UX (User Experience) vs CX (Customer Experience), the key differences.

What is user experience?

User Experience (UX) is tied to a specific item or product, is mostly used in the context of digital experiences with mobile apps, software products, or websites, and is the sum of a user’s thoughts, impressions and feelings as they interact with specific aspects of that product. It includes the user interaction with a product, measuring stickiness metrics through success rates, monthly users, bounce rates, and more, by following journey and completion tasks through touch points and clicks.

UX success aims to create a seamless experience for users to get from A to B, finding all the resources needed at an easy and fast rate. The design and interface matter, and the main focus is on optimised navigation, simple usability, information architecture, and visual hierarchy. Each of these things usually creates the UX, and it will be either negative or positive for each user. According to a 2016 study by Forrester, a well-designed user experience could boost your conversion rate by up to 400%¹.

What is customer experience?

While UX highlights end-user interaction with a given product, Customer Experience (CX) implies a broader analysis of all the user interactions with the brand. It encompasses all customer interactions with every aspect of your company as they move through the user journey stages. It includes everything from how customers perceive your marketing messages to what they think about your pricing fairness, customer service, product suites, etc.

CX's success aims to create ease in relations with the organisation and user, in which the user feels a positive and insightful experience through interactions. Customer Experience (CX) is measured by metrics ranging from promotions, cultural influences, and loyalty.

Key differences between UX and CX

Both UX and CX aim to establish a successful brand in designing products and experiences. UX is simply a part of CX, but CX encompasses more, and it’s almost impossible to satisfy customers if you focus on one and leave the other.

CX professionals are focused on bolstering the company’s overall brand, working with several different departments. On the other hand, UX designers tend to be organised in smaller focus groups within the organisation and likely spend most of the time designing the end-user devices almost exclusively.

The main differences can be broken down into key target audiences, goals, and metrics.

Target Audience

Both UX and CX are customer-centric. But UX focuses on in-app users, while CX considers the customer journey as a whole — from the initial touchpoint to when they churn. CX encompasses a wider range of target audiences than UX.

It’s important to know the end user isn’t always your customer. For example, imagine a CEO purchasing your onboarding tool for their product manager to help design onboarding flows. The CEO is your customer because they’re the ones paying, but your end user is the product guy who uses your tool to create onboarding experiences.

UX focuses on the end users of the product or service. When optimising UX, your attention shifts from the CEO to how the product manager uses the tool.

To help the end user make the most of your tool, UX asks questions like:

• Do users take more time than necessary to master a feature?

• Are users satisfied with the design?

•  What could make the digital experience better?

Unlike UX, customer experience is concerned with both customers and end users. CX focuses on customers across the entire customer journey. Its goal is to build mutually beneficial relationships with everyone interacting with the brand.

The idea is to create a good brand impression in the minds of prospects and customers to increase sales, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. It achieves this by optimising every touchpoint and channel of interaction between the customer and the brand. For example, ensuring customers take product demos seamlessly is part of CX.

CX vs UX Goals

Ultimately, UX and CX aim to make people fall in love with your company and become repeat users of your products. But they have slightly different objectives that pour into the overall goal; CX aims for great overall customer experience whilst UX aims for good product experience. 

UX aims to help users complete tasks easily using your product. There’s a wide range of UX research methods you can implement to ensure users interact smoothly with your tool. These include conducting product research, developing user personas, building prototypes and usability testing amongst others. 

CX aims to create great experiences throughout the customer journey. Considering the overall customer journey ensures satisfaction at every stage. This nurtures loyalty and increases customer retention. You can create great experiences using a wide range of methods and activities, including CX research, touchpoint mapping, customer journey mapping, customer sentiment surveys, and customer service testing.

At Your IT Team, we are experts in UX and CX strategy and research, and we can help your business master great CX and UX without having to choose between the two. 

CX vs UX Metrics

CX and UX also use metrics to measure performance differently. For CX specialists, the focus remains on customer feedback about the overall experience. They will look at how a client will rate the entire experience with a brand while analysing how many clients the business has attracted or lost over a specific period. Some of the metrics used by CX teams include retention rate, churn rate, customer effort score, net promoter score, and customer lifetime score. The tests mainly focus on measuring the client satisfaction rate and customer loyalty.

The UX teams will use metrics that will measure the usability of a product and how each user will rate their experience after their interaction with the specified model. The designers will look at the ratings in the app store while recording how each client describes the whole experience when they use the service or product offered by the brand.

CX vs UX Together

UX and CX are different in terms of target audiences, goals, testing, and key metrics. However, it is crucial not to neglect one while improving the other. Users can still be frustrated if features are efficient but other aspects like pricing and customer service make them unhappy.

UX has a strong influence on the entire customer experience. Both the usability experience and user experience play a major role in the success of the whole brand. Failure in either will lead to a bad consumer experience. Companies need to optimise the customer and usability experience to remain competitive as the customers and users need to be delighted across each touchpoint.

Brands have come to rely upon both UXers and CXers to help companies succeed in setting themselves apart from the rest of the field, ensuring the users and customers are satisfied, and providing your brand with a competitive edge. And your brand should too.

Master your CX and UX today

Stop trying to choose between UX and CX and get in touch with Your IT Team today. We can help you improve both and achieve your business and customer goals. Book an intro call today to learn how.

References

¹ Forbes, The Bottom Line: Why Good UX Design Means Better Business