Does Customer Service Improve Customer Experience?
Companies are no longer getting involved in the features or pricing war. They’re focusing on providing a top-notch customer experience. With customer service being a core part of Marketing, let’s see if customer service improves customer experience.
Businesses have started making the customer experience a priority. Why? As the communication touchpoints have increased, brands are striving hard to be remarkable in the eyes of consumers. It is no longer about features or price, and it’s about delivering top-notch customer experience. **Companies are now personifying the Maya Angelou quote that says, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” **
Customer service is an integral part of customer experience (CX). Although customer service is often mistakenly considered synonymous with CX, they are not the same. Let’s look at the differentiating factors between the two.
What Is the Difference Between Customer Service and Customer Experience?
Customer service is the assistance or advice a company provides to its customer before or after buying its products or services.
Customer experience consists of all the interactions a customer has with a company throughout the buying journey and beyond. CX includes everything – right from a prospect starting their research till they are making a purchase. **CX consists of the brand itself, its products or services, employees, communication and every conceivable touchpoint that encourages people to feel good about the company. **
For example, you are facing some issue with your recently subscribed online service. You connect with a customer service executive, and they sort it out for you. You’d say that they provide excellent customer service. It ends there for customer service.
On the other hand, you buy a hand-made jewelry product from an online store. Along with the purchase, you also receive a hand-written thank you card from the artist. Now, that’s a company going out of its way to deliver positive customer experience.
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Customer Service Vs Customer Experience (CX): Key Differences And Similarities
These are the three key differences between customer service and customer experience:
- Customer service is a subset of customer experience
- Customer experience is more about customer perception, i.e., subjective, and customer service tends to be an objective function
- Customer service is reactive. You will respond to a customer only when they get in touch with you, whereas customer experience is proactive. The ball is in your court. How you make people perceive you is in your hands
From the comparison, it is apparent that customer service makes an impact on customer experience. Let’s look at five customer service tips that would improve customer experience.
Five Customer Service Tips to Improve Customer Experience
1. Have the Right MarTech Tool Stack
The right combination of tools would make it easy for you to help your customers in a better way. Keeping your website updated is the right place to start. Live chat is probably the easiest way for your customers to get in touch with you. Introducing a chatbot can take care of the queries that are relatively easy and don’t require human intervention.
CRMs are the corporate equivalent of high school scrapbooks. They contain all the key information about customers that helps you purposefully communicate with them.
Customer service software and ticketing systems come with features that cover almost all modes of communication that streamline and up to certain degree automate customer conversations.
Also Read: How to Make Customer Service Work for Your Marketing Stack
2. Speak Your Customers’ Language
Successful copywriters speak the language of their target market. Instead of talking about the features of your products, talk about the benefits or what pain point it addresses.
When communicating with customers, show your human side. Avoid technical jargons and difficult words when responding, because your customers will assume that you’re sending a template response. You can convey the same information in a semi-formal or casual way, making you come across as friendly and approachable.
Also Read: Steps to Avoid Dueling Messages and Touchpoints with Your Customers
3. Be Quick to Respond
No one likes to listen to the yawn-inducing music on hold. When customers get in touch with you via any medium, they are already frustrated and looking for quick help. Prompt service leaves a favorable impression of your brand in the customers’ mind. The customer service team needs to work like a well-oiled machine to function at their peak. As mentioned earlier, introducing chatbots in your CX strategy will take care of the basic problems your customers face. There will be plenty more FAQs for which you can maintain a repository of pre-written responses saving you a lot of time.
Also Read:
Top 5 B2B Customer Experience (CX) Best Practices for 2020!
4. Be Empathetic in Your Responses
Do you want to know the best customer service strategy? It’s care. Caring about your customers and telling them that you’re listening will create a positive image of your brand.
**Showing empathy assures your customers that you acknowledge their concerns and are willing to help them. Communicate in a way that tells your customers that you care about them will put them at ease and encourage a positive relationship with your company. **
Also, reframing negative language to positive or assertive language nullifies the possibility of miscommunication.
Also Read: Top 5 Customer Experience (CX) Predictions for 2020
5. Say Thank you
**The phrase thank you expresses gratitude. Use it at the right time to make your customers feel appreciated and to win their trust. Along with expressing it verbally, you can take it a step ahead and send handwritten thank you notes** – an old-school method that is getting a resurgence in the era of customer experience.
Another way of appreciating your customers is to send them your merch, incentives, and rewards to make them feel like a part of the elite few.
Also Read: What is Customer Experience (CX)? Definition, Design, Management, Best Practices and Examples
Conclusion
Does customer service improve customer experience? A strong, resounding yes! **As Kate Zabriskie said, ‘’The customer’s perception is your reality.” How well you help your customer determines how they feel about your brand. ** Therefore, a positive customer service will lead to better customer experience.
