Value Streams and the Consumer Journey

A value stream is the set of steps an organisation takes to create and deliver value to consumers through its products and services, and together those steps form the consumer journey that shapes consumer experience. In The Journey to Service Excellence, John Sansbury argues that mapping and optimising value streams is key to service excellence, because it lets you prevent failures rather than simply fix them.

• Protect the happy path. When everything works, consumers reach their outcome without issues, but you must understand what that path relies on, build resilience to protect it, then optimise it.
• The stakes are high. Sansbury cites 2016 research finding that 89 per cent of consumers stop doing business with a company after a single bad experience, and 86 per cent will pay up to 25 per cent more for a better experience.
• Map in three steps: map the steps for every product or service, including other enterprises' contributions; consider the consumer's dependence on each step; and understand the emotional impact of getting each step right or wrong. Tackle the failure points most likely to fail and most likely to prompt negative emotion first.
• Remediation options include redundant equipment, hot spares, rapid-response supplier contracts, parallel processing, data mirroring and regular backups.
• Assign ownership. Most enterprises have no one responsible for value streams; Sansbury suggests the Continual Service Improvement Manager or Quality Manager, drawing on frontline staff who know consumers best.