The customer experience, or CX, is formed in the customer's mind on both the product/service and everything else related to it.
The customer experience is not a set state, but can vary a lot from day to day. Customer experience is also influenced by factors outside the company, such as the weather or, for example, whether a customer is hungry and therefore grumpy. Think of yourself as a customer at a time when you have slept badly, are late for a meeting because of traffic jams and have missed breakfast. Or alternatively when you woke up refreshed, got the most important work done before lunch, and were praised for a job well done. Quite a different feeling, isn't it?
There are many factors that can contribute to a positive or negative customer experience, but only a few that a company can influence.
In reality, the customer's experience of using a product or service can be very different from what companies have imagined. It is therefore important to study and measure the customer experience - who uses our product or service, why and how does the experience change over time?
Service design is a whole industry born out of the desire to serve the customer better. Service design methods can be used to improve the customer experience, because studying the customer experience requires, so to speak, getting inside someone else's skin. One way to improve the customer experience is to interview and profile existing customers - one type of customer may be concerned with delivery reliability, another with price. Of course, the reality is much more complex, but it's worth starting from somewhere.
Buying paths or customer journeys are also a very typical tool for developing the customer experience. Purchase paths are designed by following the customer journey at all stages before and after the purchase.
Putting the customer at the centre of everything is a modern way of approaching product or service design. In the past, most services were designed from a business perspective, i.e. from the point of view of what the company wanted to sell or what technical solutions its technologies were capable of.
Focusing on the customer experience can also open up new business opportunities for a company - ideas from customers can be used to develop entirely new products or services.
Customer experience is something that should be continuously developed. This will ensure that your products or services continue to be relevant to your customers.