Is UX part of CX?
Due to the technology trend, businesses have replaced a lot of its services to co-production service/product type. Co-production is when a company and its customers co-produce the final product/service and it comes in a form of self-service. For example, customers used to have only one option to buy a flight ticket, boarding pass and baggage drop off which is going to a customer service representative to receive any of the these services. Today, customers have the option to book a flight ticket online, getting a boarding pass and dropping baggage through self-service kiosk in the airports without interaction with any human being.
Most of the services we receive today are co-production/self-services with electronic devices where the term User Experience (UX) emerged. Today, most of the companies not only provide some self-services, but they have shifted the whole business to e-commerce, such as, Amazon, Netflix and Redbox. Instead of customer to employee (C2E), it’s customer to machine (C2M)
Self-services supposed to make the customer experience (CX) better; it’s not about reducing some costs such as labor cost. If a self-service doesn't provide a value proposition to a customer, such as, saving time, effort, cost and reducing hassle, there is no point of having it in the first place.
I went one to a Redbox kiosk and got a Blue-ray movie. When I got home, my DVD player didn’t play the movie even though it plays Blue-ray movies. I talked to customer service of Redbox through Online Chat service about my problem. They apologize for it and gave me three free movies as a compensation of my inconvenience.
In this situation, the user experience was the interaction between me (customer) and the Redbox machine (Robot employee) which is part of the customer experience and value proposition that Redbox wants to deliver. The rest of the customer experience was the service/product quality and the customer service representative and solving my problem.
Update: more explanation:
User Experience term emerged when technology came. It makes the customer experience better (eg. faster, more convenient and better). UX mostly comes under three categories: Digital products, Ecommerce and Eservices.
1- Digital Products: UX is the heart of CX, such as, Cellphones, tablets, computers, video gaming, smart TV…etc
2- Ecommerce: UX is the major part of or almost is CX, such as, Amazon, eBay, Priceline, Netflix, Redbox…etc.
As a subcategory of the Ecommerce category, there is free websites and apps that its revenue model comes from a third party (internal customers) not from the users, such as, Facebook, twitter, gaming apps…etc.
3- Eservices: Business websites, online banking, flight booking, hotel booking…etc.
Charts explaining the three categories:
