Understanding Value Stream Mapping and Customer Journey Mapping for Better Workflows

Most of the time, two tools may look like they're doing the same thing, but they're really solving very different problems. Value Stream Mapping and Customer Journey Mapping are two examples of this.

Teams that really want to make the customer experience better and make their processes smarter use both. 

But this is where it gets hard: they look at things from very different points of view. And if you don't know when to use which, you might fix the wrong problem or, even worse, miss the real one completely.

We'll look at the differences between these two mapping methods, where each one works best, and how using them together can help you understand what's really going on in your business.

Value Stream Mapping Vs. Customer Journey Map

Although both maps take the perspective of the external stakeholder, they describe different sets of information. 

• For instance, customer journey maps consider a customer’s emotional state while interacting with your brand, service, or product. It describes the emotions, experiences, and intent of a customer.

• On the other hand, value stream mapping is a lean technique that helps understand your customer’s perspective about the value and how you can deliver it. It lets you model the ideal experience you’d like your clients or customers to have. The purpose of value stream mapping is to evaluate how it’s adding value to the product from your customer’s perspective.

To create value stream maps, you’ll need to know what customers consider valuable. Customer journey mapping will help you identify that value and create the right value streams from a customer standpoint.

In short, customer journey mapping is an excellent process for understanding the value stream from the customer’s perspective.

What Is Value Stream Mapping?

Technically speaking, VSM, or Value Stream Mapping, is a lean manufacturing method used to analyze, manage, design, and visualize the flow of information and materials required to deliver a product to a customer.

How does VSM work?

• It’s a flow chart method to improve the steps needed to deliver a service or product. 

• Like any other flowchart method, it uses a system of standard symbols to describe different workflows and information flows. 

For example

• Steps needed to help customers buy a product from the Amazon website

• Steps needed to book a parcel with a courier company

Identifying Value

During value stream mapping, items are mapped as “add value” and “don’t add value” from the customer's perspective to eliminate things that don’t bring any value. 

For example, in the manufacturing industry, materials are items, or designs are your items in the design or development industry. In the administration industry, your internal customers are your items. 

For example, asking customers to register on the courier website to send parcels doesn’t add value if customers are not going to use the service again in the future. 

However, it does add value for the courier company as they may share new services and updates.

Focusing on Values

Every customer cares about the value of the product or service you provide to them. However, they don’t care about your efforts in producing it. Value stream mapping ensures that this focus is maintained.

You can use value stream mapping to enhance any process with multiple handoffs and repeatable steps. 

Although it’s easy to detect and visualize the handoffs in manufacturing, the application of VSM or value stream mapping isn’t limited to manufacturing. 

VSM has progressed in knowledge work because it drives better team communication and collaboration results.

Most of the handoffs in knowledge work come between team members, which leads to poor quality and low productivity. Value stream mapping helps you detect the waste and improve the production process.

You can apply VSM to both customers, and product delivery flows. The product flow works on the steps needed to optimize and complete product delivery. 

On the contrary, customer flow works on the steps necessary to meet the end-user expectations.

What Is Customer Journey Mapping?

A customer journey map is a visualization tool or diagram that states customers’ phases during interacting with a company. A customer journey map stages start from purchasing products and providing customer service or support on the phone or online.

What Should a Customer Journey Include?

Your customer journey should map out different touchpoints of customers’ buying cycle. Also, it should include customer feelings like satisfaction, frustration, or any other experience you want your customer to feel.

Purpose of a Customer Journey Map

An ideal customer journey map helps you get inside the mind of your customers so that you can understand what you’re doing right in your businesses and where you need improvement.

And to map out a practical customer journey map, ensure it’s filled with data that visually represent different experience stages of customers based on their sentiment, intent, and touchpoints.

Best Way to Build a Customer Journey Map

The best way to map out customer journeys is to recognize different phases of a customer buying cycle and talk to them in person. 

That’s why it’s crucial to research your target audience to understand their decision. 

Without having in-depth knowledge about your customers’ needs and preferences, customer journey mapping isn’t possible. 

A customer journey map is a visualization tool or diagram that states customers’ phases during interacting with a company. 

A customer journey map stages start from purchasing products and providing customer service or support on the phone or online.

Your customer journey should map out different touchpoints of customers’ buying cycle. 

