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With rising customer expectations, the need to deliver an exceptional customer experience (CX) is at an all-time high. And frankly, the best way to achieve this superior level of CX is to visualise it – which is often done using a process called customer journey mapping. A customer journey map essentially tells the story of the customer’s experience – which starts at the initial point of contact all the way through to a long-term relationship – giving us critical information about key interactions along the way. For this process to be a successful one and because it can be quite complex, many business seek the assistance of customer journey mapping tools.

In this article, we have rounded up 20 different customer journey mapping tools that will help you create customer journey maps that both fit your needs as well as your budget!

Why are customer journey maps so complex exactly? This is mostly attributed to the fact that there is not just one single way to create one. It often comes down to preference….

Here are three types of tools that aid in creating customer journey maps:

• Journey Mapping & Visualisation Tools
• Customer Experience Software & VoC Software
• Collaboration Software

Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail and that tools that fall under them…

Journey Mapping & Visualisation Tools

For those seeking a solution to simply visualise the journey, journey mapping & visualisation tools might be the best option. These tools allow users to visualise the journey using flow charts, diagrams and other more technically sophisticated charts.

1. Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio is software used for creating a variety of diagrams and flowcharts. With this visualisation tool, users can create simple or more complex customer data diagrams. It also offers a wide variety of built-in shapes, objects, and stencils to work with. The main idea behind Visio is to make diagramming as easy as possible for the user. Note: this is a Microsoft product, sold as an addition to MS Office.

Pricing: Standard: $299, Professional: $589, and Pro for Office 365 $15/month.

Website: www.products.office.com

2. Gliffy

Gliffy is a web-based editor use to create and edit diagrams. Though Gliffy is a bit too lightweight for highly technical diagrams, especially those that require collaboration to draft, it offers plenty of simple features such as Venn diagrams and organisational charts. With a free account, you can only make a total of five diagrams and all the diagrams you make are public. This means if you need to draw something confidential, such as company networking maps, it is not advised to use the free version.

Pricing: Free, Professional: $7.99/month, Team: $4.99 per user/month, Enterprise: On request.

Website: www.gliffy.com

3. Canvanizer

Canvanizer is a mapping software that can be used for many different areas of your business including the customer journey. You can develop, brainstorm and structure ideas and concepts with your team on a canvas. You can use it as a daily task manager, where you distribute tasks to your colleagues and keep track on their progress. There are pre-built templates for different types of projects as well as the possibility to import spreadsheets from a CSV file, or you can start from scratch with a blank canvas.

Pricing: Free

Website: www.canvanizer.com

4. XMind

XMind is an open-source platform that combines idea management and idea-mapping into a single software solution. The software comes with commercial extensions for the world’s leading operating systems – such as Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux.

This journey mapping solution allows users to easily integrate it into their products, place data securely into XMind Files, or create their very own mind mapping application. With great usability, a simple and straightforward interface, and a nice set of functionalities, XMind helps developers achieve effective communication and collaboration.

Pricing: XMind 8: Free, Xmind 8 Plus: $79 XMind 8 Pro: 499

Website: www.xmind.net

5. OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle (created by OmniGroup) is a diagramming tool that can be used for everything from wireframe design to interior design. With this tool, users can create precise and neat customer journey maps that can then be shared with colleagues. Everyone from professional artists and designers to casual data mappers and beginning diagrammers can make use of OmniGraffle. What makes OmniGraffle exceptional is how easy it is to get started.

Pricing: There are various packages ranging from $49.99 to $199.99 depending on if you want Standard or Pro and if you’re using it on Mac or iOS app.

Website: www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle

6. Smaply

Smaply is a visual customer experience management software that helps users map customer engagement and experiences with their company. Using maps and graphical tools, Smaply makes customer journeys tangible. The software also features a mapping tool for stakeholders to visualize product ecosystem and help companies get a clearer picture of metrics and parties that impact their product.

