CX Reference Knowledge · Reference
CX Key Terms & Definitions
Customer-centricity is structural change that makes delivery match the promise. Everything else is vocabulary.
A working glossary for CX practice. The terms separate real customer-centricity from customer-peripheric behavior, name the anti-patterns teams fall into, and define the measurements that replace guesswork with evidence.
Customer-centricity is a group of systems and processes that ensure what is delivered matches what was promised. It requires internal structural change, not surveys and listening sessions. Its opposite is customer-peripheric: the customer exists in the organization's awareness but is not the center of decisions. Decisions prioritize internal convenience. That is the diagnosis behind fake CX.
- PSE: products, services, experiences — the whole surface customers touch
- Feature Factory: building from assumptions or competitor copying
- CX Debt: known failures to solve customer problems, compounding over time
- Four Horsemen of Bad CX: frustration, confusion, disappointment, distraction
- COPQ: the true cost of guesses and failures, internal and external
- Knowledge Gaps: design failures, not user failures
The measurement terms matter as much as the diagnostic ones. A North Star Metric should be a leading indicator, not a lagging one like NPS or handle time. CXTM scores task experience from 0 to 100 across eight negative dimensions, hunting for improvement rather than fishing for praise. And accessibility is defined as a mismatch between a human state and the environment — permanent, temporary, or situational — not a medical condition.
Apply this
Reading about cx key terms & definitions is one thing. Seeing where it applies in your journey is the useful part.