For a number of years now, companies have been adding execs with Customer Experience in their titles. But only the most savvy, customer-centric organizations actually empower these CX execs with any clout. Most CX activities start and end with surveying and measuring customer satisfaction. Even those initiatives that do dive deeply into understanding customer needs and expectations often leave those learnings just languishing on the floor—without any official or sanctioned input into product or process development/improvement, these insights have no place to go.
And then there is User Experience research and input. Again, although there are often UX practitioners working with—or even on—product development teams, their input is usually provided too late in the development process or discounted in favor of time and budget goals. And talk about being undervalued, one very smart UX practitioner I know makes sure that whatever title she has in an organization, the words User and Experience are not included. “In any reorg, they are the first to be sacrificed,” she explained. “I like having a job!”
Sad, isn’t it, that the most important consideration in developing products/services and in designing customer-facing processes—the wants and needs of actual end-users of these product, services, and processes—are given such low priority.
In her article, “Is User-Centered Design the Missing Link?,” Patty Seybold looks at how CX and UX should be joined at the hip in creating products and experiences that will keep customers coming back for more.