Also, it should include customer feelings like satisfaction, frustration, or any other experience you want your customer to feel.

An ideal customer journey map helps you get inside the mind of your customers so that you can understand what you’re doing right in your businesses and where you need improvement.

And to map out a practical customer journey map, ensure it’s filled with data that visually represent different experience stages of customers based on their sentiment, intent, and touchpoints.

The best way to map out customer journeys is to recognize different phases of a customer buying cycle and talk to them in person. 

That’s why it’s crucial to research your target audience to understand their decision. Without having in-depth knowledge about your customers’ needs and preferences, customer journey mapping isn’t possible.

Stepwise Approach: Implement Value Stream Mapping

To successfully implement Value Stream Mapping (VSM), it’s important to follow a structured approach. The following steps help teams visualize each part of the process, pinpoint areas of waste, and improve efficiency. Below are the key stages that make up an effective value stream mapping process.

Step 1: Define the Objective of Value Stream Mapping

Based on your work process, ensure to recognize the objectives for value stream mapping. A good example of objectives in software development is improvement in efficiency, quality, governance, speed, and compliance.

Once you’ve decided on the objective, determine the start and endpoint of the value stream map. Knowing the start and endpoint helps track the work progress more efficiently and reach the destination.

Some organizations map out the entire value chain, which comes with its own pros and cons. For instance, mapping out the whole value chain gives you a better idea of the entire process. However, there isn’t much to do about the external processes.

Generally, value streaming maps start with materials delivery from the suppliers and end with delivery to the customer. 

But if your production processes aren’t simple, you might map out each of the value-adding processes in detail after completing the overall value map.

Step 2: Define the Steps

Now define the processes needed to go from the starting point to the ending point. You can take the employee onboarding process for any company. Steps that occurs along the way might include:

• Opening New Position

• Publishing Requirement

• Hiring New People

• Onboarding

• Payroll Processing

• Induction

• Project Allocation

Step 3: Select The Team

To successfully create the value stream map, choose employees in relevant departments who can make changes when needed. Ensure that the teams can direct themselves to reach the objectives of value stream mapping.

While selecting team members, remember to keep a minimal number. Ideally, six to ten team members are a good number in a VSM team, no matter what industry your organization belongs to.

Step 4: Collect Data

You’ll need real data and insights for value stream mapping. So, encourage your mapping team to invest time gathering critical data and information.

Also, your team members should visit their stakeholders or customer’s office to understand the requirements of the services and products they’re offering. This will help them get a holistic picture of the work process, and they’ll be able to map a value stream successfully.

Your team should have information about the inventory items for each work process, the transfer time, and the cycle time. 

People needed to perform every step, the total number of products that needed to be scrapped out, the pack size, and the overall batch size required for every step.

Step 5: Add Data to The Value Stream Map

Once you get all the information, add them to your map. You can draw out a table or box under each process to add the information. 

If you’re using historical data, ensure that you’re using the current inputs and outputs for every process.

Don’t forget to identify the lead time required for producing the product and the actual time you invested in producing each unit. Also, indicate the pack size or batch on the map.

Step 6: The Seven Wastes of Lean

The main purpose of the value stream map is to eliminate waste. So, this step is highly crucial to creating a successful value stream map.

Once you’ve added all the data and mapped out the timelines involved in the process, it’s time to identify the “seven wastes” which can be the cause of profit loss:

• Transport: Transport can be a waste if moving resources and material frequently from one place to another. You can eliminate the steps involving transporting items if it doesn’t add value to your work process. You can relate to having multi-site product development.

• Inventory: inventory of materials and finished products can be costly for your organization. So, lowering your inventory levels might cause better production — a simple way to understand having developed product features that are not going into production soon.

• Motion: Whether by a machine or person, motion can be wasteful. Excess motion can cost you much money. So, make sure to minimize your use of it.

• Waiting: Waiting indicates the time you wasted during slowed or halted production in a step of the production process while the previous step is already completed. Waiting can also result in environmental waste. For instance, wasted energy from lighting, cooling, and even labor during the halted work period is a sign of waste.

• Over-processing: Any process or step that is unnecessary is known as over-processing. Over-processing doesn’t add value as it involves excessive use of labor, materials, energy, and time, resulting in waste. Simplifying the process or steps can reduce this kind of waste and help you build a better value stream map.

