User experience and customer experience are two important measures of a product's success. While they may seem the same at face value, these terms have very different implications for a company.
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Customer experience vs User experience has been a long-debated topic among their professionals. Before we get into that let us get into the origin of customer experience and User experience. We will also take a peek into the evolution of CX vs UX
User Experience (UX) can be explained as the process of enhancing user satisfaction with the interactions between a company's product and its users. The concept of UX was introduced by Don Norman in 1993. He believed that product experiences were made up of three essential aspects: usability, utility, and desirability. He defined these terms as follows:
Don Norman worked at Apple Inc., where he headed their Advanced Technology Group for seven years before joining Nielsen-Norman Group. Since then, he has written several books including his famous work "The Design Of Everyday Things" which criticizes poorly thought-out designs.
Don's original definition later evolved into User Experience (UX) when Jef Raskin, who was working at Apple at the time, wanted to emphasize that designing for user experience requires considering how it feels to use a product or service rather than just focusing on how it functions.
He also called this "Human-Centered Design" meaning "the design and engineering of interactive products and systems for people". He established the term HCD with Don Norman in 1999 after removing the D from USER EXPERIENCE; they felt that DESIGN was important but not as essential as had previously been thought.
Since then, there has been some confusion between these two terms, particularly among laypeople.
The evolution of the U in CX:
When experts began observing that enterprises were failing to get value from their digital investments, they realized there was a need for change. They changed the definition of user experience to reflect how different types of customer interactions have an impact on their overall loyalty, emotional attachment, and willingness to spend money with that company again.
This led to the concept of Customer Experience (CX). Unlike UX which focuses more on users buying products, CX focuses more on customers' experiences using them outside the confines of the organization's website or app. It also shifted focus from solely improving usability towards creating an engaging flow between multiple channels including websites, apps, social media pages, or even physical stores.
A deeper understanding has helped companies navigate these complexities and recognize the need to be present everywhere their customers are.
User experience can be defined as a person's emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system, or service. It includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful, and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership.
In other words, UX design aims to make people's experiences with a system pleasurable and easy. Factors that influence user experience include aesthetics, ease of use, functionality, usefulness, and accessibility.
The ultimate goal is to create a sense of pleasure when interacting with a digital product so it becomes more attractive in the user's eyes over competing products/services over time through positive reinforcement.
Many metrics can be used to measure the effectiveness of UX design. Some of these metrics are based on user behaviour, while others are based on users' emotions or attitudes towards a particular product or service.
Many companies have started to collect data using surveys which help them get information about how well their digital products and services work for different types of people. This helps identify areas where changes could make products better overall. These user experience metrics include:
As digital technologies have become more prevalent in everyday life over the past decade, there has been growing interest in how design can affect both business outcomes and customers' daily lives.
Added to this is a need for companies to offer personalized interactions through multiple channels including social media, apps, chatbots, etc. Customer experience refers to how users feel about their interactions with a company and its products or services. It's defined as:
The totality of the emotional and psychological experience that a customer has with your product, brand, and communications. This includes any interactions between you and those customers; whether it is in interacting with their device (mobile/laptop/tablet) or at your physical stores, through your website or social media channels, by phone or email, etc.
Customer experience, therefore, encompasses the full range of digital and physical touchpoints which create a relationship between yourselves and your customers – from marketing to relationship building – all designed to enhance customers' experiences – either directly or indirectly – with customer service, support, communications, engagement, etc"
For CX designers the goal is to take a bottom-up approach through user-centered design (UCD) to identify the users' needs, articulate them correctly and represent them to all relevant departments.
Some eCommerce sites might only convert 2% of their visitors into buyers while others might convert 22%. It's not difficult for large companies like Amazon to get a high conversion rate because they have such easy access to reams of data about their customers.
Smaller eCommerce sites might not be able to convert as many visitors into buyers, but the tools and resources available to them can make it easier for them to find out what their website visitors want to increase conversions over time.
Everyone else falls in the middle. Businesses conducting surveys to calculate NPS can use data from these responses to gain insights into their customer relationships and motivate employees to serve customers better.
It also takes into consideration the overall lifetime value of each customer relationship. Metrics specific to your industry come into play here, for example, someone working in eCommerce might consider items purchased per transaction or revenue generated per transaction.
