HubSpot Empathy Map Guide: How to Turn Customer Insight Into Better Decisions

What a HubSpot empathy map should contain

An empathy map is a collaborative snapshot of a customer in context. It is often organized into six areas: says, does, thinks, feels, pains, and gains. A short scenario and customer description sit above or beside the map so that every note remains anchored to the same situation.

• Says: direct customer language from interviews, calls, surveys, chats, reviews, or support conversations.
• Does: observable actions, such as comparing options, abandoning a form, asking for approval, or returning to a help article.
• Thinks: questions, beliefs, and concerns that may not be spoken directly.
• Feels: emotions such as uncertainty, urgency, confidence, frustration, or relief.
• Pains: obstacles that make progress difficult or risky.
• Gains: practical, emotional, or organizational outcomes the customer wants.

This distinction matters because the same person may behave differently at different points in the customer journey. A finance leader approving a purchase has different concerns from an operations manager trying to configure the system. If both situations are placed on one map, the result is usually too broad to guide a specific decision.

Start with a question, not a template

Before choosing a digital canvas or asking a team to add sticky notes, define the decision the map should support. Useful questions include:

• Why are qualified prospects failing to move from discovery to a proposal?
• Where does a new customer become uncertain during onboarding?
• Why are support requests being reopened after an initial response?
• What information does a buyer need before involving another stakeholder?
• Which customer pain should be addressed first in the next service or process improvement?

A clear question controls the scope of the research and makes the finished map easier to use. It also helps prevent a common failure mode: collecting interesting observations that do not lead to a decision.

Define the customer and scenario

Write a short scenario that includes the customer, the moment being studied, and the desired outcome. For example, “Operations manager evaluating a CRM migration while trying to protect existing customer data” is more useful than “B2B buyer.” The first statement gives the team a situation in which thoughts, feelings, behaviors, pains, and gains can be examined.

Separate evidence from interpretation

Use direct quotes and observed behavior as evidence. Treat inferred thoughts and emotions as hypotheses until they are supported by research. A customer saying, “I need to know who owns the next step,” is evidence. Writing “the customer feels anxious about implementation” may be a reasonable interpretation, but it should be marked as such unless the customer expressed that emotion.

This separation makes the map more trustworthy. It also gives the team a practical way to improve it: validate the uncertain statements instead of debating them internally.

How to build a HubSpot empathy map step by step

1. Gather customer evidence

Use several evidence sources where possible. Interviews and usability sessions can reveal motivations and language. Sales and support conversations can expose objections, confusion, and recurring handoff problems. Surveys, product behavior, conversion data, and search queries can add scale or show where a behavior occurs.

Do not treat every source as equally useful for every question. A support ticket may show the point of failure but not the customer’s original expectation. A product event may show that a feature was not used but not why. The objective is not to gather the largest data set. It is to build a sufficiently grounded explanation of the situation.

2. Fill the says and does sections first

Start with what can be observed. Add short quotes to the says section and specific actions to the does section. Avoid paraphrases that remove useful detail. “I need to check this with our data team” can reveal an approval dependency that “needs stakeholder approval” hides.

For behavior, describe actions rather than judgments. “Returns to the pricing page three times” is more useful than “is interested.” “Exports data before requesting a demo” may reveal a concern about migration or reporting.

3. Develop thinks and feels carefully

Use the evidence to propose likely thoughts and emotions, but label these as hypotheses. Look for contradictions. A customer may say that speed matters while spending several weeks seeking internal approval. That does not make the research inconsistent. It may mean that speed matters only after risk has been reduced.

These sections should explain behavior, not decorate the map with generic emotions. “Worried that implementation will disrupt existing reporting” is more actionable than “concerned.” It points toward a possible response, such as clearer migration guidance, a visible implementation owner, or an earlier proof of reporting continuity.

4. Identify pains and gains

Pains are not limited to product defects. They can include unclear ownership, repeated data entry, slow approvals, conflicting advice, lack of confidence, or the effort required to coordinate several teams. Gains should also go beyond vague outcomes such as “better service.” Specify what progress looks like for the customer, such as faster approval, fewer follow-up emails, confidence in the data, or a clear next step.

Turn empathy map findings into business actions

The map becomes valuable when it changes how work is designed. Review each insight and ask what type of response it requires. Some findings belong in content or sales enablement. Others require a service change, a CRM field, a clearer handoff, or a change to the customer journey.

Improve messaging without inventing customer language

Use repeated customer phrases to test headlines, sales talk tracks, onboarding instructions, and help content. Preserve the meaning of the original language rather than forcing it into internal terminology. If customers describe a problem as “not knowing what happens after I submit this,” a process explanation may be more useful than another feature description.

Improve CRM and handoffs

Empathy map findings can expose weaknesses in the operating system behind the customer experience. If customers keep repeating information, the issue may be missing CRM data or poor ownership rather than weak communication. If a customer does not know what happens next, the process may lack a defined stage, trigger, or responsible person.

When applying findings in HubSpot, use fields and pipeline stages only when they represent meaningful business information. A stage should indicate a real state, such as “requirements confirmed” or “implementation owner assigned,” rather than simply “email sent.” This makes reporting more useful and gives teams a clearer basis for action. ConsultEvo’s HubSpot consulting services can be relevant when empathy research points to pipeline, workflow, reporting, or integration changes.

Connect insights to decisions and measures

Each important finding should have an owner and a review point. For example, a marketing owner may revise a page based on customer language, a sales owner may update qualification questions, and an operations owner may redesign a handoff. Select a measure that reflects the decision, such as completion of a required step, time to response, rework, conversion between meaningful stages, or the number of reopened requests.

Do not automatically connect every insight to a KPI. A measure is useful when it helps someone decide whether to continue, change, or stop an intervention.

Example: using an empathy map to fix a CRM handoff

Consider a hypothetical software company whose prospects often agree that a solution is relevant but delay after a sales demonstration. Research shows that prospects say they need “a simple plan for implementation.” They compare several vendors, ask the same technical questions repeatedly, and worry that their internal team will inherit extra work. The likely pain is not only product uncertainty. It is uncertainty about ownership and effort.

The company could respond by adding more promotional content, but the map suggests a more specific sequence: provide an implementation outline, identify the customer-side owner, record unresolved technical questions, and define the next step before the opportunity leaves the sales stage. The CRM can support that process, but it should not be used to disguise an undefined process.

This example illustrates a broader rule: when the customer experience feels confusing, inspect the internal handoff behind it. The right improvement may involve content, workflow design, training, data capture, or all four.

Keep the empathy map useful over time

An empathy map should be treated as a working research artifact, not a permanent truth about a persona. Review it when the product, audience, process, or customer journey changes. Keep the date, source of evidence, scenario, and unresolved assumptions visible so later users can understand its limits.

Versioning is useful when teams revisit the same journey. A later map may show that a pain has been reduced, moved to another stage, or replaced by a new issue. That change is more informative than silently overwriting the original assumptions.

For teams working across CRM, automation, and operations, empathy mapping can also provide a useful starting point for broader CRM architecture and process design. If the research reveals disconnected systems or repeated manual work, the next step should be to clarify the process and ownership before selecting an automation.

The central test is simple: can a team member read the map and understand what should happen next? If not, refine the scenario, remove unsupported claims, and connect the strongest insight to a specific decision.