software.architecture

Why Mapping Touchpoints Really Matters Customer Experience (CX) isn’t just about the journey—it’s about the real-world interfaces customers encounter every day. Emails, forms, packaging, signage, error messages, notifications, support chats, contracts—these are the tangible points of contact that shape a customer’s perception. Organizations often operate in silos, with teams focusing only on isolated parts of the experience. This fragmented view hides the bigger picture. A Touchpoint Inventory is a powerful method to uncover and connect these elements, making the invisible visible.

Why Start With an Assumption-Based Diagram? Before you’ve conducted any formal research, you already have something: assumptions. And these assumptions are valuable — if made visible. Creating a first-draft experience diagram gives your team a common place to start. It helps uncover gaps in understanding, highlight contradictions, and generate focused research questions. Even though it’s not validated, it’s a critical tool for initiating alignment and shaping your exploration. Think of it not as a finished product, but as a hypothesis in visual form — a sketch of how you believe a process or journey unfolds.

Why Stakeholder Interviews Matter When mapping customer experience, many teams look outward — toward users, analytics, or surveys. But there’s a critical source of insight that’s often overlooked: the people inside your own organization. Internal stakeholder interviews help surface how different teams understand — and influence — the customer experience. They expose gaps, workflows, frustrations, and opportunities that are nowhere to be found in documentation or dashboards. Whether you’re preparing for journey mapping, service blueprinting, or another alignment method, these interviews are often the first real step toward clarity.

A practical guide to working with internal data to build an evidence-based understanding of your customer experience Many organizations already sit on a wealth of information – but they fail to use it properly when starting a CX mapping initiative. Instead of reaching for external surveys or reinventing the wheel, it’s often smarter to start by looking inward and analyzing what’s already there. The evaluation of existing information sources is a highly efficient and often underestimated first step in customer experience research.

Solid Customer Experience Mapping doesn’t start with visualization — it starts with understanding. Many CX mapping projects begin with a workshop, a few Post-its, and a blank board. The team notes internal assumptions about customer needs and sketches a journey that’s mostly based on guesswork. The problem? Without solid research, every map remains a wishful internal narrative. To truly understand customer experience, you need more than process knowledge or product logic.