What Exists Without CX Interactions or Touchpoints?

There’s always someone who says CX and UX don’t matter. They’re dead. They don’t exist. You don’t need them at all. But let’s test those statements, especially since they often come from one or more of the following:

• Rage baiters: people who hope they get social media attention by saying controversial things like, “X is dead.”
• Someone with something to sell, and magically what they’re selling isn’t CX or UX. It’s this other thing, and you don’t need CX for this other thing I’m selling. Nope, you don’t need both. You need to stay away from CX/UX for what I’m selling.
• People who failed working in, leading, or coaching CX or UX, and now want to push you towards this other thing, which often has the word “product” in it. Bonus points if you remember when it used to have the word “Lean” in it?—?or the word “Agile” or “Agility” in it— instead.

Customer and user experiences (CX and UX) go beyond a digital screen. They include every possible touchpoint.?

Let’s consider the simplest idea a startup could possibly have, and then let’s try to imagine that without a user or customer experience.?

Your startup will help people save money. This idea or statement assumes that this market exists; there is an addressable market of potential customers who would want or need help saving money. They’re going to want, demand, or expect that help from you. They’re going to trust you to give them financial information, advice, or some sort of tool.

The idea that a future customer might need something from you is already CX and?UX.

We are saying that whatever people are experiencing now is broken or incomplete. People have unmet needs that we can meet or exceed. People have poor, expensive, or inefficient experiences.

The problems in people’s current experiences or tasks are often where we find our opportunities. This is why so many authors and trainers teach teams to value qualitative research: to understand people, find opportunities to serve them, and then try to solve their unmet needs.

None of this happens without CX or UX.

Even the most basic idea already implies elements of the customer experience.

We imagine a target market that trusts us. Trust is an ongoing touchpoint. It’s constantly earned and can be broken with even one moment or interaction. Whether or not we devote effort to building or maintaining trust, a feeling of trust?—?or distrust?—?is part of the customer experience.?

Other thoughts or feelings that can be part of the customer experience include:

• Your system is too slow or buggy.
• You don’t have the features I need.
• I don’t believe my information will be secure.
• I don’t trust how you are going to use or protect my data. Are you selling my data? Is it training AI?
• I can’t believe I have to contact Customer Support to do this.
• I contacted Customer Support, and they sucked.
• Another error message?
• Looks like I hit a dead end.

Every moment that builds or breaks trust is part of CX. You thought you had product-market fit , but do you still have it if you are breaking trust at one or more touchpoints?

The moment we have the earliest idea that includes an execution or mechanism, we have the beginnings of a customer experience.

Even before we have drawn a screen or created a step-by-step user flow, we have the beginnings of the customer experience.?

• Is our “help people save” startup going to offer financial education? We will have touchpoints and customer and user experiences around being educated: tips, lessons, how to’s, don’t do’s, models, and techniques.
• Is our “help people save” startup going to offer a way to help people control later-regretted impulse spending? We will need to understand those behaviors better, which means interacting with humans to learn more about them. The solution we invent or design is the customer experience.

Imagine a fresh idea someone could create for a target audience. Now, try imagining it with zero customer or user interactions or touchpoints.

If CX or UX is dead?—?or optional?—?then we should be able to understand target audiences and solve their problems without anything related to customer or user experience strategies, tactics, or outcomes.

Yeah, this is really flimsy, what can I say. But when I see people posting this crap to LinkedIn, I can’t help but respond with an article! So, just play along…

Can you think of any idea that doesn’t automatically imply that there is a human experience we will need to strategize, understand, plan for, design, or solve? Even just one of those? Or all of those?

While people can claim that CX comes last, or perhaps not at all, there is very little you can do without considering customers and their experiences.

• You won’t know what problem you’re solving without considering humans and their current good and bad experiences.
• You won’t attract, convert, retain, or grow without considering every touchpoint along one or more journeys.
• You won’t have growth or hack growth without considering your market of customers and their experiences.
• You are unlikely to find product-market fit . You can’t create products or services that match the market of customers without considering touchpoints and experiences potential and current customers will have with your company.
• And if you’re less than ethical, you won’t be able to nudge, push, manipulate, or deceive people into doing what you want them to do without considering these people and how you will try to make them do what you want.

You don’t need to hack or reverse engineer anything because the process is really quite?simple.?

If you want to achieve success, the Scientific Method is still the best way. We’re going to be smart and strategic. We’re going to remove our biases, and we’re going to be evidence-based. We’re going to stay away from vanity metrics, manipulated metrics, manipulated research, and other bullshit.

We’re not going to start with a hypothesis (step 3 of the Scientific Method) or a product (that’s the output of a longer process, not the start).

But doesn’t product-market fit eat CX for breakfast?

To eat something or someone for breakfast: To defeat someone or succeed at something easily. Often used as part of a boast.

How would PMF easily “defeat” CX when PMF is CX? Product-market fit implies that humans in your experience ecosystem found a real need for what your company does. They like what you offer and how you offer it. Those are all part of CX.

We care about adoption or conversion rates. So we care about humans trying us out or buying something, which means they are having experiences in our ecosystem.

The value proposition is how we intend to deliver value to an audience of humans. That naturally includes some CX and UX.

Can’t you find PMF without hiring anybody to do CX or UX?work?

Could a product or service find a solid, long-term, profitable fit with one or more markets of customers without CX or UX specialists working at that company?

Sure, that’s possible. We might also find PMF without specialized Product Managers, Marketers, Strategists, Business Analysts, etc. It could happen. It might not happen as fast, as efficiently, or as easily, but it could happen.

What can’t happen?—?what is literally impossible?—?is to say that there is no customer or user experience, no CX or UX. You might have avoided hiring specialists in these areas, but as I’ve said above, you are still creating customer and user experiences. You might be creating these thoughtlessly or less deliberately.

You won’t be able to create a product or service for humans without considering what those humans would buy or use at least once. At that moment, you are considering what the CX or UX of a product or service might be, even generally or broadly.?

You can guess at CX and UX. You can claim you don’t care about it. Who cares about customer or user experiences or outcomes? We have product-market fit to find! You can claim a lot of things, but it’s hard to do anything in the business world with truly zero attention toward customers’ and users’ experiences.

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Side note: I AM having flashbacks to the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 short on how so many things in the world wouldn’t work if springs (physical coiled metal springs) didn’t exist.

?? https://dcx.to for courses, community, coaching, articles, & videos. I’m available for strategic and tactical product, service, and experience projects, leadership, and training.