What are Journey Mapping Touchpoints

Touchpoints are the individual interaction points where customers engage with your brand, product, or service throughout their journey. Understanding touchpoints is essential for creating comprehensive customer experience maps that drive meaningful business improvements.

What Are Touchpoints?

Touchpoints capture specific moments of customer interaction across all channels and contexts. Whether it’s visiting your website (digital touchpoint), calling customer service (service touchpoint), receiving an email (communication touchpoint), using your product (experience touchpoint), or making a payment (transaction touchpoint), each represents a crucial moment in the customer experience.

Creating Touchpoints

Creating touchpoints is immediate and intuitive. Click the “Add Touchpoint” button (➕) in the floating toolbar, click on the canvas where you want to place it, and the Edit Panel opens automatically on the right side. Fill in the basic information to get started, and your touchpoint is ready for connections and further customization.

Choose from five predefined types that represent different journey stages: 🎯 Awareness (customer discovers your business), 🤔 Consideration (customer evaluates options), 💳 Purchase (customer makes buying decisions), 🛠️ Support (customer needs help), and ❤️ Advocacy (customer becomes a promoter).

The Edit Panel

When you click any touchpoint, the Edit Panel opens with two tabs designed for progressive functionality.

Basic Tab (available to all users) captures essential information including a clear, descriptive name like “Website Homepage Visit,” additional context through descriptions, and type selection from the five touchpoint categories. Journey details include the journey phase (Pre-service, Service, Post-service), user action descriptions, frequency patterns (Daily, Weekly, Monthly), and channel specifications (Online, Offline, Phone, Email). Importance settings let you define priority levels and mark touchpoints as required or optional.

Advanced Tab (Pro+ subscribers only) unlocks deeper insights through emotional impact tracking with emotion sliders, emotional state definitions, and impact scoring from 1-10. Financial metrics capture operational costs, revenue potential, cost types, and currency selection. Persona relevance features target specific customer types with relevance scoring and persona-specific notes. Performance tracking includes pain point identification, success metrics definition, time spent measurements, and improvement idea documentation.

Visual Customization

Touchpoints automatically adapt their visual appearance based on content and status. Size and shape adjust to content length, icons change based on touchpoint type, and color coding helps identify different journey phases.

Status indicators provide instant visual feedback: green borders show completed touchpoints, yellow borders indicate in-progress items, red borders highlight problem touchpoints needing attention, and blue borders mark new or recently added elements. Connection handles appear when you hover over touchpoints, enabling drag-and-drop connection creation with animated tentacle edges showing flow direction.

Connecting Touchpoints

Creating connections brings your journey to life through visual flow representation. Hover over the source touchpoint until connection handles appear, click and drag from a handle toward the target touchpoint, release over the target to create the connection, and watch the tentacle edge animate to show flow direction.

Connection best practices enhance journey clarity. Flow direction should connect touchpoints in customer experience order, using forward connections for normal progression and backward connections for return flows. Multiple paths from one touchpoint show branching customer journeys, representing decision points where customers choose different routes through your experience.

Subscription Tier Differences

Free Tier provides essential functionality with 10 touchpoints maximum per journey, basic properties only (Name, Type, Phase, Action, Frequency, Channel), standard visual styling, and basic export options.

Pro & Pro Plus Features unlock advanced capabilities including 100 touchpoints maximum per journey, advanced properties covering emotions, finances, personas, and performance, enhanced visual styling with custom colors, advanced analytics and reporting, and team collaboration features.

Touchpoint Best Practices

Effective naming follows specific and action-oriented conventions. Choose “Homepage Hero Banner View” over generic “Website,” or “Support Ticket Resolution Call” instead of simple “Phone Call.” This specificity makes journey maps more actionable and understandable.

Content guidelines ensure touchpoint descriptions include what the customer does, what your business provides, expected outcomes, and relevant context or timing. For example: “Customer calls support line after receiving error message, speaks with representative to troubleshoot technical issue, expects resolution within 24 hours.”

Organization tips improve journey readability. Group similar touchpoints by color or region, keep touchpoint types aligned with actual customer journey stages, use regions for complex journey organization, connect touchpoints chronologically, show alternative customer paths, and indicate exit or return points.

Common Use Cases

Coworking Space Examples demonstrate practical applications. Awareness touchpoints include “Google Search for Coworking,” “Social Media Ad Click,” and “Referral from Member.” Consideration touchpoints cover “Website Pricing Page View,” “Virtual Tour Booking,” and “Space Visit Scheduling.” Purchase touchpoints encompass “Membership Signup Form,” “Payment Processing,” and “Welcome Email Received.”

E-commerce Examples show versatility across industries. Support touchpoints include “Live Chat Initiation,” “Returns Form Submission,” and “Order Status Check.” Advocacy touchpoints feature “Product Review Submission,” “Social Media Share,” and “Referral Program Participation.”

Troubleshooting

Common issues have straightforward solutions. If touchpoints won’t save, check your internet connection, ensure all required fields are filled, and try refreshing the page. For connection problems, make sure touchpoints aren’t overlapping, zoom in for precise placement, and verify you’re dragging from connection handles. If the edit panel won’t open, click the touchpoint center rather than edges, try selecting first then clicking edit, and refresh if the panel becomes unresponsive.

Performance optimization for large journeys involves using regions to group related touchpoints, keeping names concise, and saving work regularly.

Next Steps

Master touchpoints, then explore these advanced features: practice with Journey Templates for faster creation, learn Journey Analytics for data insights, discover Team Collaboration for effective teamwork, and explore Advanced Features for emotional flow mapping.