Through the jungle of abbreviations of the digital user experience

Imagine you're at an IT conference focusing on the “Digital Employee Experience.” At lunch with other conference attendees, one says, “I've just discovered a groundbreaking tool for End User Experience Management.” You look at him and think, “Isn't that the same as DEX?”

Another attendee agrees and raves about the Customer Experience Management software his company uses to track the needs of customers. Now you’re wondering, “Wait, CEM? We were talking about DEX and EUEM.” A third person smiles and mumbles something about Digital Experience Monitoring and Human Capital Management.

So now you’re wrangling with DEX, EUEM, CEM, HCM and DEM, and wondering if this is a case of “potayto/potahto,” IT acronym nuttiness or actually a bunch of similar but different things.

The jungle of abbreviations around the digital employee and customer experience is dense and sometimes impenetrable. What is clear, however, is that the user experience is increasingly becoming a focus of IT work. Why? Because IT systems are becoming more complex as they adapt to hybrid on-premise/cloud-based infrastructure and support flexible work arrangements. The bottom line is that IT systems must be secured and function well everywhere. It also means that employees are increasingly unwilling to accept workflow disruptions or slowdowns or failures of the systems and software they need for work.

The “Modern Workplace” is not just a buzzword but a basic requirement for productive and satisfied employees. In the blog article “More than nice to have”, I reported how unreliable technology has a measurably broad and negative impact on user productivity and satisfaction. How do DEX, EUEM, CEM or DEM fit into this new focus on user experience? Let's clear a path through the conceptual chaos.

Let’s start briefly and in passing with Customer Experience Management (CEM). In the broadest sense, this is a method of understanding customer needs and behaviors in order to develop strategic marketing, sales and other plans. For example, CEM examines repeat purchases, recommendation rates, service response times, etc.

So, CEM generally goes far beyond IT department concerns and address external audiences. In contrast, the other terms in our jungle of abbreviations focus on a company’s own employees.

In this context, the term Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) is relatively narrowly defined. This describes the process of measuring, monitoring and analyzing users' experiences with digital services and applications. Common metrics include load and response times, availability, error rates, and other performance indicators in very large and specialized software environments. It defines and applies threshold values so that IT admins can identify problems early, identify bottlenecks, and take action.

When we talk about efficient and satisfied employees, we catch the attention of HR departments. A common term in their perspective is Human Capital Management (HCM). It includes a wide range of HR practices, e.g., talent acquisition, training, work-life balance and internal corporate communications. In contrast to the other terms, HCM's focus is not exclusively on technology experiences.

In corporate IT, Digital Employee Experience (DEX) is the most widely used term. End User Experience Management (EUEM) is often used interchangeably with DEX. Both encompass the entirety of employees' experiences with digital workplace technologies. Industry analysts use one term or the other, but there are no practical differences between EUEM and DEX solutions.

DEX/EUEM aim to:

• Minimize the effort needed to process support tickets by enabling IT administrators to quickly spot, solve or even prevent endpoint device problems.
• Provide employees with reliable IT which they can use to complete tasks efficiently.
• Include end-user perspectives in the optimization of corporate IT.

Companies measure technology experiences with the help of data from endpoints and applications and feedback from employees. Data can help assess the user-friendliness of software applications, system or network performance, the availability of IT resources and other factors.

IT managers use that data to set priorities and define responses such as updating unstable applications, replacing inefficient hardware components, optimizing procurement processes or making employee onboarding smoother. So, unlike DEM, DEX and EUEM go beyond just monitoring and focus on improving employee experiences.