If your company is building a mobile app, website, web app, or any other type of digital product, you are likely comparing UX vs. CX and determining the best way to focus your efforts. Unfortunately, many people erroneously believe that UX and CX are the same things. While it is true they are closely related, UX and CX are different things.
If you don’t clearly understand UX and CX and how they differ from one another, your business will struggle to consistently engage users and drive customer satisfaction. This post will explore UX vs. CX; we’ll explain what UX and CX are, how they differ, and how they ultimately work together.
UX Vs. CX: What Are They?
UX stands for User Experience, and CX stands for Customer Experience. How is User Experience any different than Customer Experience? Are the differences just semantics? No, there are apparent differences between UX and CX. Let’s clear this up by exploring each of these experiences separately.
User Experience (UX) is the experience a user has when interacting with your products or services. In software development, User Experience refers to the overall experience a user has with your application, website, etc. Robust product design and an excellent User Interface contribute to the User Experience. Unfortunately, User Experience is hurt by software bugs, features that don’t work properly, products that lack intuitive functionality, etc.
Customer Experience (CX) is the total experience a customer has with your brand or business. Every interaction a customer has with your business contributes to CX. For example, a support phone call, marketing email, push notification, and yes, even the use of your company’s app or digital product is part of the Customer Experience. Great customer service and solid product offerings help build a positive Customer Experience. The biggest detractor to a positive Customer Experience is poor customer service. However, inadequate product offerings, products that don’t work properly, etc., also drive poor Customer Experience.
UX Vs. CX: The Differences
UX and CX work together, but it is possible to provide a great UX or CX and fail to provide the other. For example, your business could have a well-designed mobile app that delivers a quality User Experience and delights users while also providing poor customer support as a business. However, the opposite could also be true. Your company could provide world-class customer support but have a poorly built digital product that frustrates users.
Ideally, your business will provide a great UX and CX. The specific ways in which UX and CX differ are:
- Audience
- Metrics
- Focus
Audience
Your customer and user might not be the same person. Hard to figure out the logic behind that statement, right? However, it is true. For example, if your business builds software for clients, the person or entity purchasing the product might not be the end-user. CX targets the audience with the purchasing power, while UX targets the audience that will actually be using the product.
In many cases, the customer and the user overlap. However, this might not be the case, and it is important to understand the distinction between customer and user to optimize the UX and CX your company provides.
Metrics
CX professionals and UX designers look at different metrics to measure the success of their efforts. For example, CX professionals use metrics like churn rate, customer lifetime value, net promoter score, customer effort score, and retention rate to gauge the success of their efforts. On the other hand, a UX designer looks at metrics like bounce rate, app store ratings, conversions, etc.
Ultimately, UX metrics are a subset of CX metrics, but CX professionals take a broader overview of the data while UX designers drill into the specific performance numbers.
Focus
UX is focused on a user’s experience with a single product, and CX is focused on a customer’s experience with the entire organization. Remember, the UX designer’s user is not always the customer or purchaser that CX professionals focus on. Both professionals do a lot of in-depth research into their audience. However, UX tends to have a narrower focus on individual user personas or target groups, while CX tends to have a broader focus on larger customer segments.
The driving goal behind CX is to build customer loyalty and improve overall public perception of the brand. UX focuses on studying user interaction with a specific product and improving the product based on user feedback.
How UX and CX Work Together
User Experience is a critical part of Customer Experience. However, your business should never solely focus on one at the expense of the other. For example, if your users have a poor experience with your digital offerings, they are unlikely to positively perceive the company as a whole. Likewise, suppose a customer has a poor experience with the company’s marketing, customer service, or purchasing apparatus. In that case, they likely will never try the digital product offered by your business.
If your business wants to succeed, it needs to understand the vital relationship between UX and CX. It is no longer enough to have a great digital product. Businesses need to account for the experience of purchasing, getting in touch with support, and other key interactions if they want to drive customer satisfaction and promote customer loyalty.
Final Thoughts
UX and CX are so closely related that the best decision your business can make is to find a partner that is skilled in both. An app development partner can help your business build a world-class digital product that delivers a quality UX and help your business improve its overall CX along the way. Don’t spend too much time comparing UX vs. CX because both are extremely important to the overall success of your company.
