More and more, the customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) terms are used interchangeably nowadays. After all, customers use your products and services, and users are your customers, right?

However, when it comes to research, they tend to be associated with different research approaches and methods that focus on different areas of the customer journey continuum.

Customer experience (CX) research is the updated name for research that comes from traditional market research conducted to understand brand usage, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and market segmentation with its corresponding customer profiling.

On the other hand, user experience (UX) research has its origins in the science of human factors and ergonomics. Its focus has been on understanding how customers interact with products and services, particularly on the usability of digital interfaces (websites and apps).

Both fields of research are now converging within many organizations. Some look at UX as a subset of CX, while other organizations associate CX with the customer acquisition experience, relegating UX to product interactions. Still, others extend these interactions to all touchpoints a company may have with its customers (advertising, website, customer service, product upgrades, etc.) as they follow different customer journeys.

In the end, both research fields can steer companies to provide the best experience possible for customer acquisition and retention.

All of this is to say that Relevant Insights has years of research expertise in both fields. We see both as integral parts of the customer journey by focusing on different phases of the journey.