While a lot of business trends come and go, customer service never goes out of style in business. But what is customer experience, how does it differ from customer service — no, they’re not the same thing — and why is customer experience, also called CX, so important?
What’s the Difference Between Customer Experience and Customer Service?
Before going any further, let’s be very clear, customer service is still very important. But customer service is only one aspect of the overall customer experience that you deliver to each and every customer. The easiest way to explain the difference between customer service and customer experience is to provide some examples.
If a customer calls your business because they have a question about an order or delivery, the way their call is handled would fall under customer service. They have a question or issue and someone at your business will provide service. Afterward, the customer will consider that customer service good, bad or mediocre based on several factors that might include: the politeness of the person who answers the phone initially, and the manner, knowledge and ability of the person who eventually takes the call to answer their question or resolve the problem if there is one. Put in simplest terms, in this situation, your customer needs service, and your business provides it.
Customer experience is much broader. It includes the way you handle the call we’ve just mentioned, but every other interaction that customer has had with your business as well, from the first moment they learned your business name, and every interaction you’ve had with them since. Ultimately, all of these interactions make the customer feel a certain way about your business or brand. For instance, they may love the many things your employees have done to make them feel that their business is important, or they may have a fond memory of the time someone at your company bent over backwards to expedite an order that they needed urgently. Positive interactions that lead to great customer experiences are important because they make customers feel good about your company, and that helps to build customer loyalty and improve customer retention.
On the other hand, when someone has a poor customer experience, they will lack that same sense of loyalty because they just don’t have an overall feeling that you value their business. Some interactions that can lead to a poor customer experience may include: negative things they’ve heard from others about your company or seen on social media; orders that are often late or inaccurate; dissatisfaction with the way your employees have helped them resolve any problems or issues that have arisen.
How to Gauge Customer Experience
As you may have noticed, customer experience is a little more complex and all-encompassing than customer service. Likewise, it’s a little trickier to both control and to gauge how well you’re doing to provide each customer positive CX. That’s why it’s important to get customer feedback often. This may sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you may already be doing this if you, your sales or customer service teams already communicate with your customers often.
If not, there are some simple ways to communicate with your customers to gather feedback. Here are some examples:
• Use SurveyMonkey® or another easy-to-use survey platform to send out short surveys to your existing customers to gauge how happy they are with your company and to ask what you could do to improve.
• When a customer places an order, have someone or follow up yourself with a phone call afterward just to make sure they were pleased and didn’t experience any issues.
• Send out a mass email to customers occasionally giving them updates about new products, services or achievements at your company, and inviting them to contact you to let you know how your company is doing to help them reach their goals.
• When you lose a customer, call them or send a message telling them you’re really sorry to have lost their business, and ask if there’s anything you can do to win them back or what they could have done differently. Even if you can’t win them back, you may learn why they left and what you need to change to hold on to other customers.
Educate Employees About Customer Experience
While the terms customer service and customer experience are often used interchangeably, they’re really not the same thing. Be sure your employees understand this and know that every interaction they have with potential or existing customers can negatively or positively impact customer experience. No business is perfect and providing great customer experience to each and every customer is certainly a tall order. But, if overall, the majority of your customers feel that their business is valued and have positive feelings toward your company or brand, rather than negative, you’re likely doing pretty well.
