Customer Service vs Customer Experience: Which One Matters Most?

Customer service and customer experience (CX) may sound similar and in fact many people use the terms interchangeably, but they are different concepts. Understanding their nuances and how they can work together is the first step in providing the best customer care and driving your marketing efforts forward.

What is customer service?

The aim of customer service is to support your client in the discovery and use of your product or service. Advocating for them along the way will help to develop a lasting relationship, which should in turn encourage them to purchase from your business again in the future. Good customer service should be present in each and every interaction with your organization.

What is customer experience?

CX is all of the elements that affect a customer’s perceptions and feelings when it comes to your business. Annette Franz, founder and CEO of CX Journey, said:

These interactions may be brief, such as seeing an ad or paying a bill, or longer in the form of a call to a contact center, but each one, good or bad, contributes to the relationship.

The differences between customer service and customer experience

Keeping the key differences between customer service and CX at the forefront of your mind will allow you to make the most of these two areas. Always remember:

1. Degree of control

You can and should have complete control over the service that your business provides to its customers. When it comes to CX, there are things you can do to help shape the experience, but there are outside factors that will have an impact on how your brand is perceived too.

2. Differing metrics

Like all areas of business, customer service and CX should be analyzed and evaluated. A customer satisfaction score (CSAT), customer effort score (CES) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) can be used in both fields, but the quality of your CX must be investigated further. Use customer lifetime value (CLV), customer churn rate and customer retention rate metrics for this.

3. Responsibilities

Responsibility for delivering customer service lies firmly with the customer support team, but everyone within your organization contributes towards the CX. All touchpoints, including the marketing department, sales team and even the product developers, have an impact on the perception of your brand and should ensure it’s consistent.

4. Specific vs holistic

Customer service refers to specific touchpoints, which then feed into the customer journey to combine with other elements to create the CX. Encompassing everything from awareness of the business right through to post-purchase care, CX is a more holistic approach to dealing with the customer and will not look the same in every instance.

5. Reactive vs proactive

Most of the time when you supply customer service, it’s because there’s been an issue and your customer comes to you to have it resolved. It could be through a number of channels, ranging from a phone call through to social media or live chat, but whichever way they reach out, your advisors will need to react to their query. CX, on the other hand, is about proactively anticipating your customers’ needs and meeting them to prevent problems before they arise.

Is customer service or customer experience more important?

Recent research from Zendesk has shown that CX has become more important than ever to customers during the pandemic. It found that 75% of customers are prepared to spend more on purchases from businesses that offer a good CX. Connections have been proven to be vital during the pandemic and a single negative experience can be enough to put a customer off using a company in the future, with 50% of those surveyed opting to go elsewhere.

As a result, organizations are stepping up their CX levels, with 63% of CX managers saying their company is prioritizing it more now than it did a year ago. Despite this, CX cannot perform well without good customer service to support it and those businesses providing the best backup are taking an omnichannel approach.

This enables organizations to provide consistent customer service on whichever channel a customer chooses to reach out to them on. Zendesk found investment in omnichannel solutions actually fell by 10% in the last year, which will likely have a negative impact not just on customer service but also on CX.

Rich Gardner, VP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Klaviyo, said: