Map the flow
List the top three journeys and every system they touch: UI, API, auth, payments, notifications, analytics. Include third parties and feature flags that gate access.
Create end-to-end synthetics that follow the same steps and assert on both responses and content. Add screenshots so on-call can see what customers see.
Track each hop's timing to know whether latency or outright failures are hurting conversion.
Assign ownership
Make each step belong to a team and add that contact to alerts. If the payment step fails, finance/on-call should be in the room alongside product and backend.
Use tags for customer tiers and geography to route correctly. Enterprise renewals should page differently than self-serve signups.
Keep a component map so responders know which service to roll back or fail over when a step breaks.
Journey examples
- Signup to first session (including email verification)
- Checkout to receipt (with tax and promo validation)
- Trial to renewal (entitlement flip + invoicing)
Report externally
Show journey uptime on status pages so customers know what is safe. Explain which parts are degraded and any temporary workarounds.
Add links to runbooks for each failure point, including how to manually complete the journey for high-value customers while you fix automation.
Review journey health weekly with product to align roadmap and reliability investments.
Continuously improve
Correlate journey failures with churn or conversion drops to prioritize fixes. If a journey never fails, consider reducing interval or complexity to save cost.
Add new journeys after launches and remove ones that no longer matter so the set stays lean and high-signal.