Customer Service vs Customer Experience: Key Differences

When you interact with a brand, whether you browse, purchase, or seek help, every step is a form of customer experience. On the other hand, customer service is direct assistance from the seller, a part of the customer experience. 

In this article, you will learn the key differences between customer service and customer experience, what they are, and how they fit into creating a smooth customer journey. Let’s get started. 

What is Customer Service?

Customer service is a one-to-one interaction between the customer and the business representative, whether over the phone, email, or in person.

In other words, it is the process of assisting your customers in eliminating any trouble they face at the purchase or post-purchase stage. This one-to-one interaction can occur on any platform where your prospects are available, including emails, phone calls, live chats, or in-person meetings. 

The primary purpose of customer service is to provide immediate support during or after the purchase. It plays a crucial role in decreasing the customer churn rate. Here are some statistics that prove the importance of customer service: 

• 90% of customers think that quick responses matter most in CS. 

• 57% of customers will switch to your competitors after facing a single bad experience

• 73% of customers use multiple channels during their digital shopping, requiring a multi-channel customer service option for your brand. 

Example: A customer named Robert has started going to a restaurant every week. A regular waiter greets him by name and asks if he wants his usual food. On the most recent visit, Robert was wearing a football team jersey.

The waiter noticed the jersey and started a conversation. Robert loved him and invited him to join him and his friends at the restaurant.

This hypothetical example shows good customer service: the waiter creates an impression about his business and gets more customers.

What is Customer Experience (CX)?

Unlike customer service, customer experience (CX) covers everything your customer interacts with your brand throughout the entire sales funnel. From the awareness stage to post-purchase, CX is a continuous improvement process. 

This aims to create a smooth customer journey and turn paying customers into permanent ones. Customer experience involves every business department, such as sales, marketing, and support. 

Here are some statistics that show the importance of customer experience: 

• 86% of purchasers have no problems paying more when they have a good customer experience from your brand. 

• 86% of your valued customers might leave your brand for good if they face two bad customer experiences. 

• 72% of customers share it with six or more people when they have a good customer experience. 

• You can improve your revenue generation by 80% by offering outstanding customer experiences. 

Example: A customer of Amazon named Juan Ambrose visits the website and faces smooth navigation, fast checkout, and timely delivery. After receiving the product, he faced a problem with his product and took the help of their call answering service for a solution, and got an easy exchange. Amazon ensures its data privacy and provides easy purchase and after-sales service as well.

Customer Service vs. Customer Experience: The Core Differences

Customer experience (CX) includes everything your customers interact with your business, and customer service is a part of it. Customer service aims to deliver immediate solutions quickly, before breaking their dam of patience. They have differences, but are interdependent when focusing on your business growth.

 

Differences	Customer service	Customer experience
Range	Customer service is a single touchpoint, where buyers interact with business representatives in a one-to-one conversation.	Customer experience involves all the touchpoints of your brand’s sales funnel. It starts when your customers come to know your brand, and never tends to end.
Responsibilities	Support agents are fully responsible for delivering solutions within the shortest time.	All the brand employees are responsible for creating an outstanding customer experience.
Reactive vs proactive	Customers initiate conversations in customer service (CS), and the support agent tries to resolve the issues as soon as possible. Thus, customer service is a reactive process.	The CX is a proactive process that needs continuous improvement to meet the finest customer experience.
Key Metrics	First call resolution (FCR): FCR measures the percentage of problems solved on the first contact.   Average handle time (AHT): It measures the average duration of a CS.  Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): After providing solutions, agents ask for a satisfaction score on a scale of 1 to 5.  Net promoter score (NPS): On a scale of 1 to 10, NPS shows how likely your customers are to refer your brand to others.  Average response time: Indicates an agent’s average time to respond to customers.	Customer effort score (CES): CES shows how easy it is for your customers to interact with your brand and get their problems solved.  Customer lifetime value (CLV): Indicates the total revenue your brand can expect from a single customer over time.  Churn rate: This is the percentage of customers who stopped purchasing from your business.  Customer reviews and feedback: Positive feedback from previous customers helps your next customers trust your brand.  Repeat purchase rate: This indicates the percentage of customers who made multiple purchases.
Level of control	Support agents have much control and can offer a personalized solution when they engage in a one-to-one conversation.	Customer experience relies on many factors. So, it is complicated to provide a customized solution overnight.
Impact	Responsiveness: Quickly addressing the pain points and providing solutions ensures customer satisfaction.  Professionalism: Courteous, respectful, and positive conversation increases trust and authority.  Expertise: The ability to provide accurate information makes your customers rely on you.  Empathy: The ability to address customers’ inconveniences makes them feel valued.	Consistency: Consistently improving your sales funnel’s touchpoints aims to build trust and reliability.  Personalization: Tailoring the solution with individual preference makes your customer feel unique and special.  Ease of use: A user-friendly design with an easy procedure improves overall UX impacts.  Reviews for improvement: Customer reviews prove your authority, allow you to learn from previous mistakes, and improve the user experience.
Examples	Consider Grubhub, for example, a food delivery service that increased its average response time by answering 80% of phone calls within 20 seconds. This technique helped the brand increase its revenue scale to a new height.	The “buy 1, get 1 free” or “30% off for your first order” campaigns can be examples of a brand loyalty program. This approach makes customers feel comfortable and personalized, resulting in a great customer experience (CX).

Fig: Comparison table of customer service vs customer experience

The Relationship: How Customer Service Fits into Customer Experience

Now, you understand that customer service and customer experience don’t compete. Instead, good customer service is the backbone of a great customer experience. 

Think of a restaurant visit. There, the server can make your visit enjoyable with great attention. But the entire experience depends on the chef’s skills, the host’s welcome, and how quickly your table gets ready. If one goes wrong, the whole experience might get ruined. 

Here, customer service is like the server, which can give your customers immediate attention and comfort. On the contrary, everything, including the server, is like the customer experience. They create a great CX only when they sync and work together. If a single element doesn’t sync with others, it may cause customer churn. 

Why Understanding the Difference Matters for Your Business

Many businesses pour a vast amount of money just to answer the phone calls, without even realizing the bigger picture of customer experience. Understanding the differences will help you grow your business in many ways, such as: 

Stopping the Profit Leaks

As said above, 86% of customers have no problem paying more when they have a smoother customer experience. On the contrary, 57% of customers will move to your competitors after a single mistake in customer service. Zippia says improved CX will increase your revenue scale by 10-15 percent. 

Turning Queries into Insights

Your smooth CX requires proper guidelines for your customers, including “how-to guides,” “FAQs,” “trends,” “case studies,” etc. Customer service can be your source here. 

You can also take a survey with the help of your customer service agents and then create data-driven content to attract quality backlinks. This will help you take the lead in your industry. 

Building Loyalty 

More than 90% of customers trust previous customer reviews and feedback when purchasing from your business. So, building loyalty through collecting testimonials is always profitable. 

Good customer service can turn your unsatisfied customers into satisfied ones. Asking for testimonials from satisfied customers is hardly rejected. They also refer your business to at least six people on average. 

Final Words

Customer service tends to fix problems in the short term. On the other hand, customer experience builds loyalty that serves your business long-term. You can’t replace one with another. Instead, plan to improve the short-term goal (CS) and shape the future with the broader one (CX). 

Therefore, preventing customer churn is challenging and requires professional support agents. If you struggle to provide better customer service, you can hire professionals to handle your customer calls 24/7. You can hire them and start polishing your CX strategy over time.