If you’ve ever built a “customer journey map” that wound up in a dusty folder somewhere, you’re not alone. Most journey maps look nice in slides but don’t actually change anything. This guide is for folks who want to use Planhat to create maps that drive real action—whether you’re in Customer Success, Product, or just tired of flying blind with your customers.
We’ll skip the theory and get into exactly how to build, use, and improve journey maps in Planhat. No fluff, just what works (and what doesn’t).
Why Journey Maps Matter (If You Do Them Right)
Let’s get one thing straight: a customer journey map is only as good as what you do with it. If your map doesn’t lead to clearer processes, better outcomes, or fewer headaches for your team and customers, it’s just wall art.
Done right, journey maps help you: - Spot friction points early and fix them. - Give your team clarity on who owns what and when. - Show your customers you’re actually paying attention. - Build repeatable processes instead of reinventing the wheel.
Planhat can help with all of this—as long as you don’t get lost in over-designing or over-complicating things.
Step 1: Get Clear on the Actual Customer Journey
Before you open Planhat, talk to real customers and your own team. No, really—don’t skip this. The biggest mistake is mapping out an “ideal” journey that doesn’t match reality.
What to do: - Interview 3–5 customers about their experience, especially where they got stuck. - Ask your front-line team (CSMs, support, onboarding) what steps actually happen, not what’s supposed to. - Write down the key stages customers go through, warts and all: onboarding, adoption, first value, renewal, expansion, etc.
Pro tip: Don’t try to map every possible customer type at once. Pick your most common journey and get that right before adding edge cases.
Step 2: Set Up Journey Stages in Planhat
Now, jump into Planhat and start structuring those stages.
How to do it:
- Go to the Journey module in Planhat. (If you don’t see it, check your permissions or ask your admin.)
- Create a new Journey. Use a simple, clear name—don’t get cute.
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Add your main stages. Typical examples:
- Onboarding
- Adoption
- Success/Value Realization
- Renewal
- Expansion
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Add sub-stages or milestones if needed—only if they’re truly distinct steps, not just “busywork.”
What works: - Fewer, well-defined stages are better than a million micro-steps. - Use names your team actually says out loud. If you need a glossary, it’s too complicated.
What to ignore: - Overly detailed swimlanes, color-coding, or “wow” factor design. You want clarity, not a Jackson Pollock painting.
Step 3: Define Entry and Exit Criteria for Each Stage
This is what separates a real, actionable map from a generic diagram. For each stage, be crystal clear on what gets a customer in (entry) and what gets them out (exit).
How to do it: - In Planhat, for each stage, add criteria—these can be manual checkboxes, specific actions (e.g., “First training completed”), or automated triggers if you’re integrating with other tools. - Be specific. “Customer is happy” is not a criterion. “Admin has completed kickoff call” is.
Why bother? - This keeps everyone honest. You’ll know if a customer is really ‘onboarded’ or just stuck in limbo. - It also gives you real data to report on later.
What doesn’t work: - Vague stages like “Nurture” or “Engage” with no clear exit. - Relying 100% on automation—someone still needs to sanity-check things.
Step 4: Assign Ownership and Make It Visible
A journey map isn’t actionable if no one knows who’s supposed to do what. In Planhat, you can assign owners to each stage or milestone.
How to do it: - For each stage or key task, assign a clear owner (by role or by name). - Make sure this shows up in your team’s daily workflow—ideally in their Planhat dashboards or to-do lists.
Tips: - Don’t spread responsibility so thin that “everyone” is accountable (which means no one is). - For handoffs between teams (say, Sales to CS), make the transition explicit in your map with a stage or milestone.
Common pitfall: Assigning tasks to “CS Team” instead of a real person. If everyone’s responsible, no one actually does it.
Step 5: Automate What Makes Sense (But Not Everything)
Planhat has strong automation tools, but just because you can automate something doesn’t mean you should.
What to automate: - Triggering reminders for key tasks (e.g., follow-up after onboarding). - Moving customers to the next stage when an integration says they’ve hit a milestone (like “first login” or “NPS sent”). - Alerting owners when a customer is stuck in a stage too long.
What not to automate: - Complex judgment calls (e.g., “Customer is fully adopted”). - Personalized outreach—bots can nudge, but only humans build real relationships.
Pro tip: Start simple. You can always add more automation once you see what works.
Step 6: Make the Journey Map Part of Your Team’s Daily Workflow
The best journey map is worthless if your team never looks at it. In Planhat, you can surface the journey map directly in customer 360 views, dashboards, and even reports.
How to do it: - Embed the journey map in your main customer records, so it’s the first thing people see. - Use Planhat’s reporting to track where customers are getting stuck or dropping off. - Review journey data in your regular team meetings—don’t just set it and forget it.
What works: - Making the journey map the “source of truth” for customer status. - Using journey stages to trigger QBRs, check-ins, or interventions.
What doesn’t work: - Treating the map as a side project that only gets updated before exec reviews.
Step 7: Collect Feedback and Iterate
No map survives first contact with reality. The only way to get this right is to treat your journey map as a living thing.
How to do it: - Ask your team monthly: “Where does this map not match what actually happens?” - Talk to a few customers each quarter about what’s missing or confusing. - Use Planhat’s analytics to spot where customers pile up or churn, then dig in.
Signs you need to update: - Lots of customers are “stuck” in a stage for weeks. - The team ignores the map and makes their own trackers. - You keep adding exceptions or workarounds.
Pro tip: Don’t wait for the “perfect” map. Ship something and course-correct as you go.
What to Skip (Unless You Have Hours to Burn)
- Mapping “emotional journeys.” Unless your team is trained therapists, focus on actions and outcomes.
- Journey maps for every single persona or segment on day one. Get one working map first.
- Over-customizing Planhat with endless fields and triggers. Simpler is almost always better.
- Making the map a reporting tool for leadership only. If it’s not helping the people doing the work, it’s not helping.
Keep It Simple. Iterate Often.
If there’s one thing to remember: journey maps aren’t about documentation—they’re about making life easier for your team and your customers. Use Planhat to lay out the real steps your customers go through, who’s responsible, and how to spot problems early. Don’t chase perfection. Start small, make it visible, and keep asking, “Is this map still helping us do better work?” That’s how you get a journey map that actually delivers.