Understanding CX

So, what is CX? I very often hear executives use the terms UX and CX interchangeably. While both are concerned with the experience of using a product, CX is much wider and all-encompassing than UX.

With CX, businesses are concerned about every interaction that a customer has with its brand. This starts all the way at the initial awareness and research stage, and entails every little step and interaction involved in prospect conversion, customer retention, and upgradation

Let us take the example of an awesome e-commerce application with a delightful UX and a great back-end technology. However, its telephonic service support interactions are mediocre at best, and the marketing campaigns are sub-par. What do you think the customers would write or discuss most about? Not the technology and the in-app experience for sure!

You see, a single weak link in the entire chain of customer experiences could bring down the entire house.

I want to make it perfectly clear here – having a unified CX strategy is no child’s play. It involves studying the entire ecosystem around your customer and various factors that influence their experience with your product. Some of these factors could be under your control and the other may not. This is where it gets tricky.

What do you do if your product is being used by customers in areas with weak phone signal strength or poor lighting conditions? What if many of your customers have disabilities or seem to be in a stressed/distracted condition when using the product? How will you design for such unexpected errors and circumstances?

CX is therefore about factoring in a multitude of possibilities and taking informed decisions that are pragmatic, feasible, and ultimately viable (technically and financially).