Improving and agency’s customer service must take into account all of the ways individuals interact with it, including UX – or user experience, and CX, customer experience.
The difference, explains GSA’s Tim Lowden, in the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, has to do with the sphere in which an interaction takes place. UX typically has to do with the online experience, everything from search engine optimization, information hierarchy, design and functionality. On the other hand, customer experience can involve interaction with a product outside the scope of the Internet.
Weaknesses in either area can spoil otherwise perfect performance in a given sphere. Lowden gave as an example an individual searching Google for an agency, finding the right agency and locating the information he needs on its website in about 45 seconds (so far so good) but in trying to fill out and submit a form, grows frustrated with the amount of time it takes to get a question answered and a day later finds out the form he submitted was rejected due to a lack of information. Despite nailing UX, CX resulted in a negative customer service experience, one likely to be relayed by word of mouth, working against the agency’s efforts to get better in that area.
Likewise, a superb public outreach campaign can run up against inadequate website or app design and or functionality, resulting in a fail. Lowden recommends keeping the interrelationship in mind while developing products and services, always starting out with the customer in mind.
Post: http://www.digitalgov.gov/author/tlowden/
