Creating UX differentiators is about going beyond the ordinary – making the user journey easier to navigate, minimising complexities and adding moments of joy. Whether it’s a unique functionality, design element, or approach to solving a particular user need – CX differentiators allow businesses to be creative with their brand, gain a competitive advantage and provide a superior user experience.
From brand differentiation and customer loyalty, to cost savings and having an innovative edge, unearthing differentiators can ultimately drive growth, instil customer loyalty, and increase revenue.
Yet how exactly can businesses unearth these sought-after differentiators?
1. Sweat the data
As you might have guessed, a huge amount of what is recommended is about understanding your customers and researching methods to do this.
Regardless of how much research you do, nothing will be as accurate as real data. Having the right tracking in place and being able to visualise this will mean you’re able to identify areas in which you’re falling short and measure improvement over time.
It’s important to remember that data doesn’t come from a single source. Whilst web analytics are great for seeing the ‘what’, it’s not really going to tell you the ‘why’ – which, if you’re looking for differentiators, is what you need to know.
Web analytics are great for seeing the ‘what’, but they aren’t going to tell you the ‘why’.
In this instance, try looking at other data points: call logs, chat records, CRM systems like ZenDesk – anything that gives you a better understanding of what the challenges your customers are facing really are.
Once you have a clear idea of these challenges, you can start to imagine new experiences that address these challenges in surprising and delightful ways.
2. Know what else is out there
Customers don’t use your product or service on its own. The fact is that you are part of a much wider digital ecosystem and customers are likely using your services whilst darting about between others to complete what they need to do. This is the same for your competitors.
What’s important here is to understand that wider ecosystem. What are people doing elsewhere? How could you help your customers do more? How successful are your competitors at doing this? What are people outside your sector offering? What does that mean for people’s expectations of your brand?
All these questions can be answered through simple journey mapping exercises (based on customer research) or a regularly updated competitor review. Knowing where you fit in this ecosystem can help you to identify where to invest and grow your share of the customer journey.
3. Identify the ‘jobs to be done’
If you want to put some more rigour around the understanding of the wider ecosystem, you could use the ‘jobs to be done’ framework to put some real metrics around potential opportunities.