Customer experience optimization has become one of the most important things companies have been focusing on. Customer experience is still a new business discipline. As a result, not many industry experts have been able to come up with a standard definition for this concept.
Moreover, a lot of business owners are still confused about the difference between customer experience and user experience. But we will get back to that later in the post. First, let us give you some effective tips to optimize your company’s customer experience.
Customer Experience Optimization Tips You Need to Know
Imagery
Visual appeal is one of the most important concepts when you want to optimize customer experience. It is important to choose a decent background for your product with high quality images. A zoom function can allow a customer to properly study everything about the product. You should also use some videos to sell the product, and provide customers with a better experience.
Specification and Description
The product needs to be properly explained. You need to provide the customer with all the specifications he needs to make a decision. It is also important to list dimensions and measurements. Try to be creative and give some add ons. For instance, if you’re selling clothes, you can give clothing size converters to help the customer make an informed choice.
Urgency, Stock and Ordering
It is crucial to promote your stock well on the page. You need to update ‘In Stock’ and ‘Out Stock’ messages promptly as per your stock. A customer should not put an item in his basket and get disappointment. Similarly, if your stock levels are low, you should keep the customer updated. This may even create urgency for the customer. You can even provide a booking service so that the customer can pay in advance, and request you to replenish your stock.
Specification and Price Options
If the price of the product differs through the specification or color choice, you need to state this clearly on the page. Moreover, if you’re giving a discount, you should show the original price of the product, and current price in a different color. You also need to state the currency exchange rate for the customer’s location so that the customer does not have to make any effort and do the math.
Availability and Location
In case you have a physical store where the customer can purchase the product, you need to mention it on the website. This is even more important if the product has been out of stock online. It is also better to state the stock levels per physical location. This will help the customer decide whether he wishes to wait for the product or buy something else.
Understand the Relationship between CX and UX
Last but not the least, in order to understand customer experience optimization, you need to understand the difference between customer experience and user experience. Most industry experts believe that customer experience is a broader concept than user experience.
Basically, customer experience covers the entire relationship that a customer builds with a business organization through multiple touch points (offline and online). These multiple touch points also include marketing, sales, operations and definitely, customer service.
On the other hand, user experience professionals primarily focus on touch points with digital interfaces. These can be a subset of multiple touch points within a business organization. Therefore, most experts consider user experience to be a part of customer experience. With a better understanding of the difference between CX and UX, you will be able to focus on customer experience rather than narrowing it down to just user experience.
Key Differences between CX and UX
Is Customer Experience different from User Experience? The answer to this question simply lies with the audiences that follow each. User experience tends to be technology oriented or aligned. Almost every job posted under user experience tends to have something to do with the internet and mobile channels of communication.
On the other hand, customer experience tends to come from a marketing or operations background. In simple words, user experience is a subset of customer experience. According to experts, even when a customer does not like the user experience on a business organization’s website, he may still love the overall customer experience.
Similarly, it is even possible for a business organization to provide exceptional user experience, but still fail with its overall customer experience. Basically, customer experience pays more attention to enterprise wide experience. However, user experience tends to focus on a couple of channels.
Online CX VS UX
A basic understanding of online customer experience and user experience will also help you with customer experience optimization. As mentioned above, user experience focuses on interactions with digital interfaces, while customer experience pays attention to enterprise wide experience. You might wonder what online customer experience entails.
Usually, online customer experience and user experience are used interchangeably to explain the way visitors to a website perceive their interaction with a website. Although both these terms tend to refer to the same basic concept, they originated from two completely different disciplines.
On one hand, UX evolved from web usability. According to this concept, creating a website which is easy to use is as important as how it makes a visitor feel before, during and after interacting with the website. On the other hand, Online CX evolved from Operations and Marketing.
Regarding Online Customer Experience, marketing professionals were concerned with various metrics like customer behavior on a website, interactions, bounce rate, conversion rate, whether customers found the information useful and whether they were satisfied with the overall experience. Marketing professionals also consider whether customers would recommend the website to their family and friends.
Regardless of all the basic similarities and differences between Customer Experience and User Experience, it is clear that both these disciplines have one important thing in common. Both of them have an interest in understanding the customer. They also focus on the desire to provide seamless experience to customers that will keep them coming back for more.
Both CX and UX focus on optimizing the overall experience of a customer with a company. Their basic purpose is to let a business organization gain a competitive edge in the market and provide customers with satisfaction. User Experience and Customer Experience optimization may be two different roads, but they lead to the same destination.