The software has three main outputs: Personas, Journey maps and Stakeholder maps. A Persona editor allows you to describe and define the context of customer types visually, like looking at real social user profiles. On the other hand, the Journey maps editor helps you create storyboards, text lanes and channel lanes to plot customer experience.

Pricing: Starter: $25/month, Regular: $50/month, Business: $100/month, Enterprise: by request.

Website: www.smaply.com

7. Touchpoint

Touchpoint Dashboard is a web-based tool for customer journey mapping. It is a method for visualising processes and services from the client’s perspective. The main purpose of Touchpoint Dashboard is to improve all customer touchpoints in order to enhance customer experience. Companies of any size in any industry can use it to visualize the customer experience, map every interaction and store key customer data behind each touchpoint.

Pricing: Pricing on request

Website: www.touchpointdashboard.com

8. IBM Journey Designer

IBM Journey Designer allows users to start creating customer journeys in minutes. Marketing, sales and customer service can collaboratively visualise cross-channel journeys, set common marketing goals and design tailored customer experiences for various priority segments in a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface. Users can also engage in conversations, send files and notify team members of any activities while building customer journeys.

Pricing: Not available

Website: www.ibm.com

9. CFN Insight

With CFN Insight (a journey mapping tool created by CustomersFirstNow), you can identify every customer touchpoint, assign a business owner who is accountable for improving the appropriate metrics and success of their touchpoints, and who can manage the workflow of changing and improving your overall CX.

This tool also gives you insights into interactions at every stage of the journey (from the customer’s perspective) as well as provides a way of linking customer feedback data and other insights to improving your business.

Pricing: Not available

Website: www.customersfirstnow.com

Customer Experience and VoC Software

For a more in-depth look into customer journeys, however, you may want to Customer Experience and VoC Software – also known as 360 VoC software. These types of tools focus on bringing customer feedback into the organisation at every Moment of Truth (or MoT) along the customer journey. The benefit of using such a tool is that they aim to bring in both quantitative and qualitative data from various channels and touchpoints.

10. MaritzCX

MaritzCX is a platform that allows its users to take data from their different feedback channels and turn it into a cohesive set customer data that everyone in the organisation can use and benefit from. Users can create visualisations of customer touchpoints and interactions within the customer journey. It also includes three Journey Mapping engagement levels that give users access to different services within the platform.

Pricing: Not available

Website: www.maritzcx.com

11. SuiteCX

SuiteCX is an easy-to-update tool with an intuitive interface that combines diagnostics, storytelling, prioritisation and planning into a powerful and comprehensive customer experience management platform. This journey mapping tool provides several Customer Journey Mapping (CMJ) visualisation templates and tools with all interaction and segment information kept in a centralized database.

Pricing: Pricing on request

Website: www.suitecx.net

12. cx/omni CEM Cloud Customer Journey Mapping Software

cx/omni CEM cloud is a customer experience management platform for internal communication of all CX/UX insights which includes a customer journey mapping tool. This CEM helps you monitor customer sentiment, various pain points, emotional journeys, and even performance gaps. Users can also access real-time feedback data.

Pricing: There are a variety of packages which start from €29/user/month up to €69/user/month. Pricing for the unlimited edition is available on request.

Website: www.cxomni.net

13. Clarabridge

Clarabridge is a customer experience management platform that helps users understand and improve the customer journey. Clarabridge collects and transforms all forms of customer feedback into intelligence, allowing businesses to activate the voice of the customer across the enterprise. Data is very easy to interpret thanks to dashboards, reports and alerts available.

Pricing: Not Available

Website: www.clarabridge.com

Collaboration Software

On the other hand, if you’re team is more adamant on using a tool or software that will facilitate smooth collaboration among team members, collaboration software might be your best bet. These tools are focused on working around the journey together with your team. They include generic project management tools as well as tools that are more centered on the customer journey itself.

