

Each touchpoint can link to an asset in your Hiveku project — a blog post, an email sequence, a landing page. Click a touchpoint cell and pick **Link Content**. Now the journey doubles as a content inventory.

This also lets you answer "which campaigns map to the consideration stage?" with a filter instead of memory.

## Test It

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open a saved journey">
    **Marketing > Customer Journey > your journey**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Walk through each stage">
    Click each stage header. The preview panel shows actions, thoughts, touchpoints, and linked content for that stage.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Export a PDF">
    **File > Export > PDF**. Open it. Verify the full map rendered (no cut-off columns).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Share with a stakeholder">
    Send the PDF or the canvas link to a teammate. Ask them which stage feels most off — that's where to invest research or design next.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Troubleshooting

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="AI-generated journey is generic">
    Feed the AI more context: your specific product, a customer profile (with firmographics — company size, industry, role), what's distinctive about your market. "Build a journey for a SaaS" gets generic output. "Build a journey for a workflow-automation SaaS targeting ops leads at 50–200 person e-commerce companies" gets specific output.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can't add more stages">
    Lower-tier plans cap stages at 6. If you need more, upgrade in **Settings > Plan**, or consolidate adjacent stages that don't have meaningfully different actions.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Stakeholders can't open the canvas">
    If they're not in your Hiveku project, they need to be invited (see [Invite Team](/how-tos/invite-team)), or you share a **PDF export** — which is read-only and works for anyone with the link.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="No data to inform stages">
    Start with best guesses and mark every stage's Thoughts/Feelings as `[assumption]`. Then run 5–7 customer interviews and replace assumptions with quotes. The map gets more useful every iteration — don't wait for perfect data to start.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Map feels out of date within months">
    Normal. Journeys evolve as products and customers do. Revisit quarterly. A 15-minute team review every quarter beats a full rebuild once a year.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## What's Next?

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Content Pillars" icon="layer-group" href="/how-tos/content-pillars">
    Align your social content with each journey stage
  </Card>

  <Card title="Brand Guide" icon="palette" href="/how-tos/brand-guide">
    Keep touchpoint design consistent across the journey
  </Card>

  <Card title="CRM Contacts" icon="address-book" href="/how-tos/crm-contacts">
    Tag contacts by journey stage in the CRM
  </Card>
</CardGroup>