The term “customer experience” is everywhere. It can be found in businesses, in the public sector, and in organizations of all sizes. And yet, it sometimes creates a certain discomfort. In many contexts, we do not talk about “customers,” but rather patients, citizens, members, users, or students. So why keep using this word?
In practice, the term “customers” is often used for simplicity. It is a shorthand for referring to the people an organization serves. But the intent behind customer experience is not to turn all relationships into commercial ones. It is much more fundamental. It aims to better understand the people we serve, what they experience, what they expect, what works, and what makes their experience more difficult. Regardless of the term used, the question remains the same: are we designing our services based on their reality?
One point often comes up in our discussions. In French, the expression “customer experience” can be misleading. It gives the impression that it is something we design or deliver. However, as our colleague Pierre Daems often points out, in English, “experience” refers rather to something that is lived. One “has an experience” of something. This difference is important, because it reminds us that experience is not what the organization thinks it delivers, but what the person actually lives.
This is where customer experience becomes strategic. It makes it possible to shift perspective, moving from an internal logic centered on processes to a logic centered on lived experience. In many organizations, services are designed according to internal constraints: teams, systems, rules, silos. Customer experience rebalances this perspective by reconnecting decisions to what people actually experience in the field.
We also often confuse customer experience with user experience, or UX. UX generally focuses on interaction with a specific product, platform, or service. But customer experience is broader. It encompasses the entire relationship with the organization, before, during, and after the use of a service. It includes human interactions, processes, delays, and overall consistency. So it is possible to offer an excellent interaction at one touchpoint and still provide a difficult overall experience.
To be truly useful, customer experience is not limited to a concept. It relies on concrete and structured practices. This is what the CXPA proposes through five key dimensions that make it possible to anchor customer experience within organizations.
It starts with a better understanding of customer groups, through listening and learning initiatives. This understanding must then be translated into concrete actions, through service design and journey improvement. For these actions to have a real impact, they must be supported by an organizational culture that values experience and by team engagement. They must also be supported by measurement mechanisms, to track how the experience evolves and guide decisions. Finally, they must be driven by clear governance and experience strategies, which make it possible to align initiatives with the organization’s priorities.
This is also where customer experience management, or CXM, becomes especially valuable. It makes it possible to connect two realities that are often disconnected: the needs and expectations of customers, and the organization’s goals, constraints, and priorities. CXM acts as a balancing point. It helps make decisions that take into account both value for people and organizational reality.
At its core, customer experience is not a matter of vocabulary. It is a mindset. A way of designing services based on real needs, rather than internal structures. And in a context where organizations must deal with high expectations and limited resources, this mindset becomes essential.
At Interface&co, we support organizations across different sectors, where the term “customer” does not always make sense. But the issue is always there: better understand the people we serve and align decisions with their reality.