• Overproduction: Overproduction is another waste you must avoid. Unless your customer purchases your products, it’s a waste of time to overproduce, store, and monitor them.

• Defects: You can’t eliminate defects in each step of the process. Reworking or scraping defects are definitely a waste.

Step 7: Create the Value Stream Map

Once you’ve identified all the wastes, it’s time to map out the value stream map with your team. And it’s not easy to create an ideal map, and it’s unlikely you’ll get it in the first place. That’s why you can create a series of intermediate future state maps. Then, your organization can make it a goal to reach these milestones by mapping out an ideal value stream map.

Value Stream Mapping Examples

• 1

  Online Food Delivery App: Value stream mapping can follow the whole process of ordering food and getting it delivered in a food delivery app.  This includes logging in, choosing a menu, confirming an order, the time it takes for the restaurant to prepare the food, packaging, assigning a delivery partner, and finally delivering the food.  VSM helps find delays, such as long wait times or inefficient delivery routes, and makes it easier for the app, restaurant, and customer to talk to each other.

   

• 2

  E-commerce Order Fulfillment: VSM is used by an online store to look at the steps involved in processing an order. This includes choosing a product, paying for it, picking it up from the warehouse, packing it, shipping it, and delivering it to the customer.  The map shows problems that slow things down, like delays in the warehouse or issues with processing returns. This helps the company speed up its work and make customers happier.

   

• 3

  Hospital Patient Admission Process: Value stream mapping can help hospitals make the process of getting patients in, treating them, and sending them home better.  The steps are registering the patient, talking to the doctor, getting a diagnosis, getting treatment, and paying the bill.  VSM shows where patients wait too long and helps cut down on paperwork or better distribute staff to speed up the patient journey.

Value Stream Mapping Tools

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) works best when teams have the right tools to help them see how things work, find waste, and make workflows better. There are a lot of tools you can use to make professional VSM diagrams, whether you like digital platforms or more traditional ones.

1. Lucidchart

A diagramming tool that works in the cloud and comes with VSM templates that are ready to use. It's easy to use and works well for teams.

2. Microsoft Visio

Widely used in corporate settings, Visio offers detailed shapes and symbols for creating structured value stream maps.

3. Miro

A whiteboard that you can use online to brainstorm and make quick process maps. Good for UX and process design teams that work from home.

Value Stream Mapping in Six Sigma

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is an important part of Lean Six Sigma that helps you see the steps of a process from beginning to end and find places where time, effort, or resources are being wasted. 

It helps teams look at how a process is working right now and come up with a better way to do things in the future that fits with Six Sigma's goal of lowering defects and variation. 

Let's examine how Value Stream Mapping supports Six Sigma. 

1. Identifies Non-Value-Added Steps
   Helps detect delays, bottlenecks, and rework that don't add value to the customer.

2. Visualizes Process Flow
   Makes the entire process clear to all stakeholders—showing handoffs, loops, and waiting times.

3. Supports DMAIC Phases

• Define: Understand customer needs and outline the process.

• Measure: Quantify current performance (cycle time, lead time).

• Analyze: Spot inefficiencies and root causes.

• Improve: Design a leaner future state map.

• Control: Monitor the new process for stability.

4. Promotes Team Collaboration
   Teams can co-create the map and discuss problems visually.

Stepwise Approach to Create Customer Journey Mapping

Creating a customer journey mapping is way different from value stream mapping. Customer journey mapping can be complex if you don’t keep them focused. 

So, choose one persona and customer scenario to start creating the map.

Here are some steps you can follow to create a customer journey map:

Step 1: Set a Goal

Without setting a clear goal, it’s impossible to understand whether the customer journey map will impact your business and customers. 

You have to recognize your existing and future buyers and set a goal accordingly for those buyers at each stage of the experience.

To set a clear goal, you should gather data about the key stakeholders within your organization who will touch on different stages of the customer experience. 

Also, to define goals, gather insights about the present customer journey and where it requires improvements.

Step 2: Persona Research

Conduct in-depth research about the persona your journey map will be based on. For example, you can research pre-existing data from your organization’s record to research the target persona.

However, the best way to gather data for personal research is by collecting real customer perspectives. 

Customers who have actually done business or interacted with your products are the best source of the research. You can gather this real insightful data by:

• Conducting interviews

• Taking surveys

• Talking to employees who interact with the customers.

