What Is an Empathy Map & How to Create One

Every organization wants to believe that they know their customers inside and out. After all, everything you do is ultimately in service of your customers‘ needs—so you must have a clear picture of exactly what they think, feel, want, and need. Right?

In reality, there‘s often a sizable gap between how well companies think they know their customers and how well they actually do. According to Capgemini, while 75% of organizations believe they‘re customer-centric, only 30% of customers agree. This disconnect shows how easy it is for assumptions and blind spots to obscure your view of what customers really care about.

This is where the value of an empathy map comes into focus. An empathy map is a tool for visualizing everything you know about a particular customer segment—including their needs, wants, fears, frustrations, and more. By capturing customer insights from multiple dimensions, empathy maps paint a more complete, well-rounded picture of who your customers are and what motivates them.

Why Empathy Maps Are a Powerful Tool

Empathy maps are more than just a feel-good exercise—they have a real, measurable impact on your bottom line. Research from Deloitte found that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don‘t focus on customers.

There are a few reasons why empathy maps are so effective at driving customer centricity:

Align teams around a shared understanding. Empathy mapping brings together stakeholders from different parts of the organization (marketing, sales, product, etc.) to build a collective view of target customers. This breaks down silos and ensures everyone is working from the same key assumptions.

Challenge internal biases and misconceptions. We all have inherent biases that color our view of customers. Empathy maps force teams to confront those biases by evaluating what customers actually say, think, do, and feel based on real data.

Identify unmet needs and pain points. By looking at customers from multiple angles, empathy maps uncover frustrations, desires, and concerns that may not be immediately obvious. These insights highlight opportunities to optimize the customer experience.

Personalize and humanize your understanding. It‘s easy to think of customers as just numbers on a spreadsheet. Empathy maps remind us that customers are real people with emotions, motivations, and unique perceptions of your brand.

Ultimately, organizations that use empathy maps are better equipped to build genuine, lasting connections with customers. In one survey of CX professionals, 91% of respondents agreed that empathy is critical for creating loyal customers.

The Building Blocks of an Empathy Map

While there are a few different ways to structure an empathy map, most follow a similar format. A typical empathy map captures key customer insights across four core dimensions:

Says (Explicit):

• What are customers saying out loud?
• Verbatim quotes and feedback shared through channels like:
  • Surveys & interviews
  • Product reviews
  • Social media posts
  • Support tickets
  • Sales conversations

Thinks (Internal):

• What‘s really going on inside the customer‘s head?
• Thoughts and beliefs customers may not share publicly:
  • Expectations of your product/service
  • Perceptions of your brand
  • Aspirations and goals
  • Preconceived notions or assumptions
  • Hesitations and concerns

Does (Observable):

• What actions and behaviors do you see from customers?
• Observable patterns and trends related to:
  • Shopping and purchasing habits
  • Engagement with marketing/sales touchpoints
  • Product usage data
  • Cart abandonment & churn
  • Loyalty and repeat purchases

Feels (Emotional):

• What emotions and sentiments do customers express?
• The spectrum of feelings that drive customer behavior:
  • Positive emotions (joy, excitement, relief)
  • Negative emotions (frustration, anxiety, apathy)
  • Emotional reactions to experiences with your brand

Some empathy map templates also include additional sections to capture key Pains (challenges the customer is trying to solve) and Gains (the outcomes the customer hopes to achieve). These help connect the dots between the customer‘s current mindset and the value you can provide.

How to Create an Empathy Map in 5 Steps

Empathy mapping works best as a collaborative exercise with representation from multiple teams. The goal is to get diverse perspectives and experiences in the room to build the most complete picture of your customers. Here‘s a step-by-step breakdown of how to run an empathy mapping session:

Step 1: Focus on a specific customer segment

Start by aligning on which customer persona or segment you want to map, like "first-time buyers" or "power users." The more specific and targeted, the better. It‘s okay to create multiple empathy maps for different segments.

Step 2: Gather relevant customer data

Collect as much raw data and input as you can to fill out each section of the map:

• Direct feedback from surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.
• Behavioral data and analytics from your CRM, marketing automation, or other systems
• Qualitative insights gleaned from social listening, online reviews, customer support interactions, etc.

Cast a wide net—you never know where the most revealing insights will come from.

Step 3: Capture individual observations

Give participants sticky notes and markers to jot down specific data points and observations about the customer. (Using different colored sticky notes for each quadrant can help keep things organized.)

