3 Differences between Cx and Ux

High-performing companies are increasingly turning to Cx as their competitive differentiator, driving customer retention and growth.

But when marketers are tasked with Cx, they often get caught up focusing on the online user experience and digital touchpoints, like a customer portal housed on a website or app.

Ux is an important part of Cx, but just a part. Customer experience looks at the entire journey a customer goes through to even decide to use your product.

Here are three ways to make sure you’re not stopping at Ux when you’re working on customer experience.

Why Cx is bigger than the end user

User experience plays a big role in customer experience and should be a significant consideration, but customer experience is more involved than how easy it is to complete an online purchase or how likely customers are to recommend a product or service to others. Cx looks at your customers’ perception of how they are treated by your company through all phases of the buying journey — from deciding to buy to receiving service and support.

Companies that only think about the user experience of their products or services are missing significant steps in the journey that impact sales and satisfaction. The experience a customer has investigating your product, engaging with your sales team and being onboarded as a customer have significant impact on their likelihood to buy.

Focusing just on the Ux parts of the journey puts blinders on an organization, making it more likely that they miss opportunities to measure and improve steps in the journey more likely to impact purchase and advocacy decisions.

Why Cx is more than digital tools

For most companies, digital touchpoints like apps and websites get treated as the full customer journey when they are simply a channel.

Companies are investing millions into new tools – from new CRMs to Cx control centers – expecting this to solve their Cx issues. These tools can be valuable to improving customer experience, but they are merely enablers of customer experience; they don’t create it.

Without the right mindsets, beliefs and directives in the company, you simply have new tools or a team doing the same things you’ve always done. You need organization-wide change management with a mind on solving the customers’ biggest problems. That starts with the C-suite and leadership making sure those behavior changes catch on with the employee base of the company.

Why Cx needs everyone on board

Cx goes way beyond the people at your company who affect the way a digital tool, product or service is used by your customers. It’s more than making customer service a core value or calling yourself a customer-first organization. There’s good intent there, but after that message is delivered at a quarterly meeting how is it reinforced during everyday activities?

It’s important to step back and look at where Cx lives in your organization and understand your company’s perspective on the topic. For example, is Cx the chosen competitive differentiation strategy or is the C-suite focused on operational excellence or product leadership as the driver? Is Cx your driving force or are you there to win on price or custom solutions for the customer?

If the goal is for Cx to be your competitive business strategy and customer centricity is owned by the C-suite, then Cx becomes the lens to prioritize all business decisions, including:

• which products and services go to market
• what business capabilities you invest in
• how you go to market
• how you organize and incentivize your employees to serve the customer

How do you know you need Cx help?

Unless you’ve mapped your customer’s journey, created a detailed program to ensure customer satisfaction with every interaction, and you’re measuring those interactions for continuous improvement, then you probably need Cx help.

Investing in Cx transformation can positively impact your bottom line. The cost to attract a new customer is 6-7 times more than the cost of retaining an existing customer. By increasing customer retention by 5%, companies can improve profits by 25%-95%.

We’ve seen customers across a variety of industries have success by implementing Cx programs that increase customer selling and improve customer retention, referrals and brand identity. Let us help you and your company develop a comprehensive Cx strategy. Contact us today at cx@standingpartnership.com.