In our last CX 101 Series article, we introduced the concept of customer experience (CX) and its impact to businesses. Today, we dive deeper into the role of user experience (UX) in CX, as well as cover the importance of personalization with Tahzoo Studios Director, Don Low.
Before we get into our CX discussion, tell us quickly about Tahzoo Studios.
Don: We are the full-fledged creative wing of Tahzoo. If you combined a UX shop, traditional advertising agency, graphic design firm, and brand strategy group, you would have Tahzoo Studios. I hire people who are triple threats – people who have many creative skills. And this is very different than most companies.
That’s impressive! Last time, Lexi explained the difference between UX and CX. Do you care to elaborate or add to anything she said?
Don: In my definition, CX is any digital experience that an employee or customer has with a company, and the care with which that experience is approached by that company. UX is more of the scientific look at the specific ways in which the user navigates and interacts with any form of digital media.
And Studio specializes in designing these CX moments, which includes heuristic analysis, content creation, and everything in between?
Don: We define our work as experience design, which is basically a fancy way of saying we’re UX design experts who focus on the customer experience. The list of our capabilities is long but largely consists of graphic design, UX/UI, brand strategy, prototyping, and video production.
That’s a very comprehensive list. Shifting gears, tell us why investing in CX is so important for businesses.
Don: Post pandemic, consumers are way less tolerant of bad user experiences. Users will continue to gravitate to brands that make it easy for them to achieve what they’re looking to do. It can become a point of difference for your organization if you make the customer journey easy. But you’d be shocked at how many Global 2000 companies don’t provide well considered digital experiences.
Do you have any idea as to why? Surely, these top companies understand the value of their customer loyalty.
Don: Good CX requires you to have a deep understanding of what your customer wants to achieve. But it also requires a team of exceptional engineers that can actually build the things good UX designers envision. This is difficult for many to do well. Often business gets too wrapped up with what they think users want to accomplish in a function, rather than dig deeper to understand the what’s driving the customer to perform the action in the first place. This requires a deeper level of user understanding and more time and budget to truly hit the target.
When clients come to you with a problem, do they know that it’s related to CX?
Don: Many don’t recognize the complexity of their problem. They may admit that they dislike their website but they're only looking at the visual representation of the site. They're not thinking about UX issues or content challenges. For example, if the content is poorly written or difficult to navigate, the experience will suffer. Or maybe the information architecture is really disorganized, and the content isn't presented well. There could be a number of different problems, but all the client might surmise is that their website just feels subpar.
Why is strategizing CX such a challenge for companies?
Don: The reason that there's bad user experience all over the place is not because people can't envision it. It's because software engineers have difficulty building it. There are all kinds of technical handcuffs in building personalized experiences. It's like playing three-dimensional chess. You do one thing here and it affects something there. And so, the engineering of good UX to achieve great CX is a challenge. Not everyone has the technology resources needed to achieve the vision.
Then what is needed to produce good CX?
Don: Many companies think that putting a UX agency and a development shop together is enough to create something that works. But the two functions don't always have chemistry. Without mutual understanding and respect, they will struggle to get something launched. At Tahzoo, we have the two very different cultures living in perfect harmony and working to understand each other. Our designers know how to develop, and our developers have UX experience. The fact that our people know their swim lanes yet can work together makes all the difference when implementing CX projects for our clients.
Like one big, happy family. Moving on to the topic of personalization. What is it and why is it important in CX?
Don: Personalization uses data to anticipate what someone needs, based on their previous behaviors. Once we know what is important to them, we can then serve up relevant information most appropriate to that person.
How does Tahzoo use personalization to build better moments for clients?
Don: We combine data and technology to build personalized moments for our clients. To ensure a better front-end experience, data analysis needs to be happening in the back end. There are a lot of backend data tools in the market. At Tahzoo, we partner with some of the world’s leading solutions companies, many of whom offer data-driven personalization solutions. We combine these technologies with design-thinking to serve up the most relevant content and information.
Tahzoo is committed to personalizing experiences, both for the employee and the consumer. For more information on personalization or to inquire about Studios, reach out to Don at [email protected]. Join us next time for a discussion with Software Engineering Manager, Sarah Braumiller.