• Call records from call center conversations

• Web analytics

• Data from Net Promoter Score.

While researching, look for information that states:

• How do customers find your product/service/brand?

• How easy/difficult is it to use your website?

• What problems did your product do or didn’t solve?

These qualitative and quantitative data about your customers during the customer journey mapping process ensures your brand decisions are data-driven and customer-oriented.

Step 3: Customer Touch Points

Customer touchpoints are a crucial part of your customer journey map. It refers to the way a customer experiences your product or brand. 

While researching the touchpoints, gather information showing their actions, emotions, and challenges.

‘The total number of touchpoints will vary based on the business type. For example, the customer journey of a SaaS company will be different from the manufacturer’s.

Step 4: Map the Current States

Once you’ve collected all the data, it’s time to start arranging them on your customer journey on the map, be sure to include touchpoints, actions, and emotions. 

Then customize the map with diagrams, images, colors, and shapes to visualize various experiences of your customers.

When you map the current state, it allows you to see the red flags in the customer experience so that there’s always room for improvement.

Step 5: Take Business Action

When you have a visual idea about your customers’ journey, you’ll ensure your products or businesses meet their needs at every stage of the map. 

In addition, analyzing the data from the map will give you a better understanding of the improvements you should make to reach your goal.

Once you complete your journey map, reflect and review it frequently to streamline the journey regularly. You can even take help from the users using feedback and analytics to monitor the challenges.

Customer Journey Map Example

• 1

  Online Shopping Website: The customer finds a product through an ad or a search. They look over the product information, compare prices, and put the item in their cart. They get updates on their order, track the shipping, and finally get the package after they buy it. They can leave feedback or ask for returns after the delivery. This journey shows problems like people leaving their carts, delivery times that are hard to understand, or not following up.

   

• 2

  Online Course Platform: A learner finds a course they’re interested in, views the syllabus, and signs up. They start watching lessons, take quizzes, and receive certifications. After completion, they may explore more courses or leave a review. Mapping this journey uncovers if users drop out mid-course, face UI confusion, or struggle to track progress.

   

• 3

  Banking App: A person uses the banking app to check their account balance, send money, or pay bills. They move through menus, make purchases, and get messages to confirm their purchases. Mapping this journey makes it easier to find your way, makes transactions clearer, and cuts down on user mistakes or support calls.

   

Customer Journey Mapping Tools

Customer Journey Mapping tools help teams see every step a user takes when they use a product or service. These tools let you map out touchpoints, emotions, and pain points from the time a user learns about a brand to after they buy something. This helps make the overall user experience better.

1. Smaply

A specialized tool designed just for journey mapping. It includes persona creation, journey visualization, and stakeholder mapping features.

2. Figma (with templates or FigJam)

Popular among designers. You can use community templates or FigJam to collaboratively map out user journeys with visual context.

3. Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets

Surprisingly effective for simple maps. Use columns to represent steps and rows for actions, emotions, or touchpoints.

Customer Journey Map in Design Thinking

During the Empathize and Define stages of the Design Thinking process, a Customer Journey Map is used to get a deep understanding of the user's experience. 

It shows how a user interacts with a product or service by showing their actions, emotions, pain points, and expectations at each step.

Mapping the customer journey lets designers find out not only what users do, but also how they feel during each interaction. This helps teams find problems, gaps, and chances that they might not have seen before.

For instance, if a user feels anxious while checking out or confused while signing up, these emotional touchpoints can help you figure out what the real problem is. 

From there, designers can come up with better solutions that are more focused on people and their feelings.

In short, a Customer Journey Map is a link between figuring out what the user needs and coming up with useful solutions. This makes it an important part of Design Thinking.

The Bottom Line

Value Stream Mapping looks at how well internal processes work, while Customer Journey Mapping looks at how the user feels. 

Both are helpful tools that serve different but complementary purposes. If a business wants to boost both productivity and customer satisfaction, it should use them together.

You can make better, more human-centered decisions if you know where your process slows down and where your customers tend to get frustrated. 

If you're working on an app, service, or product, using both of these mapping methods together will help you see more clearly what needs to be fixed and what needs improvement.

To put it simply, map the process to fix the system and the journey to serve the user. If you use both, you'll make something that people love and trust.