Mapping the ‘why’: Mining qualitative data to strike business gold

Imagine you’ve been tasked with mapping patient journeys for critical healthcare services like cancer care or primary care, but you have no existing data to guide you. How do you uncover what really matters to patients? Where do you begin?

The key is choosing the right research approach—one that blends qualitative and quantitative data to paint a complete picture of the experience. In practice, quantitative data can pinpoint problem areas through metrics like no-show rates or patient attrition. However, qualitative insights reveal the reasons behind those numbers — helping healthcare providers understand what’s working, what’s not, and where the greatest opportunities lie.

This approach is essential in healthcare but extends far beyond patient experience. Across industries, combining quantitative data with the qualitative ‘why’ behind it fuels smarter business decisions, optimizes operations, reduces costs, and drives revenue growth. By understanding customer, employee, or patient behavior, businesses can:

• Increase efficiency – Pinpoint friction points in workflows to reduce churn, service costs, and inefficiencies.

• Improve retention and loyalty – Address the real pain points affecting long-term engagement and satisfaction.

• Uncover unmet needs – Identify gaps in products, services, or processes that could drive innovation.

• Enhance competitive advantage – Clarify what differentiates your business and where you can create unique value.

In this article, we’ll explore how to collect, analyze, and apply qualitative data effectively so that your journey mapping efforts deliver better customer experiences — and better bottom lines. 

How to collect and integrate qualitative data

While quantitative metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES) offer snapshots of what is happening in the journey (i.e., is the experience positive or negative), qualitative insights help us understand the why. 

A deeper understanding of the “why” comes from exploring what customers experience, the ease or difficulty of their interactions, and the emotions they feel along the way. By analyzing these factors, businesses can uncover friction points, identify opportunities for improvement, and enhance overall satisfaction — which ultimately leads to more efficiency, reduced costs, and increased revenue growth. 

So, let’s begin by examining how these insights help shape a more seamless and engaging customer journey.

1. Listen to your customers: Surveys, feedback tools, and call center

Customer feedback surveys, including Voice of Customer (VoC) and other research tools, are invaluable for gathering insights into the customer experience at scale. These tools capture broad sentiments and specific touchpoint feedback, offering a well-rounded view of customer needs and expectations:

• Panel research surveys: Capture overall market sentiment, helping to identify common trends and themes.

• Relational surveys (NPS): Gauge loyalty and the strength of customer relationships, offering a high-level view of loyalty.

• Transactional touchpoint surveys: Collect feedback on specific interactions, such as a purchase or customer service call.

• Social media and online reviews: Customers often share unsolicited feedback on platforms like Google Reviews, Yelp, and social media. This input—whether positive or negative—offers real-time insights into customer experiences, highlighting pain points and moments of delight.

Leverage call center interactions

Call center transcripts and recorded interactions provide a rich source of qualitative data. Customers often express their frustrations, needs, and expectations in direct conversations with support agents. By analyzing these interactions—whether through AI-driven sentiment analysis or manual review—businesses can identify recurring issues, emerging trends, and areas for service improvement.

Business Impact: Helps prioritize improvements by identifying which issues have the greatest effect on satisfaction, retention, and revenue.

2. Engage directly: Interviews, observations, and active listening

For a deeper understanding of the customer journey, nothing beats direct engagement. Many TheyDo users dive into design research activities to connect with customers on a more personal level, uncovering emotional nuances and motivations that surveys alone might miss:

• Interviews and intercepts: One-on-one interviews or intercepts (such as in clinics or during service interactions) allow you to hear directly from customers about their pain points, needs, and aspirations in real time.

• Participatory sessions: Invite customers to actively share their experiences and co-create solutions. This not only enriches your insights but also reveals what truly matters to them.

• Diary and ride-along studies: Track customers’ experiences over time. By having customers document or allow you to observe their journey in real time, you gain a narrative view of their interactions and challenges.

• Active listening through call center engagement: While call center transcripts offer retrospective insights (covered in Point #1), proactively engaging with customer support teams can reveal recurring themes and areas where direct follow-up interviews or further research may be valuable.

Business Impact: Leads to better-designed services and products, reducing inefficiencies and improving engagement.

3. Tap into internal experts: Employee and proxy data

When direct access to customers is limited, frontline staff—such as clinic receptionists, healthcare professionals (HCPs), office administrators, and inbound/outbound call center representatives—can provide valuable insights. These employees interact with customers daily and often have a deep understanding of their needs, pain points, and challenges. While their perspectives are not a substitute for direct customer feedback, they offer an additional layer of insight that enriches journey mapping and helps identify key areas for improvement.

• Staff interviews and group sessions: Engage with frontline employees to capture their observations of customer interactions. They can often pinpoint recurring issues or common pain points based on their firsthand experience.

Business Impact: Enhances operational efficiency, reducing support costs and improving service delivery.

Note: While proxy data is helpful, it’s always best to complement it with direct customer feedback wherever possible.

Structuring feedback for maximum impact

To effectively analyze customer experiences, feedback must align with the appropriate journey level. At TheyDo, we use frameworks to organize these levels—from broad, relational insights to granular ones. This structure integrates experience data (X-data) from CX feedback programs and operational data (O-data), such as revenue, costs, and call volumes, to provide a comprehensive view of the customer journey.

