At a recent “customer experience” conference in Dubai it soon became apparent a broader view on customer experience was required. The terms “customer experience” and “customer service” were frequently used interchangeably. This was a problem because we feel customer service is an important part of the customer experience. They’re related but not the same. It can be useful to think of customer service as a crucial cog in the customer experience wheel.
At Wavelength we’d make the following distinctions with regards to customer experience and customer service:
| Customer Experience | Customer Service | |
| Scope | Whole customer journey | Part of customer journey |
| Brand values, promise, essence, positioning etc., | Brought to life at all touch points along the customer journey (before, during and after sales) | Brought to life through “in life” contact with customer |
| Source of value | Value in interaction/ brand engagement | Value in issue / complaint resolution |
| Managing customer expectations | Aims to exceed customer expectations at multiple points in customer journey | Aims to meet (or exceed as best possible) customer expectations when they contact the company |
| Value perspective | Proactive creation of value | Primarily reactive creation of value |
| Initiator | Brand or customer | Primarily the customer |
| Place on organisational chart | Multiple employees in multiple departments (if not all) | A formal function exists to support the customer and has primary responsibility for customer service |
We feel these are the key areas that make customer service a subset of customer experience. There may well be others but, based on our experience with a number of service brands, these drive brand equity. We’d love to hear your views..….