CX vs HX
The term Customer Experience (CX) is something we’ve become familiar with, but there’s another term you should also be aware of: Human Experience (HX).
So what’s the difference? So if CX represents the interaction between a customer and an organisation over the term of their relationship – short or long, good or bad. The term HX is intended to reflect the outcome of Human Centred Design (HCD): where the human perspective is at the centre of all points along the customer experience. The distinction is that HX is a customer or human-centric CX, not just any old CX.
Image credit: uxdesign.cc
What’s the fuss?
As the author suggests, this is nothing revolutionary. For those businesses, who truly care about their customers, “providing a professional and helpful experience have been in the CX and HX zone for years:
Peter Drucker, wrote in his 1953 book: “The purpose of business is not to make profit but to satisfy the needs and expectations of customers. The consequence of satisfied customers is incremental profit.”
Focusing on the right metric
As the business world continues to be globalised, competing on an ever flattened playing field. CX-HX is becoming one of the factors facilitating a competitive edge and that’s why “close to 90% of companies globally are placing CX at the top of their priority list (HBR, Gartner).
Goes deep
Whether or not Boards or C-suites are actively leading a company-wide culture of HX is another thing. A genuinely HX-driven organisation is not about platitudes or fairy dust – to be successful, it needs to be intrinsic and will drive inherent change from within.
Four core attributes
- Empathy and understanding of the customer at every touch
- Provide accessible value at every touch
- Be relevant to the customers’ needs (not yours alone)
- Aim to achieve 1-3 consistently – this starts with getting everyone in the organisation on board
What’s to come?
Making every interaction, easier, straightforward and personable will be key. Companies that can fundamentally shift the way they think and act, and in some cases, change their business models to deliver truly human-centric experiences, will outperform the market.
Experience can be the ultimate differentiator. Since purchase behaviour is inherently emotionally-led, the possibilities of creating positive CX-HX will create satisfied and happy humans, loyal to your brand.
Our experience shows there’s a ‘sweet-spot’ where the needs of the customer intersects with that of the company/seller for optimal returns. Beware: not all great CX ideas will generate a positive commercial outcome, or even be sustainable.
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