Level 0 (L0): The big picture — Relational feedback 

Relational feedback focuses on the overall customer relationship, capturing broad perceptions of brand loyalty and satisfaction. This level provides high-level insights that inform strategic priorities:

• Success: Broad KPIs like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), revenue, and retention rate.

• Effort: Metrics reflecting overall ease of doing business across multiple interactions.

• Emotion: Metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Overall Satisfaction (OSAT) to gauge brand sentiment and loyalty.Example: An airline might track NPS to assess passenger loyalty, while a healthcare provider could use L0 surveys to measure patients' perceptions of care quality.

Business Impact: Helps prioritize long-term strategies and investments based on what matters most to customers.

Level 1 (L1): Key milestones  — Lifecycle feedback 

Lifecycle feedback captures customer experiences during critical stages or milestones, such as making a purchase or seeking care. This level is especially useful when touchpoint-specific data is unavailable.

• Success: Conversion rates for key stages, e.g., booking completion in travel or transitioning from diagnosis to treatment in healthcare.

• Effort: Customer Effort Score (CES) measures ease of completing essential tasks.

• Emotion: Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys measure sentiment during key moments, such as onboarding or consultations.Example: An airline might survey passengers after booking a flight, while a hospital could collect feedback on the diagnosis and treatment planning process.

Business Impact: Identifies breakpoints in key experiences, leading to higher retention and engagement.

Level 2 (L2): Deep Dive — Journey segment feedback  

Journey segment feedback focuses on specific phases within the broader journey, offering targeted insights into challenges and opportunities. For example, this could include gathering feedback on the onboarding experience for new customers, understanding pain points during the claims process in insurance, or identifying friction during appointment scheduling in healthcare. By zooming in on critical moments, businesses can refine interactions, improve service delivery, and enhance the overall experience.

• Success: Journey-specific KPIs like adherence to treatment plans in healthcare or satisfaction with onboard services for airlines.

• Effort: CES for specific segments, such as ease of the boarding process or accessing support.

• Emotion: CSAT captures sentiment during journey phases, like in-flight services or treatment quality.Example: An automotive company could survey customers on their financing experience, while an online retailer might gather insights about the checkout process.

Business Impact: Helps optimize specific processes, reducing drop-offs and increasing conversions.

Level 3 (L3):  Granular insights  

L3 provides the most detailed view, capturing feedback on specific, self-contained interactions within a journey — moments that customers typically complete in one go. For example:

• An airline might collect feedback on the kiosk check-in experience to refine self-service processes.

• A hospital could survey patients about their post-appointment follow-up experience to improve care continuity.

• A bank might assess the ease of completing an online loan application to streamline digital interactions.

To make sense of this data, businesses analyze three key experience dimensions:

• Success: Did the customer achieve their goal in this interaction? (e.g., resolving an issue through a support call or successfully processing a return).

• Effort: How easy or difficult was the experience? (e.g., completing online check-in or scheduling an appointment).

• Emotion: How did the interaction make them feel? (e.g., satisfaction with a check-in kiosk or follow-up care).

By focusing on these granular experiences, businesses can pinpoint areas for immediate improvement.

Business impact: Enables quick, targeted improvements that enhance day-to-day experiences, reduce friction, and lower support costs.

Putting insights into action with TheyDo

With a comprehensive mix of qualitative and quantitative data across journey levels, the next step is to organize, analyze, and act on these insights. TheyDo helps teams bridge the gap between scattered data and meaningful action, ensuring that customer feedback is not only captured but also transformed into real improvements. Here’s how:

Journey AI 

Journey AI simplifies what was once a time-consuming, manual process. Instead of structuring insights manually, teams can use AI to generate and update journey maps based on existing data, accelerating the mapping process. This allows organizations to adapt quickly, refining customer experiences as new insights are integrated.

Integrated data views 

To make the most of customer insights, teams need a centralized, actionable view. TheyDo allows users to copy and paste journey maps from popular tools like Miro, Mural, and Figma, ensuring feedback isn’t siloed across platforms. Additionally, integrations with leading quantitative data sources enable teams to seamlessly combine qualitative insights with quantitative metrics, providing a more holistic understanding of customer behavior.

Bulk insight upload 

Organizations can upload and process vast amounts of data in bulk—from importing insights from CSVs to adding metrics of the same type.  This ensures that every piece of customer insight is captured, categorized, and ready for action rather than getting lost in spreadsheets or scattered reports.

So, why map the ‘why’? 

At its core, journey mapping isn’t just about improving customer experience — it’s about making smarter business decisions. While metrics like NPS, CSAT, and CES can highlight problem areas, numbers alone don’t tell the full story.

By integrating qualitative data into your journey mapping, you gain a deeper, more actionable understanding of what’s happening and why. These insights help your business:

• Streamline operations by identifying inefficiencies

• Reduce costs by addressing recurring pain points

• Improve retention by solving real customer frustrations

• Drive growth by uncovering new opportunities

• Pinpoint friction points before they escalate

• Identify unmet needs that lead to innovation

When you map the why, you build better customer experiences, stronger relationships, and a more profitable business. Are you ready to strike business gold with TheyDo? Start mapping for free today.