Customer journey research: touchpoints and pain points

Questions this report answers

Which stages do customers go through, and how long does each one take?
Which touchpoints — search, comparison sites, reviews, store, call centre, app — matter at each stage?
Where do customers switch between online and offline channels, and why?
Which moments of truth make or break the decision?
At which point do prospects drop out, and what would have kept them?
How do journeys differ between new and returning customers or between segments?
Which pain points cost the most in lost sales or extra service contacts?

When you need it

Journey research is worth commissioning when your data shows that customers are lost but not why. Funnel reports reveal the step where people leave; they cannot show the competitor's website, the phone call to a friend or the store visit that happened in between.

Typical situations:

Channels are blending. Eurostat data show that 73.6% of EU individuals aged 16–74 bought online in the previous 12 months in 2025, with national shares ranging from 51.2% in Bulgaria to 95.0% in Ireland, so the mix of online and offline steps varies widely by market.
You are changing the channel structure, for example closing branches, launching an app or moving sales to a partner.
Complaints cluster around handovers between sales, delivery, billing and support.
A high-consideration purchase such as a mortgage, car or kitchen involves weeks of research that nobody in the business can see.

A full study is unnecessary when the journey is one short online transaction and analytics already pinpoint the problem; a usability test is faster. If you only need a single loyalty KPI, see customer satisfaction research. A mapping workshop with internal staff alone is useful preparation, but it is not research.

Sample table of contents

Executive summary
the journey on one page, top pain points and priorities
Objectives and method
sample, channels covered, data sources
Journey stages
definitions from trigger to renewal or exit
Touchpoint inventory
use and importance of each touchpoint by stage
Channel switching
common online and offline paths and their reasons
Moments of truth
decisive moments and what a good experience looks like
Pain points and drop-out
frequency multiplied by severity
Emotional curve
confidence and frustration along the journey
Journeys by segment
where new, returning and lost customers differ
Opportunity matrix
expected impact against effort for each fix
Recommendations
owners and KPIs for every stage

Methodology and sources

Qualitative discovery

Twelve to twenty in-depth interviews per key segment reconstruct recent journeys step by step, starting from the trigger. We include recent buyers, people who chose a competitor and customers who left. For long journeys, a mobile diary over one to three weeks captures touchpoints as they happen, with screenshots and photos, rather than relying on memory. This kind of in-context observation borrows from ethnography.

Quantitative validation

A CAWI survey of people who bought or switched in the last few months measures which touchpoints they used, in which order, how important each was and how much effort it took. Recruiting recent buyers limits recall errors. The sample is sized so that segment journeys can be compared; our sample size calculator helps set it.

Behavioural data

With your agreement, we combine the research with web analytics funnels, call-centre contact reasons and CRM events. This puts a frequency and a cost on each pain point the interviews reveal. Data are exchanged under a data processing agreement and analysed in pseudonymised form.

Optional modules

Mystery shopping tests handovers that customers find hard to describe, and a competitor journey benchmark shows where rivals make the same steps easier.

What you receive

Evidence-based journey map as a poster PDF and an editable file
Report with stage-by-stage findings and anonymised quotes
Pain-point register with frequency, severity and suggested owner
Survey tables in Excel by segment and channel
Diary highlights: annotated screenshots, photos and consented clips
Prioritisation workshop with cross-functional teams

How the project runs

Scoping and a hypothesis journey from an internal workshop — 1 week
Recruitment, interviews and diaries — 2–3 weeks
Survey design and fieldwork — 2 weeks
Integration with analytics and CRM data — 1 week
Journey map and report — 1 week
Prioritisation workshop — 1 day

Hypothetical example for illustration

Worked example

Example: a hypothetical furniture retailer with 30 stores and a webshop sees that many online baskets containing sofas are abandoned, while store sales of the same models hold up. The e-commerce team suspects the checkout.

Interviews and two-week diaries with recent sofa buyers tell a different story. Most shoppers browse online, then visit a store to feel the fabric and test comfort. In the store, staff cannot see the online basket, so customers start again, and many leave to compare elsewhere. The moment of truth is not payment but delivery: shoppers want a firm delivery date before they commit, and the webshop only shows it after checkout.

The survey confirms that delivery uncertainty is the most common reason for postponing the purchase. The retailer makes baskets visible to store staff, lets customers order fabric samples online and shows delivery slots on the product page. Effort scores at delivery become a new KPI for each stage.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Mapping from inside the organisation. Internal workshops produce maps that mirror the org chart; validate every stage with customers.
Interviewing only customers who bought. People who chose a competitor or abandoned the process show where the journey fails.
Long recall periods. Customers forget touchpoints within weeks; recruit recent buyers and use diaries for long journeys.
Treating the map as the end product. Without owners and KPIs for each stage, nothing changes.
One journey for everyone. First-time and repeat buyers, or private and business customers, often follow different paths; a segmentation helps define the groups.

Who it suits

Suitable for	Why
Banks and insurers	Mortgages and claims involve many steps and handovers
Retailers with stores and a webshop	Channel switching is common and hard to see in sales data
Telecoms and utilities	Onboarding and moving-home journeys generate most complaints
SaaS and B2B suppliers	Buying committees and trial-to-paid steps stretch over weeks
Car, travel and education providers	High-consideration choices involve long research phases

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a journey map and journey research?

A journey map is a visual summary of stages, touchpoints and feelings. Journey research is the evidence behind it: interviews, diaries, survey data and analytics that show which steps really happen, how often and how they feel to customers. A map without research often reflects internal assumptions.

How long does a customer journey study take?

Most studies take five to eight weeks. Qualitative fieldwork, especially diaries for long journeys, takes two to three weeks, and the survey adds about two more. Covering several segments, countries or journeys, such as purchase and claims, extends the schedule.

How many interviews and survey responses are needed?

For the qualitative stage, twelve to twenty interviews per key segment usually reach the point where new interviews add little. The survey must be large enough to compare segments and channels, which typically means at least 100 completes per group you want to report.

What affects the cost of journey research?

The number of journeys, segments and countries, the mix of interviews and diaries, survey sample size, the difficulty of recruiting people who left or chose a competitor, and how much analytics and CRM data must be integrated. Tell us about your journey and request a quote.

Can you work with our analytics and CRM data safely?

Yes. We sign a data processing agreement, receive only the fields needed for the analysis, work with pseudonymised identifiers and delete the data at the end of the project. Respondents are informed and give consent under GDPR, and recordings are used only with explicit permission.

How do we keep the journey map up to date?

Assign a KPI and an owner to each stage and measure them regularly, for example with transactional surveys after key touchpoints. A follow-up round of interviews every year or after major changes keeps the map current, and UX research can test digital fixes before they go live.

Sources

Updated: 5 Nov 2026

Customer journey research: map the touchpoints and fix the moments that lose customers