Customer Experience vs. Customer Service: What's the Difference

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Customer serviceand customer experienceare critical aspects of your business. They both significantly impact your ability to satisfy and retain customers - but they're not interchangeable. Each means something entirely different to your business and your customers.

I've pulled examples of these principles being executed masterfully for us to learn from (and one really bad one). You know you're curious! Let's go.

In this post, we'll cover:

What is the difference between customer service and customer experience?

Although different, customer service sits under the customer experience umbrella. The way you help customers when issues arise contributes to their level of satisfaction. The faster you can help bring customers a resolution, the faster you can help them succeed and have a positive experience.

Continuation vs. Single Touchpoint

Customer experience doesn't require interaction with a representative, but customer service usually does. Great customer service happens one interaction at a time, and the customer experience is a summary of that entire customer journey.

Proactive vs. Reactive

Customer service is reactive: your customer service team will respond to a help ticket or inquiry when a customer initiates a conversation. There are also proactive elements of service, though. Customers expect quick response times, an awareness of their previous touchpoints with the support team, etc.

Is each customer service representative well-trained? Do they have tools that help reduce customer wait time? That's where the customer experience comes in: your proactive back-end investment in the customer experience sets the stage for what kind of reactive service you can provide.

Satisfaction Metrics vs. Service Metrics

Experience metrics are the sum of many touchpoints. They represent all the interactions customers have with your business across departments. A few metrics for your customer experience are:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS®). A measure of how likely a customer is to recommend your business. This is a key metric for evaluating your business's customer experience.
2. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). Your customers' answer to the question "How satisfied were you with your experience?"
3. Customer retention. Are you meeting customers' needs and keeping them satisfied enough for them to keep choosing you over your competitors?

Customer service metrics show how quickly you help customers resolve their issues. A few metrics for your customer service are:

1. Average Response Time: How much time does it take for your support team to solve customer problems?
2. Customer Effort Score (CES). This measures how much work it takes for your customers to use your product or get support.
3. Ticket Resolution Rate: Are customer problems solved the first time they reach out for support, or does it take numerous touchpoints?

Service metrics in a nutshell: Are you able to delight customers with your support and customer care?

Which is more important: customer service or experience?

Experience is more important than support. Customer service is like icing on top of a cake. If the cake itself (the experience) is bad, then no amount of icing (service) can make it good.

It's a bit crude, but I suppose this old adage says it more succinctly: "It's like putting lipstick on a pig." Or the vintage version: "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear."

Bad customer support can ruin your reputation ... but some loyal customers will use your product for years without ever having a single customer service interaction. If you have a bad product, you'll never earn loyal customers in the first place.

I can think of one paid software I've used for 6+ years without ever needing customer support. My customer lifetime value (CLV) for that company has been enormous. My needs are met by that software because the customer experience is excellent.

Bad support can still ruin a good experience.

Customer expectations have never been higher:

• 82% of customers expect their issues to be resolved immediately.
• The #2 challenge service representatives are struggling with is adapting to increasingly demanding customer expectations.
• 95% of consumers report that customer service impacts brand loyalty

Instead of focusing on one practice over the other, create an all-encompassing strategy that ensures you provide satisfactory customer service and, in the process, create an experience that leaves customers satisfied.

Customer Experience Examples

Let's discuss the difference between customer experience and customer service with the example scenario of a customer visiting a storefront.

Say a customer walks in, makes a return with a representative, and continues with their day - this is a singular customer experience. That single interaction, though, makes up a small portion of their entire experience with your business that day.

For example, the directions they found on your Google My Business page helped them get there, the setup of your storefront made it easy for them to find your customer service desk, and your customer service rep helped them seamlessly make a return and process a refund.

Everything they did that day related to your business made up their entire experience, and customer service was one of those touchpoints. Here are some other popular examples.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs reward repeat business and offer an incentive for repeat customers. This is often in the form of "buy 3, get 1 free" or "20% off every 5th order" promotions. Even though these programs are mass-implemented, it can create the feeling of personalized experiences for customers.

