Do you use customer service and customer experience interchangeably? While they are both crucial to a positive brand image, they are different but co-dependent. The key to the difference between customer service and customer experience is time-relative. Earlier the line was blurry between the two. The experience a user has with a business mainly depends on the in-store salesman’s behavior or the resourcefulness of the support agent on the phone.
Today, they are not synonymous. And we are here to tell you the difference between customer service and customer experience, so you can excel at both!
What is customer service?
Better known and understood, customer service is how you help your users when they have a query or go through an issue with your product/service. It is the help and support you provide to a customer using your offering.
A couple of decades ago, customer service reps were even required to help users make a transaction or answer basic questions to make a sale. Today, users expect to work out solutions themselves before reaching out to someone.
Businesses that stay ahead of dynamic customer expectations know this. And so, they build and deploy self-service options aimed at resolving most of low-hanging tickets. Such solutions can either be through automation via chatbots and voicebots or even extensive knowledge bases.
Customer service is an essential component of the customer experience you offer. For users today, customer service must be fast, relevant, and on the user’s preferred channels.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience is a much broader concept. It speaks about the customer’s journey with your brand in totality. It’s impact isn’t short-sighted or singular and is defined by all interactions a user has with your company.
Let’s take an example to demonstrate the concept better.
Imagine there’s a user who’s looking to buy new earphones this holiday season. They search for “best wireless earphones in 2022” on Google and see your company’s blog.
They visit the blog and go through the listicle, but still aren’t very sure about it, so they exit.
A few days later, they come across your ad on Instagram that talks about an attractive seasonal offer. They click on it and are redirected to your company’s DMs on the platform. There they inquire about the offer and are quickly attended to by a support rep.
They think about it and visit your website again after a few days . This time they initiate a conversation with your website chatbot, which is trained to tackle all holiday season’s queries. It briefs them on the return and exchange policy applicable during this time.
The user is satisfied with the response. They quickly go ahead and buy the earphones!
So you see? At every touchpoint, regardless of the channel or the purpose of inquiry, the user received holistic service. THIS is what encompasses the customer experience.
A great customer experience ensures consistently interconnected interactions a user has with your brand, throughout their buyer journey.
Customer service vs customer experience: What’s the difference?
The difference lies in their ability to leave an impression on the user’s mind. Now that we are sure about what the two terms mean, let’s get into the various differences between the two.
Singular vs holistic
The number of touchpoints and the length of the conversation is a big determinants in setting the two apart. Customer support is interaction-specific. It’s only affected by your team’s performance within a couple of touchpoints.
Whereas, in the case of customer experience, the scope of measurement is much larger. It takes into account the complete buyer journey into the picture. It holistically involves several teams in your company to ensure a happy CX.
Proactive vs reactive
Another key difference between customer service and customer experience is their nature of initiation. Customer service is usually reactive, which means you react when the user reaches out. You respond to a query, a complaint, a feedback, or a suggestion from the user.
Now, good customer experiences are built for the modern user. Brands are who focus on redefining customer experiences take a proactive approach. This includes reading through the consumer behavior, narrowing down needs preemptively, and taking action before the user runs into a problem. Customer experiences help you build a holistic chain of several interactions that ensure your user is in the know at every turn.
Solitary vs continual
An isolated customer service interaction is one factor influencing the whole customer experience. Singular customer support interactions can be quantified using metrics like First contact resolution (FCR), Average Handling Time (AHT), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), etc. Customer experience, on the other hand, is not solitary and not defined by an independent event. As an ongoing event, customer experience is much harder to quantify. The interactions are scattered across the board, and their collective influence on your user is arbitrary. Your users keep coming back, and that keeps defining their experience with you. At one point, it might be sub-par, but with continuous efforts, it may enhance. It’s all related to the complete experience they’ve had with you at any given point in time.
Customer service vs customer experience: How to excel at both?
I think it’s pretty clear as to why they both matter to your brand. Given their differences, it’s hard to say both customer service and customer experience aren’t intertwined. Today, when users are spoilt for options, good service and experience are the only way to move forward.
For that to happen, it’s important to know that unification of user data and on-time delivery reign paramount. Conversational AI is capable of helping you render great customer service at individual touchpoints. And also, merge isolated interactions to ensure foolproof user experiences.
Chat360 helps you build your online presence at scale. Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, or your website, your trained AI is on-call and ever-ready to attend to your customers. Want to give it a go? Sign up for free to see it today!
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