4 ways your UX and CX can work together
I worked in the customer service industry for the past 3 years that I’ve got to solve customer’s problems while helping the business save money. I found part of UX design is the same thing: looking for pain point and providing solutions that make users feel awesome about themselves.
Product interaction and customer service are just a portion of the customer journey, the bigger picture of the entire customer satisfaction is customer experience, or CX.
UX and CX are different. UX is specifically about the experience a user interacts with your product; CX means the relationship between your customer and your organization. UX is part of CX.
They are related, but they can also work separately:
Good UX + bad CX
You may have a pleasant experience booking flight tickets on a website or an app, but it takes a LONG TIME to reach a customer service agent about refund.
Bad UX + good CX
You may find an app or a software very complicated, but their customer agents provide great services to solve your problem.
However, a successful business knows that in order for it to create a lasting and profitable relationship, CX and UX must work with each other. Apple is not only known for its easy-to-use products, but also its great customer service that really took the company to the next level.
So how can UX and CX work together? Here are some ways:
1. Make feedback easy for users
Whether you want your customers to contact you by phone, email, mail, or social media, make the channel easy to find. List out which phone to call when they encounter [problem] situation instead of a “one-for-all” number that needs 10 transfers.
Social media has also become a customer service tool, we see comments and complaints all over on Facebook and Twitter. How to effectively reach and communicate with the audience is a challenge that worth paying attention to.
2. Personalize your website or app
One of the buzzwords in UX, CX, and marketing is personalization. In fact, CX is the new marketing. One of the best ways to spread business message is word of mouth, that’s why influencer marketing and affiliate marketing are getting more popular these days.
Anyway, personalization means crafting a content that fits your customer’s wants or needs. Amazon has a “recommended for you” section that shows related products based on your purchase history; YouTube’s homepage shows recommended videos according to your watch history.
Personalization helps your users (customers) save time.
3. Create a platform that allows CX and UX to communicate
A lot of times, people who work in UX don’t directly interact with customers, whereas people in CX do. Again, since people post on social media when they find bugs and errors on your website or app, getting feedback from users is much easier nowadays. But that doesn’t mean you’ve solved your customer’s problem.
Create a platform that allows CX to communicate with UX (and vice versa) will help you find out user pain point faster.
4. Talk to your SEO/digital marketing team
A while ago I’ve written a post about UX starts before user clicks your website, which I described that user journey starts when they go online.
The idea applies to CX, too. If people have hard time finding you online, ultimately they’ll just click the ones shown on the first page of Google (which usually are your competitors). You know this because we all do it.
Talk to your marketing team on how people find you online, so you can write your copy in the language your customers use (and of course, understand their search intent). This ties back to the trend that CX is the new marketing. It really is.
While UX and CX may be in different departments, they certainly have some similarities in between. Making a transition from a customer service role to UX is a big change for me, but I’m grateful to have the opportunity to learn from both sides that helps me better prepare for the upcoming challenges as a designer.
