What is UX? Good User Experience is Good Customer Experience
Most companies are familiar with the concept of customer experience.
Businesses that put effort into customer experience will surely see the impact on their bottom line, but a lot companies overlook a key component of modern customer experience: User Experience.
User experience, or UX, lines up with traditional customer experience in almost every way. The difference is that it refers specifically to the experience of navigating and using websites, apps, interfaces and products (digital and physical).
Placing emphasis on an optimized and successful user experience will pay dividends, just like an emphasis on customer service does.
Nest's Homepage on Christmas Morning[/caption]
The thinking here is that users are much less likely to be browsing a product website to learn about that product on Christmas morning. They’re more likely excited to quickly get their new gift up and running.
This is a perfect example of a company saying “we think about you, and we respect your time and attention.”
If that’s not a good customer experience, I don’t know what is.
UX lines up with traditional customer experience in almost every way.
Why Don’t Companies Emphasize User Experience Now?
For one thing, user experience is hard. It’s often said that the best experience is a simple experience or even an “invisible” experience. That’s about a million times easier said than done, and in reality only a handful of companies have ever achieved a truly invisible user experience. Another reason is education. Executives might not be familiar with the concept of user experience. As I mentioned, user experience just isn’t included in the traditional customer experience paradigm. If the person in charge doesn’t understand user experience, how can they implement and optimize for a better user experience? The third reason is that it’s hard to measure user experience ROI. I’ve heard this from businesses, but I don’t see how it’s any harder than measuring customer experience ROI.What Can Companies Do Today?
There are both large and small changes that can improve user experience. Some changes are simple and foolish to ignore, and others are much riskier and require research or even focus groups. On a small scale, companies can make sure their phone number and a contact email address are on every website page. Or they can provide predictive text in their site search. Some companies even ask questions to tailor an experience. For instance, asking your customers right away if they’re a retail or wholesale customer could save them precious minutes looking for the right info. If they find and act on the wrong info, then it could have saved your employees precious time! It actually helps to assess a situation as if you’re drunk. Often, when people talk about UX, they confuse “drunk” with “stupid,” but if you optimize for stupid users, you’ll frustrate real users. Instead, imagine your user is smart and capable but a bit intoxicated. Drunk people typically exhibit less attention to detail and have fewer inhibitions. On a larger scale, the UX improvement possibilities are endless. Just ask yourself: “What does my customer need to see and do in this exact circumstance?” Or ask, “What can I do to reduce friction and make this process easier?” Then answer yourself in an open and honest way. Ignore all preconceptions and assumptions. You might need you user to do something, or maybe it’s something they’d like to get from you. Either way, anticipating that action and reducing their mental workload will go a really long way! For example, on December 25th (Christmas morning), Nest changed their homepage. Instead of a clever introduction about what Nest is or what the thermostat or smoke detector can do, users who went to nest.com saw this message: “Looks like someone was very good this year.” It was followed by instructions to set up their new Nest product. [caption id="attachment_3266" align="aligncenter" width="640"]