Managing User & Customer Experience in Digital Environment

This presentation is about managing customer and user experience in digital environment.

1. Managing Customer & User Experiences in Digital Environment Salman Tahir, PMP

2. Learning Outcomes Demonstrate an advanced level of knowledge of the importance of CX and UX within digital business environment. Critically evaluate CRM data sets to make informed business choices and decisions within a specific industry. Appraise the importance of ethical , legal and regulatory frameworks when handling customer data demonstrating evidence of high-level research. Design fully justified and advanced level customer journeys and experiences.

3. Lecture # 5 During this lesson we will specifically look at: What part does UX management play in CX management? What is the Digital Shelf and how does it tie in with UX management? What is Omnichannel UX and how does it tie in with UX management? What role does Artificial Intelligence play in UX management and design? What is the UX design process?

4. Moving From CX to UX So far in the module we have placed our focus upon the various elements of CX management, from the consumer to touchpoints, to the Buyer Decision Making Process. We have also explored customer journey maps, service design, relationship marketing, marketing personalization and the role of data within the CX process. All of the previously mentioned topics play key roles in ensuring that CX management is fully understood and the strategies applied successfully. Now we will begin to look at another practice that plays an integral part in successful CX management and design, a topic that we have previously touched upon briefly, that of User Experience (UX) Management and subsequently User Experience (UX) Design.

5. Moving From CX to UX In our first lesson we explored the differences between CX and UX and also looked at how each practice works together in combination. Whilst CX looks at the entirety of a customer’s interactions with a brand and how they make their way through the customer journey, UX management focuses upon the UX design, namely usability and experience users receive whilst interacting with specific touchpoints in the customer journey (usually digital touchpoints). It could be said that implementation of successful UX design and management principles makes it much easier to have successful CX management (Porter, 2021).  

6. Moving From CX to UX During UX design, a designer would ordinarily focus upon a single touchpoint and ensure that users were able to complete their desired goal for that platform. That goal could be to make a purchase, sign-up for a newsletter or subscribe to a social channel. Although, as mentioned previously, UX design mainly focuses upon digital touchpoints such as websites, apps and even social media channels, the principles can also be applied to non-digital touchpoints as well. An example of such a non-digital touchpoint could be a call center where a customer may need to report a product fault and apply for a return. In this case whilst the customer would be having an interaction with the organization, it would be though the telephone non-digitally. 

7. Moving From CX to UX It is important to remember that when considering UX design from a CX management perspective, it is not enough to make the touchpoint in question as easy to use a possible from a standalone point of view, it must be considered in the context of the whole customer journey. For example, if a customer was in their Information Hunt phase of the Buyer Decision Making Process, should they be greeted with an introductory offer as they are visiting the site for the first time, therefore potentially giving your product/service an advantage in the next ‘Evaluation of Alternatives’ stage?   Taking a broader UX management approach however would mean that all appropriate touchpoints across the customer journey would be subject to the UX design process. A customer journey map would be used to identify the touchpoints that would need to be addressed from a UX perspective.

8. The Digital Shelf We know that customers can have various interactions with a brand across their journeys to what will hopefully be the fulfilment of their goal, this could be a purchase, subscription or social media engagement for example.. Throughout this journey, customers will inevitably come across a brand’s product or service in various ways, perhaps through search results, on the website, on an app, or even on their social feeds.  Each of these digital touchpoints that places the brand’s product or service in front of the customer can, in-combination, be referred to as the digital shelf.

9. The Digital Shelf The digital shelf is where customers can discover, get further information on and purchase a brand or organization's products or services ( Dirsehan , 2020).   The digital shelf can be seen to sit at the intersection of CX management and UX design. The importance of the digital shelf comes from the fact that it aims to place a brand or organization's products or services in front of the customer at exactly the most important points in the customer journey. This would be the Problem Recognition and Information Search stages of the Buyer Decision Making Process. 

10. The Digital Shelf If a customer makes a search for a product or service that a specific brand or organization offers, it is a great opportunity for the brand to be discovered by the customer. In this instance it would be essential for the brand or organization to appear as close to the top of search results as possible for the search query entered by the customer. The brand or organization could also offer direct from social purchasing across various social platforms, in this case they would need to ensure their offer across the various platforms is suitably engaging to the customer.

