Although the difference between User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) appears marginal they are in fact substantial.

Simplistically UX focuses on how somebody be it an employee or customer interacts with a thing. In most instances this will be a digital interface like a website (consumer focused) or a call center interface (employee focused). CX on the other hand looks at the customers total experience with the organisation not only its website and includes the often variable yet personal interaction between a customer and an employee. This also extends to the physical space in which this interaction occurs. As CX evolves and matures, large and or forward thinking organisations will increasingly add this capability to its skill set and area of focus. CX like an organisation’s Brand is everybody’s responsibility but does need a champion with sufficient gravitas and authority to tweak multiple team’s interactions across the company to positively impact CX. Often processes which impact customers are silo-ed within teams who will fiercely protect their turf!

If you subscribe to the formula ∑Brand = sum of experiences, the notation that CX straddles across the organisation intuitively and realistically makes sense. Tom Bottorf provides an interesting perspective when highlighting the difference between UX & CX. He describes the outcome of great UX as answering the the question: “How can I leverage this device to create the best overall experience for my customer?” while for CX: “What can we do to build the best possible relationship between customers and our company?”. The difference in outcomes are massive when trying to answer those questions although they appear subtle when reading it the first time.

When incorporating great CX in the organisation’s DNA, incremental changes to processes and interactions probably will lead to more sustainable results over time rather than a slash and burn approach with the hope that a big bang implementation will kickstart and ensure employees think about customers differently. Here being bold and using elements of Scrum through trailing different short sprints of prototyped processes and allowing employees the freedom to deviate from standardised decision trees depending on the customer should allow the organisation to find an optimal service model in a shorter space of time while ensuring the journey to great CX is embraced across the organisation.

 Happy hunting.