Process Mining x Customer Journeys: What is the difference?

What is happening here? And how is it making people feel about it?

Both Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) and Process Mining help us understand how users interact with a service or system, but they serve different purposes, focus on different data types, and are used in distinct ways. Here's the difference.

Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) → Human Perspective & Experience

Purpose

CJM is qualitative and focuses on understanding the customer’s experience, pain points, motivations, and emotions as they interact with a product or service. It helps businesses identify opportunities to improve the customer experience (CX).

How it works

• It’s designed from the customer’s perspective rather than the internal process.

• Typically created using research methods like interviews, surveys, behavioral studies, and UX research.

• Visualizes how customers perceive their journey and what matters to them (e.g., pain points, gain points).

• Used to align teams on customer needs and identify areas for improvement.

• It may help in assess the impact of these pains in the experience.

• It may help to prioritize which pains or gains to explore.

Customer Journey: What does the customer need at this point? What is the customer happy or angry about?

Example Use Case

A company maps a customer’s journey from discovering a security product to purchasing and using it. The map highlights frustration with unclear pricing, showing where improvements are needed.

Process Mining → Data-Driven, System Perspective & Operational Efficiency

Purpose

Process Mining is quantitative and focuses on analyzing real system data (logs, timestamps, system events) to understand the actual process flows and inefficiencies. It helps companies optimize business processes by identifying bottlenecks, deviations, and inefficiencies.

How it works

• It uses event logs from IT systems (like ERP, CRM, ticketing systems) to reconstruct the actual end-to-end process.

• Shows what actually happens (not just what people think that, ideally, happens).

• Helps detect inefficiencies, compliance issues, and deviations from the intended process.

• Often used for automation and operational optimization.

What is the step by step inside our company so that we fulfil our customer's needs?

Example Use Case

A bank uses process mining to analyze loan applications and discovers that 30% of applications are delayed due to unnecessary manual approvals. By automating these steps, they speed up processing time.

Key Differences

Feature	Customer Journey Mapping	Process Mining
Focus	Customer experience (CX)	Operational processes
Perspective	Human emotions, perceptions, and needs	System efficiency, bottlenecks, and automation
Data Type	Qualitative (interviews, surveys, UX research)	Quantitative (log files, timestamps, system events)
Goal	Identify customer pain points and improve experience	Improve process efficiency and automation
Output	Journey visualization with key pain/gain points	Process flow diagrams based on real-time data
Example Question	“Why do customers drop off before checkout?”	“Where in our workflow are tasks getting stuck?”

People, perception and processes: realize what you need to uncover first and pick your tools

CJM vs. Process Mining

Imagine you’re studying a city’s traffic 🚗🚦:

• Customer Journey Mapping → Like interviewing drivers and pedestrians to understand their frustrations (e.g., bad signage, confusing intersections, or how they feel about traffic).

• Process Mining → Like analyzing GPS data and traffic cameras to detect bottlenecks, slow-moving areas, and violations based on real data.

Both perspectives are valuable but serve different goals:

• CJM improves the customer experience (subjective journey).

• Process Mining optimizes efficiency (actual process flow).

Together, they can complement each other—Process Mining tells you a picture of what is happening, while CJM explains why it happens.