Customer service is not customer experience (and vice versa)

All too often, when we talk with leaders about customer experience, they’ll nod their heads knowingly and say something along the lines of, “We provide great customer service.” Or they might relate a tale of some time when an employee went above and beyond to fix a customer’s problem.
But customer service is just one aspect of the entire customer experience. It usually comes into play when something has gone wrong; it is the place where companies fix things when part of the experience has been less than satisfactory. A customer orders the wrong size and needs to exchange it; shipping has been delayed because of weather (or in the last year, because of the post office or COVID-19-related supply chain problems); a bill is incomprehensible or contains an error. Says Gary Moore, CEO of ServiceSource, which provides outsourced B2B sales and support, “Customer service is important, and important to get right, but it’s rarely memorable unless it’s lousy.” That’s why it is so critical for companies to avoid or do away with the mentality that service equals experience. Read more…