Customer Experience vs Customer Service: What’s the Difference?

The quickest way to discern between customer experience and customer service would be to say that this is the difference between the subjective and objective. It’s a difference between Experience vs Customer Service:

What’s the Difference?

The quickest way to discern between customer experience and customer service would be to say that this is the difference between the subjective and objective. It’s a difference between what’s done and how this is interpreted (experienced). The simplest explanation between the two would be that customer service is what you do for your customers, and the customer experience is their opinion of the service you’re providing.

Now, while this simple definition is enough to clear out any misunderstanding, you need to know more to improve your customer service and get a better customer experience. Because of that, here’s an in-depth breakdown of customer experience vs. customer service and what you can do to improve both.

Chapters

Components of customer experience

Customer experience enters the formation period long before your customers actually buy the product. This means that its first component is marketing. Through this outreach campaign, your customers are forming an opinion on your brand long before they first visit your site.

Next, you have the sales. This is the first big test. You’re trying to make a conversion and persuade your customers to buy from your brand. For this to work, your sales, ranging from the simplicity of the checkout process to your pricing strategy, need to be flawless. So, most of your success in this stage lies in your sales team’s competence. 

Product management is another major part of the overall experience. For the most part, if the product is good enough, customers are ready to tolerate even a subpar customer experience. While a bad customer experience is never your objective, remember that this gives you more time to fix things. You’ll always get a second chance if your product is really good (great value for the money).

Customer support is the last part of this process. Your customers want to be listened to. They want to be treated with respect and potentially even get preferential treatment. They don’t care what happens behind the curtain or how many customer service representatives you have if you’re outsourcing or leveraging chatbot technology. Your customers only care about their end. 

It’s also important to say that while this process involves multiple steps, it’s mostly a loop. This means that every positive thing you do creates a ripple effect, enhancing all the other factors. 

What are some basic differences?

Well, if you’re dead-set on figuring out the difference between the two, let’s just start by saying that customer support is completely in your hands. With customer experience, you do all you can and hope it’s enough. 

Metrics are also more abstract and difficult to follow. Sure, you have the customer satisfaction score, customer effort score, and net promoter score when it comes to customer experience; however, these are much less exact than you think. It’s like trying to scale how much you love someone – how do you quantify an experience? Just because you add a word score somewhere, this doesn’t make it a relevant statistical metric. 

On the other hand, your customer service can be evaluated objectively. Response time, customer churn rate, customer retention, and successful ticket resolution are all exact and can be measured. When the number goes up, your customer service is performing better. 

The support team is accountable for their work, but assigning responsibility for customer experience is impossible. Saying that someone hasn’t done a good job and that’s why the customers are dissatisfied may sometimes be partially true, but it’s never the whole truth, and it’s near-impossible to prove. 

What are strategic differences?

There are also a few strategic differences between the customer experience and customer service.

For instance, customer service is a limited interaction where customers contact your team directly. A customer experience is everything, from their interactions with your ads and content online to their buying process and browsing your site.

Second, customer experience is supposed to be proactive. This means they need to start experiencing your brand the way you want them to experience it from the second they hear of you. You need to plot an entire journey and observe them as they move one step at a time. With customer service, you have to wait for them to reach out to you, which makes this a reactive step. 

The responsibility for the customer experience is shared. Your marketing team, site developers, salespeople, and customer service people share the responsibility. On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to pinpoint the exact responsibilities of customer service. This is why creating a great customer experience requires coordination across the entire brand. 

Which is more important?

The question itself is pretty difficult to answer. First, the comparison is silly because getting a good customer experience without decent customer service is hard. This is universally true, regardless of the stage of corp dev you’re currently in (whether you’re still in the early stage or trying to break into the middle market). 

Second, it’s important to remember that while customer service increases the chance of a great customer experience, it’s never guaranteed. You see, a particularly difficult customer may be completely unimpressed by your stellar customer service. While setting up great customer service is supposed to be straightforward, predicting responses is difficult.

Also, keep in mind that great customer service has the potential to turn a negative customer experience into a positive one. People often complain that people have a short memory span, but this can also be a good thing since they won’t remember the initial hiccup if the issue is resolved successfully. This lets them see the full scope of your team’s competence. It might encourage them to place more valuable orders the next time around.  

Which customer service features improve customer experience?

So, if improving your customer support has, as one of its aims, an objective to improve customer experience, which of these features shows the best results?

Fast response to feedback is one of the first things that come to mind. When a customer sends you a question, you will make a good impression if you respond within the first few hours. However, responding in minutes is even better. Since email marketing is more formal, it’s easy to integrate automated marketing services here without sacrificing too much. Leveraging the best customer feedback management tools can streamline this process, enabling quick, personalized responses and ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction.

Another effective feature is Interactive Voice Response (IVR), which significantly enhances customer experience by streamlining phone interactions. IVR enables efficient call routing and self-service options, allowing customers to quickly access the information or assistance they need without the wait times often associated with speaking to a representative. Providing 24/7 availability, IVR systems not only enhance customer service but also deliver significant cost savings for businesses. Furthermore, the ability to personalize interactions through IVR creates a tailored experience that can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. While it’s true that some customers appreciate the human touch for more complex issues, IVR serves as a powerful tool in handling routine inquiries and freeing up customer service representatives to focus on higher-value interactions. This balance ultimately leads to a more efficient and satisfying customer experience.

Another thing that your customers are looking for is human interactions on the other end. They want interactions that are empathetic and kind. This is why you need adequate templates and people who are meant for this job.

Third, you want to ensure that there is more than one support channel. Not everyone is comfortable with writing a ticket and waiting for a response. Sometimes, people prefer live chat or even VoIP services as a means of communication. The bottom line is that knowing that you support their preferred channel will make it more likely for them to reach out. 

Wrap up

Customer experience is the sum of your brand and all you do as a business. Customer service is a huge part of what makes a great customer experience; by improving it, both fields will work in your favor. Still, the terms are vastly different; comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges. Instead of figuring out which is better, try to understand that you can’t have one without the other. 

Author Bio:

Isabelle Jordan is a seasoned business and marketing writer. She contributes to various news portals and specialized blogs, staying at the forefront of the latest trends and developments. Isabelle leverages her expertise to inform and engage audiences with insightful content on business and marketing topics.

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