Skill v1.0.0

version: "1.0.0" name: customer-journey-map description: "Create an end-to-end customer journey map with stages, touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and opportunities. Use when mapping the customer experience, identifying friction points, improving onboarding, or visualizing the user journey." when_to_use: | Use when you have evidence (interviews, analytics, support tickets) about how real users move through a product and you need to locate where they stall, drop, or churn. The map turns scattered friction into a prioritized list of fixes. Primarily for the user-researcher agent; pairs with improve-retention (post-aha), hooked-ux (habit moments), and growth-loops (advocacy → acquisition). allowed-tools: Read, Write, WebSearch, WebFetch

Provenance. Vendored from phuryn/pm-skills@customer-journey-map (MIT, Paweł Huryn / Product Compass — github.com/phuryn/pm-skills). Adapted into great-pm 2026-05-29 with attribution. Host agent: user-researcher.

Customer Journey Map

Map the end-to-end customer experience from awareness through advocacy, identifying emotions, pain points, and improvement opportunities at each stage.

Context

You are creating a customer journey map for $ARGUMENTS.

If the user provides files (interview transcripts, survey data, analytics, support tickets, or existing journey maps), read them first. Use web search to understand the product if a URL is provided.

Instructions

1. Define the persona: Who is traveling this journey? Use a specific persona with JTBD, not a generic user.

1. Map the journey stages (adapt to the product):

1. For each stage, document:

• Touchpoints: Where the user interacts with the product, brand, or team (website, email, in-app, support, social media)
• User actions: What they do at this stage
• Thoughts & questions: What's on their mind ("Is this worth my time?" "How do I...?")
• Emotions: How they feel (excited, confused, frustrated, delighted) — rate on a scale or use emoji indicators
• Pain points: Friction, confusion, drop-off risks
• Opportunities: How to improve the experience at this point

1. Identify critical moments:

• Aha moment: When the user first experiences core value
• Moments of truth: Decision points where they commit or abandon
• Churn triggers: Where users most commonly drop off

1. Create the journey map table — and add an Evidence column:

The Evidence column is what separates a real journey map from a fictional one. For every emotion and pain point, mark the source: observed (analytics funnel, session recording, support ticket, interview quote) or assumed (your best guess). A map where every row says "assumed" is a hypothesis to validate, not a finding to act on. Make the assumed rows visible so they get tested before anyone builds against them.

1. Recommend prioritized improvements:

• Which pain points have the highest impact on conversion or retention?
• What quick wins can improve the experience immediately?
• What requires deeper investment but has the biggest payoff?

Think step by step. Save as a markdown document. For visual journey maps, suggest the user create one in Miro or FigJam using this analysis as the foundation.

Worked example — Acme.ai onboarding journey (Indian consumer fintech)

Persona. Priya, 29, salaried in Bengaluru. JTBD: "When my salary hits, help me see where my money actually goes — without me logging every UPI payment by hand." She downloaded Acme after a Reddit thread.

Reading the map. Two facts jump out. (1) The emotional trough is at import (rating 2, 40% abandonment) — that's the highest-impact fix, not the prettier dashboard. (2) Everything from Engagement onward is "assumed" — there's no retention data yet because it's a pre-launch alpha. So the advocacy stage is mapped but flagged: do not invest in referral mechanics while the onboarding funnel still loses 40%. The map's job here was to stop a premature growth bet and point the July 1 alpha at the import experience.

When NOT to use this skill

• You have zero evidence about the real journey. A map built entirely from

imagination is a fiction that feels like data — worse than no map, because it launders guesses into a deliverable. Go run user-research first, then map.

• Single-screen / single-action utility. A one-shot tool (a tip calculator,

a one-page converter) has no multi-stage journey worth mapping. Don't manufacture stages.

• Retention is broken and you're mapping advocacy. If users churn in week one,

modeling the advocacy stage is fantasy. Map only as far as your actual funnel reaches; fix the leak before charting the loyalty parade.

• As a substitute for a funnel/cohort analysis. The journey map is qualitative

texture (what they feel and think); it doesn't replace the quantitative drop-off numbers from cohort-analysis. Use both.

Pitfalls / failure modes

1. Mapping the journey you imagine, not the one users live. The team's mental

model of "how onboarding works" is almost never what analytics shows. Anchor every stage to a real touchpoint and a real number; if you can't, label it assumed and treat it as a hypothesis.

1. Inventing emotions. "User feels confident here" with no quote, no survey, no

session recording behind it is decoration. Emotion ratings must trace to evidence (a frustrated support ticket, a rage-click, an interview quote) or be flagged as guesses.

1. Skipping the support / recovery touchpoints. Maps love the happy path and

ignore what happens when something breaks — failed payment, password-protected PDF, lost OTP. The recovery touchpoints are where trust is won or lost in fintech; map them explicitly.

1. Vanity advocacy stage. Tacking on an "Advocacy → users share with friends"

stage as if it's automatic, when retention is unproven. Advocacy is earned after the aha moment sticks; don't model (or build for) it while earlier stages leak.

1. No prioritization — every pain point treated equally. A map that lists 20

frictions without ranking them by impact on conversion/retention is a wish list. End with the 1–3 highest-leverage fixes, not a flat catalogue.

1. Mapping once and never updating. The journey changes every time you ship.

A map from three releases ago describes a product that no longer exists.

Relationship to other great-pm skills

• `improve-retention` — picks up after the aha moment. Where this map ends

("Engagement / Retention"), improve-retention goes deep on habit formation and resurrection. The journey map locates where retention breaks; improve-retention is the playbook to fix it.

• `hooked-ux` — the aha moment and the engagement loop on the map are exactly

the trigger → action → reward → investment cycle Hooked models. Use it to design the habit moments the map identifies.

• `growth-loops` — the advocacy stage feeds back into awareness/acquisition.

When (and only when) the earlier stages are healthy, growth-loops turns the advocacy touchpoint into an engine.

• `cohort-analysis` — supplies the quantitative drop-off numbers that fill the

Evidence column. Map + cohorts together: the map tells you why, cohorts tell you how many.

• `jobs-to-be-done` — the persona's JTBD anchors the whole journey; without it,

you map a generic user nobody actually is.

Further Reading

• User Journey Mapping 101
• Funnel Analysis 101: How to Track and Optimize Your User Journey
• Market Research: Advanced Techniques
• User Interviews: The Ultimate Guide to Research Interviews