What is customer experience
As the name suggests, CX is about your clients' or customers' experience with your brand, company, product, or service. From the moment they first hear about you — whether from a TV ad or a friend's recommendation — to the moment they completely forget about you or no longer want to hear from you. And that's what CX is about: focusing on happier endings — so that customers feel good enough with you that they have no reason to go to a competitor.
Because even among experts you won't find a unified CX definition, we've tried to simplify it as much as possible: CX means that you do everything in your power to make the customer feel good with you.
"CX for me means any direct or indirect experience a customer has with an organization." Robin Janásek, Chief Innovation Officer at Proof & Reason
What does (and doesn't) belong in CX
Service design, working with feedback, customer support, customer journey mapping, brand and marketing, data analytics, personalization, CX strategy and leadership, omnichannel — listing all the areas of CX is just as hard as defining customer experience itself. You can look at the individual areas of customer experience from many different angles.
We've chosen two approaches from experts that illustrate different perspectives on the breadth and range of topics that belong to customer experience.
The pyramid of core CX areas by Ján Uriga
Uriga's pyramid, like the well-known Maslow's pyramid, shows which areas of CX you should pay attention to. When your company does these 3 areas well to excellently, your customer will be satisfied.
The base of the pyramid is meeting needs (yet companies often don't know their customers and don't ask). Then it's important to make life easier for customers (it's not enough to deliver what they need — you need to make it as simple as possible). Simplicity can be your strongest differentiator from competitors. The top of the pyramid is made up of pleasantness, i.e. emotions (people want more than just to buy a product or service).
The strategic framework from CX Academy, promoted in the Czech Republic by Lukáš Pítra
To create a great customer experience, you need to involve the whole company. Customer experience is created not only in customer support, but also in marketing, sales, accounting, the warehouse, procurement, at the depot, and of course the active support of business owners and management is key. CX needs to be embedded in your company's culture and DNA — not just on paper, but lived through the same values, with everyone pulling in the same direction.
You need to measure results and ground your customer experience in data so you can truly understand your customers. That's why customer journey mapping and research are important: interviews, testing, observation, mystery shopping, diaries. And then everything you've gathered needs to be anchored in processes (in other words, in what you do), supported by a functioning CRM, and you need to be able to connect data and insights from different sources.
36 Best CX Resources from the Czech Republic and Beyond
Books
1. How to frame a business model that is viable, financially sustainable, and customer-centric — read about it in two books: Value Proposition Design and Business Model Generation from Strategyzer.
2. What customer-focused companies do differently to make their employees literally obsessed with customer service is written about by Jeff Toister in The Service Culture Handbook.
3. When, why, and how you should conduct interviews with users is covered by Steve Portigal in Interviewing Users.
4. The book Just Enough Research by Erika Hall is a popular and practical guide to research in product design.
5. Service design is covered by This Is Service Design Doing, which includes case studies, expert commentary, and tips from 96 co-authors from around the world.
Podcasts
6. Minimum Viable Podcast by Lighting Beetle explores design with a small "d" — the kind that searches for solutions to people's problems. Together with guests, Michal Blažej addresses topics that relate to design but that we don't usually associate with it.
7. Digital Customer Success by Alex Turkovic, for leaders and professionals, focuses on building community and learning opportunities in the fast-growing world of digital and unscalable Customer Success.
8. The NN/G UX Podcast by Nielsen Norman Group covers user experience research, design, strategies, and UX professions. Host Therese Fessenden interviews industry experts every month, answers common questions, discusses current UX topics, and shares tips for building a great user experience.
9. In the Portigal podcast, host Steve Portigal talks with people responsible for user research in their organizations.
Articles
10. CX basics: What is Customer Experience (CX)? 20 CX terms, definitions, and resources.
11. CX for leaders: Customer Experience Is Everyone's Responsibility.
12. CX and UX: Customer and user experiences (CX and UX) go beyond a digital screen. They include every possible touchpoint.
13. Customer journey: Customer Journey: Why It Makes Sense to Map the Path Your Customers Take.
14. Customer journey mapping: The 5 Steps of Successful Customer Journey Mapping.
15. Data and analytics: Why data and analytics are growing in importance for CX practitioners.
16. Customer feedback: Jak získat a zpracovat feedback od zákazníka.
17. CX survey: Průzkum spokojenosti zákazníků: Vše o tvorbě CX průzkumů.
18. CX research methods: When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods.
19. Usability testing: How to Conduct Usability Testing: Research Methods and Approaches.
20. 13 international CX blogs: 13 of the most popular Customer Experience blogs.
Newsletters
21. Trigger Strategy by Tom Kerwin: Strategy and a regular dose of clarity for leaders working in environments of ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity.
22. On using AI in marketing, business, and internal processes, through to managing digital projects and running a company: House of Řezáč by Jan Řezáč.
23. Every Monday, a hand-picked list of the best links on user experience design: UX Design Weekly by Kenny Cheng.
24. Curated content on CX, marketing, and case studies from the Czech Republic — not just e-commerce:
CX Space from Proof & Reason.
25. 13 international CX newsletters: 13 Best CX Newsletters To Join In 2024.
Studies and surveys
26. CX in Czech E-commerce: 400 hours of research revealed 82 mistakes by the biggest Czech e-shops by Proof & Reason.
27. Customer Experience in the Czech Republic from the perspective of Foxentry and Czech CX specialists by Foxentry.
28. Journey-Mapping Impact: Research Findings by NN Group.
29. Key Findings From the Customer Experience Survey by Gartner.
30. Ingredients for great experiences: Experience is everything. Get it right by PwC.
31. 49 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2024 by Baymard.
People
32. Lukáš Pítra: A freelance CX expert specializing in service providers, bespoke solutions, D2C e-commerce manufacturers, and SaaS projects. He regularly writes about CX on LinkedIn and Facebook.
33. Ján Uriga: As a CX expert, he has worked on global consulting projects in strategic change management, innovation, and customer experience.
34. Ondřej Borovička: Works as a Customer Experience Consultant and during his 18-year marketing career has worked for companies including Avast, Air Bank, ČSOB, and T-Mobile.
35. Tom Kerwin: 25 years of experience in design, research, and experimentation, having collaborated with dozens of startups and co-founded two of the largest lead generation companies in the UK.
36. Dean Brabec: CX Executive Director at ČSOB, he is an expert in customer experience, user research, and product management, with experience across industries including banking, sport, travel, trading, and crypto.
5 Bonus CX Courses for an Immediate Start Toward Better Customer Experience
Beginner courses
1. Preparing for the e-commerce season: A series of inspiring webinars covering all the key aspects of success, from customer acquisition to rapid fulfilment during the pre-Christmas rush.
Heureka Academy: We'll Prepare You for the E-commerce Season
2. Introduction to CX on Seduo.cz: What it means, what it involves, and how it's measured.
Customer Experience: How to Build a Positive Relationship with Your Brand
3. CX basics from #HolkyzMarketingu: What exactly is customer experience (CX)? And how do you build it into your marketing so it delivers results?
Customer Experience: The Path to a Loyal Customer
Advanced courses
4. From CX fundamentals to implementing an advanced CX strategy: Video lectures, CX tools, and real-world best practices.
Professional Certificate in Customer Experience (CX)
5. The CCXP certification is awarded by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) and is designed for professionals who want to demonstrate their expertise in customer experience.
Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP).
At Proof & Reason, we have been creating Customer Experience for our clients for 24 years. At the same time, we want to continue providing inspiration and quality resources from the CX market, to support and spotlight the experts who dedicate themselves to CX and related topics.