Encourage the team to focus on capturing verbatim quotes, statistics, and other factual details versus making generalizations. For example:

• "65% of users churn within the first 7 days" is a good observation for the "Does" quadrant
• "Users find the onboarding flow confusing" is too vague and should be avoided

Step 4: Group similar notes into themes

Once you‘ve filled the empathy map with individual sticky notes, take a step back and look for patterns. Cluster similar observations together to draw out high-level takeaways and recurring motifs about your customers.

For example, if you see a lot of notes related to customers feeling overwhelmed or confused, those can be grouped under a general theme of "Frustration with product complexity."

Step 5: Identify opportunities and next steps

As a group, discuss the major insights and implications from the empathy map. What new or surprising customer needs emerged? How does this change your perceptions of what matters most to customers?

Align on a shortlist of key opportunities and next steps, and assign owners to put them into action. This is the most important part of the process—insights alone won‘t drive impact unless you do something with them.

Some tips to keep in mind as you go through this process:

• Be objective and data-driven. Ground observations in facts and data as much as possible, not opinions or conjecture. Avoid making leaps or generalizations not supported by the information you have.
• Encourage diverse perspectives. Make sure quieter voices in the room have a chance to contribute. The best empathy maps incorporate insights from people with different backgrounds and points of view.
• Don‘t worry about perfection. You‘re never going to have perfect or complete information about your customers. The goal is to get directionally accurate insights you can use to guide decisions. Your empathy maps should be living documents that evolve over time.

When done right, empathy mapping can uncover powerful "aha moments" that reshape how you think about and serve your customers.

For example, the grocery delivery service Instacart used insights from empathy mapping to improve their product in a few key ways:

• Adding more detailed information to product descriptions and imagery to help customers feel confident about what they‘re ordering
• Creating a "buy it again" feature so customers can easily replenish items they purchase frequently
• Introducing live chat support to resolve customer issues in real-time

By understanding the nuanced needs and concerns of their customers, Instacart was able to implement high-impact optimizations that led to a 10% increase in order size.

Empathy Mapping Best Practices

Here are a few more tips to help you get the most out of your empathy mapping sessions:

Look for what‘s not being said. Some of the most illuminating insights from empathy mapping come from reading between the lines. Pay attention to notable omissions or contradictions in how customers think, feel, and act.

Balance qualitative and quantitative inputs. Hard data is essential, but don‘t overlook the value of anecdotal evidence and individual customer stories. One poignant, emotionally charged quote from a customer can trigger important discussions.

Create separate empathy maps for key segments. The motivations and perceptions of a first-time customer can be very different from those of a long-time power user. Segmenting your empathy maps will surface more granular, actionable insights.

Invite an outside perspective. Involving someone from outside your core team (like an agency partner or consultant) can help challenge internal assumptions and bring an objective point of view to the exercise.

Make empathy mapping an ongoing practice. Your customers‘ needs and expectations are constantly evolving. Schedule regular empathy mapping sessions to stay on top of how customer preferences are changing over time.

As you go through the process, remember that the goal isn‘t to achieve a perfect understanding of your customers. It‘s to better appreciate their perspective so you can make more customer-focused decisions.

Put Customer Empathy Into Action

Empathy mapping is a powerful tool, but it‘s only the beginning. The real work is in translating the insights you glean into tangible improvements to the customer experience.

Based on the opportunities identified in your empathy mapping sessions, rally your team around a focused set of actions, like:

• Revamping your marketing messaging and positioning to tap into newly uncovered desires and concerns
• Redesigning your user onboarding flow to get customers to that "aha moment" faster
• Launching a new customer success program to proactively educate customers and drive long-term loyalty

Most importantly, empower your team to keep the customer at the heart of everything they do. One way to do this is by creating physical reminders of key customer insights to prominently display around the office or add to meeting agendas.

The more you can scale empathy across the organization, the easier it will be to hardwire customer centricity into your culture and decision making.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, empathy mapping isn‘t really about the artifact you create. It‘s about the shift in mindset that comes from deeply internalizing your customers‘ perspective.

When everyone in the organization—from the C-suite to the front lines—has a visceral understanding of what makes customers tick, you‘ll make better decisions, create better experiences, and ultimately build deeper, more resilient customer bonds.

That‘s the true promise and potential of empathy. By walking a mile in your customers‘ shoes, you equip yourself to go so much further in earning their trust, loyalty, and advocacy.

So what are you waiting for? Grab some sticky notes and start mapping your way to greater customer understanding—your future self (and your future customers) will thank you.