Many people get bogged down on the idea of customer experience versus customer service. Customer experience often feels like something that happens as a result of customer service but these two terms are not interchangeable. Customer service and customer experience are both big pieces of the puzzle for business interactions and they are something that can be considered part of the full journey of a business. The difference between customer service and customer experience comes down to the whole perceived value of your business to a customer vs the type of service that you can offer them. Let us explore the differences with a greater depth.
Customer Service Explained
Customer service is a much older term that many of us are familiar with. It’s usually a narrow scoped idea that involves the advice or assistance provided to a customer when inquiring about a service or product. Customer service often requires your customers speaking to a team member about items that require answers. Customer service is often the human element of your organization and it is voiced by the people in your business.
Customer Experience Explained
Customer experience is often the full journey for your customers across the organization and it regularly includes every interaction that your customer has with your business. Customer experience or CX involves the way that your team interacts with your customer, the experience that they have in your business, how a customer will interact with technology and websites for your brand and more.
Improving customer experience means improving customer service, improving the technology surrounding your products and your sales as well as maximizing design to fit with the current brand ideals. All of the areas of customer experience are distinct in their own way and each of these pieces can work together to make up the overall customer experience.
Key Differences
Customer service is often limited to interactions between a customer who is seeking advice or as customer experience can involve everything from analyzing data from noncustomer facing teams down to people who are contributing to the overall experience in the product or service. Customer experience is a far more encompassing term but both aspects of the business are extremely important. The overall line between how customers are using the product as well as the people who are supporting a product has become blurrier than ever before. Customers need to consider the entire picture when looking at offerings from your company and this is why user surveys and support for customer service remains essential.
Taking the time to regularly address your customer experience will mean taking part in regular user surveys and making sure that you can study the way that your customers are interacting with your company. Working with consultancy or participating with customer feedback surveys will make sure that the process can be done easier. Customers need to consider the entire picture of your company and in order to make this picture better, it is important to look into these offerings over time.
Taking a look at modern technology, your industry and the way that the demographics and your customer base are changing can be important. Ongoing research and investigation will ensure that your business can be successful. If you are continually invested in your customer experience, you can make sure that your company will always be evolving and always working to come out on top of your competition.
Contact us today to learn more about how to improve customer experience and how you can work at improving your business at every level.
This blog was written by Ingrid Lindberg, a and founder of Chief Customer. Her work has spanned the Fortune 500 - including Finance, Healthcare, CPG, Telco and Retail, working with companies to create differentiating customer experience strategies and cultures.