Is User Experience And Customer Experience Same?

A customer is a user so, the customer experience is just another term for user experience. One word can indeed have different meanings or vice versa. But here, these two experiences are totally different. It’s no one’s fault since the names sound so identical, but let’s dig deeper to find out what’s the difference between CX and UX.

User experience is what a customer experiences while interacting with the product, website, or app. It is measured by gathering satisfaction reports, calculating clicks, customer care inquiries, etc. If the user finds the product/service hard to use or navigate, it has a poor user experience.

The Nielsen Norman Group defined UX as:

All aspects of the end user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.

While on the other hand, Customer Experience (CX) is a big picture. It is the experience a user (customer) has whenever they interact with our company or brand. Again, it can also be measured with satisfaction reports, recommendation rates, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction.

Forrester defines CX as:

How customers perceive their interactions with your company is what CX is.

Though both are different concepts, both are incredibly important. User experience is a subset of customer experience. For your product/service to impress the customer, its UX should be flawless. This, in turn, will improve CX. For example - if a website/app is not aesthetic and is hard to navigate, the user will be lost and frustrated. This is not a good sign as it can cost you bad. You will lose not one but many users. He won’t recommend it to anybody regardless of how innovative or handy your product/service is.

Below are the 4 notable differences between UX and CX:

• CX focuses on the whole experience along with all channels of the brand. Whereas UX is more specific, tending to focus on a particular app or website.

• CX is believed to have a marketing and branding background. While UX comes from various backgrounds, such as technical, design, or psychology.

• CX guys tend to survey large amounts of people to see what they think of a product or service. UX is all about placing more emphasis on getting to know smaller groups of people really well.

• CX guys focus mainly on boosting revenues via advertising, improving customer service, and creating a stronger brand. UX guys are aware of these too, but they focus on usability as their primary way of getting there.

In a nutshell

CX and UX have both differences as well as similarities. The two are equally necessary for your product/service to satisfy a user. If you want your user to be happy and return to you and recommend you, consider yourself an ‘Experience Manager’ rather than thinking solely of the user. Once you succeed in providing a great experience that goes above and beyond what is offered by competitors. The sky will be the limit for your product/service.

If you too want to give an excellent UX and CX to your users, you can contact us at info@acquaintsoft.com or give us a call at +1 773 377 6499. You can then let us know how and what experience you want to give your users/customers.