This metric is calculated by asking survey-takers one simple question: "How much effort did you have to put forth to find the information you needed?" Responses are categorized as either "very low", "low", "medium" or "high". ACES score of 10 indicates that there was no time wasted and the information was located in the minimum possible number of steps.
The customer doesn't only need to find what they want but also have an enjoyable time while doing so. Both UX and CX professionals play important roles in developing products that meet the expectations of users whether it's an app, website, or software product.
The answer to this question depends on several factors like business goals, industry specifics, etc. However, it can be generally stated that businesses should focus equally on both UX and CX since you need users who are happy enough with your core product (which is developed via UX) to go ahead and buy more of your services/products (which is the overall goal of CX).
So, in short, both UX and CX play important roles for businesses to achieve their goals. However, it is crucial to ensure that they do not overshadow each other and work together as one team to create a positive user experience for your customers.
UX is about the design of your brand while CX is about how well it translates to your customers. They complement each other to ensure that the overall experience with your business is positive and profitable for you. The UX designer creates a better interface that contributes towards making users happy through an improved flow, easier navigation etc. This will make them more likely to become repeat customers which is what CX professionals strive for.
Both are very different concepts but work hand in hand at different stages of the customer journey. CX begins when someone first interacts with your brand while UX starts after they have gone through their first impression stage with your company/brand, whether it's online or offline.
CX professionals work to make sure that your new customers enjoy their initial interactions with your brand. They analyze the content on your website or app and look for ways to improve it based on what they find. CX is a great strategy for nurturing new business contacts by making them happy enough to become repeat users of your product/service.
UX, on the other hand, comes into play after you have had some time to interact with people who have been exposed to at least one version of your online presence.
By this point, if they found what they wanted from our site, made a purchase, and are using the product already then UX will focus on overcoming any obstacles in their path so that they have a smooth experience while navigating through their journey with you.
Customers will experience your brand or product through several stages. UX professionals ensure that users have a smooth journey while using the products and services you offer while CX professionals work to make sure they enjoy their time with your company. Both of these paths need to be taken for you to achieve success as a business.
However, it is important not to focus excessively on only one because by doing so you could lose sight of other aspects that should also be considered such as legal issues, profitability, etc. The best way for businesses to find success is by taking care of both consumer needs and the user experience/experience of the customers at the same time rather than focusing too much on just one aspect. That said, it's worth noting that any UX Studio would likely work in both directions, because most CX work typically falls into the hands of designers.
Testing for UX?
Testing for UX entails checking the product you have developed to ensure that it is intuitive, bug-free, and can be accessed easily. You should test your product on the target audience to find out what they like or dislike about it so that you can make necessary amendments to your online presence.
It involves an overall analysis of how people are interacting with your content. It also includes conducting several experiments which will help you obtain feedback from users so that you know exactly how satisfied they are with your product/service thus far.
Testing for CX?
This testing method is used to measure customer satisfaction with different products/services provided by companies who want to improve their business performance through metrics gathered via tests conducted across a multitude of different aspects.
This is a quantitative approach in which you identify specific aspects that provide value to your customers from an objective standpoint, measure them, and then use the results for future business decisions.
You can conduct both types of tests concurrently or separately depending on which aspect of customers’ experience you want to focus more attention on. By doing so, you will be able to get a better grasp of how satisfied your customers are with what you have to offer at every stage of their journey with your company/brand.
If there is a disparity between these two areas it could indicate issues in either the UX or the CX department thus necessitating further investigation into why this may be happening. It's important not to ignore these discrepancies because, in the long run, they could hurt your business.
Testing for CX vs UX?
While the main priority of both testing procedures is to obtain feedback from customers, some differences distinguish one type of testing from another. These differences revolve around how user experience professionals and customer experience professionals measure satisfaction levels to determine the quality of their product/service.
It's important to note that when it comes to improving your product or service in this regard, customers’ experience testing should always be measured against usability standards while keeping in mind the goals stated at the beginning of your business venture i.e.: how do you plan on achieving success with what you have developed thus far?
If you focus more on making sure your users enjoy using your website/app then they will stick around for longer and will be more likely to participate in the goals you have outlined.
While both of the testing methods for customer experience vs user experience are important for business growth and success, it is best to focus on implementing customer’s experience practices because they put improvements based on data analytics at the forefront while considering UX aspects that will help users achieve their goals.
It is also incredibly useful when it comes to communicating with customers and creating more loyal brand advocates.
