Understanding UI, UX, and CX: A Real-Life Tale with HDFC and RuPay

I recently wanted to get a new RuPay credit card so I could link it to my UPI account and figured it would be an easy process with my existing bank of HDFC Bank. Wrong, it was a complete disaster. In retrospect, the process was the exact opposite of a great customer experience.

Over the years, I’ve been a part of various teams to build out apps and web interfaces and we would always talk about UI/UX and I never really understood the difference. Then a year ago, I heard Kotak Bank was hiring someone to take “customer experience” to the next level…my initial thought was what in hell is this new term and that to from a bank. After my HDFC Bank experience, I decided to dig into the 3 acronyms I’ve been seeing more and more lately.

First, let me first explain each one:

• User Interface (UI) – the visual design of an app
• User eXperience (UX) – the visual and digital interactions
• Customer eXperience (CX) – all the interactions between a customer and an app/brand

The images below give more clarity. [Yes, the CX vs. UX image was taken from a CleverTap blog post]

The whole journey started from the HDFC Bank app that had a link to apply for the RuPay credit card. I clicked on it and of course the overall user interface of the app was sub-par and there were times were I would click on something and I would have no idea if it was processing the data or waiting for something or just chilling. After much back and forth I got an SMS that my request had been accepted.

That’s when the real experience started, I must have received 12-15 SMSs and I think 5 or 6 emails telling me a bunch of stuff and it was all worthless information. At this point the customer experience was zero. Then I receive the following email, which said my application was denied:

But, the next day I got an SMS that said the card was on its way. I really didn’t know what to expect and at one point, I thought I was getting a regular MasterCard and not the RuPay card.

Finally, the card did arrive and I was quite happy to link it to my UPI account and start paying for items via RuPay.

This experience really drives home the need for product managers to really understand ALL the different touch points that affect a customer…from an app interface, visual interactions, a customer service rep calling, to an email, to an SMS, etc… the amount of varied communications I got in relation to this card was really exhausting and one point I was like “fuck it” if I don’t get the card I’ll be fine without it. This is a classic example of a failed customer experience, and it’s worth noting that this happened despite my possession of an Infinia Metal card.