Do Customer Service and Customer Experience go hand in hand? If you call your company a customer-centric company, then you need to focus on both. 

Customer service involves the business trying to solve the problems or queries of the customers.

As mentioned here, good customer service results in higher customer satisfaction and develops an everlasting bond with the customers.

Customer experience, on the other hand, is the overall impression you give to the customers at each stage of their customer journey.

What is the difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience?

Customer Service is reactive. The business is assisting the customer when they face a troubling situation. The company tries to improve the level of satisfaction of the customer. It can be a “How-To ” guide when you are using a new tool, post-purchase assistance, or even suggestions on what to buy. Some companies use phone systems to provide customer support.

Customer Experience is proactive. This involves the overall journey of the customer with a brand. Basically, it is the relationship a customer has with the brand. It starts from the moment the customer is aware of your business, how easily they find information about your products and services to the experience they have after purchasing your products.

The issues why users contact Customer Service/ Support Team

As per the 2017 Microsoft State of Global Services Customer Services Report, 96% of respondents say that customer service is important when determining their loyalty to a brand.

In the report by Nielsen Norman Group, people contacted the Customer Service/ Support team because of the following reasons.

Service Problems

Service problems occur when the experience with the company is not as per the expectations. For example, when we receive a non-refundable defected piece from Amazon. The first thing we do is to contact the customer care team.

Roadblocks

The customer is unable to perform the task due to roadblocks. Mostly the customers do not wait to get it done and jump to the competitors to complete the task. Imagine what would happen if the payment gets stuck when we are ordering food online? We might jump to a competitor and complete the transaction.

Missing or confusing information

Is relevant information missing? Or are the customers confused as to how to proceed with your product or service? It might be any information, be it regarding the working of a product, plan details, refund policy, aftercare services etc. 

Perception of complexity

Sometimes the users consider a task to be too difficult and prefer assistance from a customer service representative. It might be assistance while shopping, guidance on how to use software, advice when filing an insurance etc.

Benefits of a Good Customer Experience

Increase in the Word of Mouth Marketing

When the customers are happy they recommend the products or services to their peers.

Higher Customer Engagement

The customers are more engaged and interact with the brands through various channels. This helps the businesses to understand their customers better. Thus helping them to provide more personalised services 

Increase in Customer Conversion Rate

Increase in conversion rate as these customers tend to come back again and again.

Reduced Marketing Spend

Reduced spend on marketing as the businesses can analyze and interpret better as to what the customers want. The CX-Centric approach tends to increase sales and improves customer satisfaction.

Build Trust by Providing Great Customer Experience

A great customer experience builds trust among the customers. In case of any complaints or issues, the customers know that the company will be available for assistance.

Increase in Customer Loyalty and Retention

The customers will be willing to pay extra or take extra services if they know that the company is adding extra value through their products or services.

Ways to Create a Great Customer Experience

Create Clear Customer Experience vision

How do you plan to provide the best customer experience? Once you have the vision, communicate the same message to employees and other stakeholders of the company. A company like Zappos believes in providing WOW experience to the customers. And they take care that their employees are very friendly and approachable.

Understand Who your Customers are

It is very important to understand who your customers are and what do they want? Once you understand their pain points and challenges, you can create personalized messages targeting them. This will also help you to reach out to your customers in a better manner.

Try to capture all the information about them, their age, place, interests, career goals etc. Your business can build a better customer experience by understanding your customers more. You can also use a Cloud Business Phone System for more accessible and effective communication with your prospects and long term customers.

Create an Emotional Connection with Your Customers

Make the customer journey more comfortable and organized for the customers. Always find ways to delight your customers. Would they be surprised if you send them a discount code on their birthday?

Never be robotic in your conversations. Templates are needed to make the communication conversational, but to create an emotional connection the business needs to bring a human touch.

Choose a Quality Framework for the Development of your Team

There needs to be a few quality guidelines or metrics which help the company stakeholders determine as to what are the quality expectations from each one of them. Also, make sure that your support team is well-equipped with the best customer service software. Not only does it help you resolve customer queries faster but it also plays a huge role in delivering delightful customer experience. Apple has implemented this quality framework throughout its brand. Be it through the products or stores, it provides excellent high quality and excellent customer experience which makes the customers loyal towards the brand.

Automation and AI for better customer experience

With the help of AI, the brands can give a more personalized experience to the customers. In the case of FAQs, the chatbots can be used to respond faster to the customer and serve them better.

Also with the help of project management tools the businesses can automate the processes and help increase the productivity of the employees, thus helping them to serve a larger number of customers.

Also, AI-Driven customer insights provide real-time data as to which products are trending. The companies can determine the purchase history of the customers and thus provide better recommendations to them.

CONCLUSION

So we can summarize that customer service and customer experience are complementary. Businesses focus on providing excellent customer service and customer experience to achieve higher sales targets, improve profits and build customer loyalty.

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