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Customer empathy map

Gain insights into customer perspectives, needs, and feelings

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Customer empathy map large

About the customer empathy map

Customers have unique backgrounds, preferences, and emotional responses. Deeply understanding what your customers think and feel when using your product can give you a better appreciation for the problems they want to solve (and how you can uniquely solve them).

This empathy map is divided into sections for customer thoughts, emotions, concerns, behaviors, and more. Ensure a well-rounded view by collecting real customer feedback from different personas or user segments. You will also want to involve teammates from other departments, such as marketing and customer support, to get a more holistic view.

As you reflect on what you have collected, focus on the most critical pain points to address first. Making ongoing and incremental improvements to your product can go a long way towards improving customer experience.

Best practices

Foster a deeper understanding of customers and drive user-centered product building.

  1. Build your foundation Begin with basic information that you already know. Reference existing resources — such as personas, market research, and competitive analysis. This will give you a keen awareness of where gaps might exist.

  2. Involve the team Gather input from people outside of your immediate team. Put together a customer research plan, if needed, to help round out your findings. Add comments and questions within the whiteboard to highlight where further discussion is warranted.

  3. Summarize findings Identify themes in your map and summarize important information. Think of the map as a living document that will evolve as you collect more insights from customers and build solutions to meet their needs.

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