14. Trello

Trello is a visual collaboration tool for planning tasks and projects. While commonly used by agile software development teams, the solution is also used in other departments such as marketing, sales, support and HR. It works great for customer journey maps too: Trello makes it much easier for teams to work together organising, prioritising and creating detailed maps. Users can add comments or attachments to ‘cards’ (which represent tasks). Trello integrates with a number of online applications including JIRA Cloud, Bitbucket Cloud, Google Drive, GitHub and Slack.

Pricing: Trello has a free subscription, but also offers a professional package ($9.99/user/month) and an enterprise package ($20.83/user/month).

Website: www.trello.com

15. Jive

Jive is a leading collaboration tool that connects team members, upper management personnel, and other relevant parties in the corporate environment. It has lots of advanced features and capabilities, all aimed to help businesses achieve strategic alignment and improve productivity for employees and teams. In terms of customer journey maps, it enables users to identify major influencers as well as track various trends and optimise engagement online. Users can also track every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Pricing: On request

Website: www.jivesoftware.com

16. Asana

Asana is a project and task management app that facilitates team communication and collaboration. Users can also use this tool to create customer journey maps and enable teams to track them collaboratively from beginning to end. It is possible to add team members to projects and tasks, share files and communicate with them. As soon as a change is made or a task is assigned, users will receive notifications in their inbox which invite them check, follow, like, or comment the update. Users can also be mentioned in task comments to keep them in the loop.

Pricing: Free, Premium: $9.99 per member/month, Enterprise: On request.

Website: www.asana.com

17. Mural

Mural “helps you get your team together anytime, anywhere through consistent workspaces you can access from any device, in-person or online”. Using this collaboration tool, users can create and share items to keep stakeholders informed. With built-in templates and frameworks, users are able to gain insights much more quickly. This tool can be accessed from any device using your web browser or native apps for Windows 10 and iOS.

Pricing: Business $12 per member/month, Enterprise: On request.

Website: www.mural.co

18. UpWave

UpWave is an advanced task manager for small and medium business that offers lots of unique features. This tool has a very modern interface with lots of detailed tutorials making it easy-to-use. UpWave gives digital teams the opportunity to plan and share tasks and ideas by way of visual boards. These boards help them to track workflows and streamline productivity. All information is stored in a cloud so that each team member can access it regardless of the device he/she is using.

Pricing: Standard: $3.75/per user/month, Enterprise: By request

Website: www.upwave.io

19. Blank Canvas

Blank Canvas is another collaboration tool that works great for customer journey mapping. This tool is great because it doesn’t force you to create lists and/or hierarchies. Users can visualise the information the way they want as well as create as many versions of maps as they need. This tool also enables the user to collaborate in real-time and can be used for small and large groups alike.

Pricing: Prices range from $5/user/month (basic) to $49.99/user/month (enterprise).

Website: www.blankcanvas.io

20. Workzone

Workzone is an easy-to-use, cloud-hosted project management and document collaboration app that is great for customer journey mapping. Around since 2000, this tool is rated among the most mature online project management software in the market. You can use Workzone to organize projects with tasks and subtasks, assign responsibilities, and be notified when a task is due. You can also connect tasks together to see how a change in a single area impacts the rest of the project.

Pricing: Anywhere from $24 per user/month to $44 per user/month.

Website: www.workzone.com

Mapping journeys in a way that suits your needs

Because there is no one way to create a customer journey map, it’s important to identify which approach you want to take to map the journey. Are you looking for the more simple journey mapping and visualisation tools? Or CEM tools that tie in various channels and touchpoints? Or maybe it’s more of a collaboration solution you’re after…either way it’s critical you get started now if you want to have a good customer experience that keeps your customers happy.

What’s also important to mention here is that these types of tool are only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding the online customer journey. Many customer journey mapping tools are strengthened by the application of a customer feedback solution. Customer Feedback Analytics software Mopinion enables digital-first companies to capture feedback during the online journey and pinpoint where problems are occurring as well as identify what is keeping customers from reaching their online goals.

Know of any other customer journey mapping tools? Feel free to add them in the comments below!