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Brand Perception

Monitoring brand sentiment on social media to understand the perception of your brand. This is known as social listening. The story of a bad customer experience can spread like wildfire online, making it important for brands to listen and react to their reputation online. Curious about the perception of your brand? Try asking ChatGPT.

What's the reputation of [brand name]? Summarize what people think in one paragraph).

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Product Design

Produce design, packaging, and branding all contribute to how customers feel about your business. Thoughtful, comprehensive product design helps customers feel valued by the company. It also contributes to (or detracts from) a business's reputation of being a luxury brand.

An example of product packaging design that I love is the Notabag. A small piece of recycled paper teaches you how to use the product and shares company information. I've purchased several Notabags, and I always find myself reluctant to throw the packaging into the recycling bin because it's so thoughtfully designed.

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Customer Support

This is where customer support and experience come together. Let's zoom in specifically at customer service examples and how they impact the overall customer experience.

Customer Service Examples

Every customer service experience is a single event that contributes to overall memorable experiences with a company (either good or bad). Here are some examples.

Response Time

When a customer contacts your customer service team, how long does it take for them to get a reply? The overall perception of your customer service team starts with how quickly queries are addressed.

Fast customer service makes customers feel valued - it has a huge impact on customer satisfaction. Quick responses are an integral part of a modern customer support system.

One of the fastest customer support teams I've ever encountered is GreenGeeks. I've messaged them at every hour of the day with website issues, and they always reply immediately with an exact solution to my problem. It's the kind of customer attention that successful businesses should all aspire to.

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Support Channels

A customer interaction can take place on almost any channel these days (yippee, right?). Yes, it's a bit more work, but with tools like HubSpot's CRM you can consolidate all of your customer communication into one place.

Omnichannel support options allow customers to reach out using their preferred medium. This may be email, live chat, phone, or social media. Maybe even the odd snail mail (stranger things have happened).

Just be sure to provide support to everyone. Some companies hide customer support behind a paywall and leave customers on free plans out in the cold. HubSpot provides multiple direct lines of communication to everyone - including those using their free products.

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Self-Service

Creating self-service tools for customers to help themselves helps improve many aspects of your service. A few popular self-service options are:

• Conversational AI chatbots.
• Knowledge bases.
• Detailed tutorials.

You can find a lot of exceptional self-service options online, and also a lot of half-baked ones. My favorite example is Canva's knowledge base.

Not only does it use semantic search to understand the intent behind your query, but it also uses AI to communicate in your language. Canva automatically detects your language and uses AI to send a response in your language. Heel erg bedankt, Canva!

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Customer Feedback

Collecting and acting on customer feedback is a key part of maintaining customer satisfaction. But did you know that some huge companies don't accept customer feedback?

For me, Pinterest comes to mind. Users LOVE Pinterest. But they have a very hard time contacting them when something goes wrong. You can find angry comments from ignored users on every single social platform. Remember the analogy of the cake and the icing? Pinterest's product is the cake; the icing, though, people hate.

My blog post on how to contact Pinterest has sparked dozens of comments and emails from customers who have been scammed on the platform or locked out of their accounts. Their TrustPilot score is a raging 1.4/5 stars as a result. I've been a Pinterest marketer since 2018 and I'd bet anything that this is the direct result of no investment in customer support.

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I still love Pinterest, but it's a cautionary tale for brands. Alright, enough about the rage of scorned customers. Let's end this on a positive note.

You Need Great Customer Service and Customer Experience

Both customer service and customer experience are required to scale your business. By understanding these two concepts, you can ensure customers' needs are met throughout the entire journey, building long-lasting relationships.

Make customers feel valued enough, and they may even brag about the customer experience you've invested in (looking at you GreenGeeks, Notabag, and Canva).

Exceptional customer service starts with the right software - see if HubSpot's Service Hub can help lighten your load.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Topics: Customer Experience

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