11. Omnichannel UX Watch the video below for a quick introduction to Omnichannel UX. https://youtu.be/mhmu0XUaTuM In previous generations, consumers’ interactions with brands and organizations tended to be focused solely on a single channel or method. They would visit physically in-store, carry out their information search, perhaps do the same at competing stores before making a purchase. Or perhaps they would carry out the same process online using the brand or organization's website. Generally speaking, there would not be any overlap or movement across channels. 

12. Omnichannel UX As we have learnt previously, the modern consumer is a lot more varied and even unpredictable in their approach to purchasing decisions. Their customer journey moves them from one channel to another and maybe even back again before finally making that purchase or completing another predefined goal. For example, a customer may carry out an initial information search on an organization's website, but they may want to physically view the product in-person before deciding to purchase.  After this they may find out that if they download the brand’s app and purchase the product on there then they can receive 10% off, so they then continue to download the app and make the purchase. Then depending upon their satisfaction with the purchase, they may choose to post about it across their social media channels. 

13. Omnichannel UX This typical journey takes the customer across multiple channels, perhaps upon multiple occasions before finally making their purchase and completing their post-purchase evaluation on social media. It is in this scenario that Omnichannel UX comes into play. Omnichannel UX makes sure that customers receive the same experience across channels ( Mason and Knights , 2019), making it effortless for them to move from one touchpoint to another without any barriers or obstacles to prevent them from completing their goal.  Watch the Gartner case study below which focuses upon US electronics brand Best Buy and their omnichannel excellence. https://youtu.be/dXvTywAswXI

14. The Digital Customer Experience (AI & Automation) We have previously covered the topic of data and its role in marketing and the customer journey. The use of data is part of a larger movement that is impacting many areas of society, with marketing being one of them, that movement is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. With an ever increasing number of brands and organizations now alert to the importance of tracking and optimizing customer journeys, AI and automation is being used as a method of ensuring journeys are as consistent and as error-free as possible. 

15. The Digital Customer Experience (AI & Automation) Some of the roles that AI and automation play in the customer journey can be in combination with data. They facilitate the collection of the customer and user information which allows brands and organizations to offer a higher degree of personalization in both their marketing efforts and their products and services themselves, as discussed previously ( Struhl ,  2017). AI and automation can also be inserted into the customer journey as a method of customer service in the shape of chatbots and/or automated phone systems, where a computer is able to direct customer calls to the correct department through voice chat. 

16. The Digital Customer Experience (AI & Automation) As much as these AI and automation integrations are designed and intended to benefit customers as they make their way through the Buyer Decision Making Process, there has also inevitably been negative feedback of some of these methods.  Some customers do not like interacting with a chatbot or an automated AI driven voice over the phone, they prefer human to human interaction .

17. The Digital Customer Experience (AI & Automation) This is something the brand needs to think about deeply as from an organizational perspective, the more automated a customer journey can be, the greater the savings that can be made in terms of human resources.  However, this needs to be balanced with customer feelings towards automated touchpoints as mentioned previously, because negative perception of automation can lead to overall negative customer experience and brand dissatisfaction for the customer.    

18. The UX Design Process In this lesson so far we have explored UX management in more detail and seen how it works on a touchpoint specific basis within the CX management process. As mentioned previously, UX management ensures that the practice of UX design has been applied across touchpoints and channels as appropriate, so it is important to understand the process of UX design and its various stages in greater detail. 

19. The UX Design Process UX design views any platform (usually digital) from the user perspective, ensuring that it is as simple as possible for the user to achieve their specific goal whilst using the platform. In order to do that UX practitioners follow an established process known as Design Thinking (NN Group, 2016). The Design Thinking process came about to address design-centric business problems and consists of 3 stages, understand, explore, materialize. Within these 3 stages sit smaller phases, empathies, define, ideate, prototype, test and implement. The link to the image below provides a visual representation of the process model.

20. The UX Design Process Design Thinking Process Empathize Define Ideate Prototype Test Implement https://youtu.be/6lmvCqvmjfE