Customer Service or Customer Experience [Experience Action Podcast]

Summary

Jeannie Walters discusses the distinction between customer service and customer experience, emphasizing the importance for leaders to understand both concepts. She explains customer service as reactive, while customer experience is proactive and holistic, affecting the entire customer journey. Walters urges leaders to consider the strategic business value of enhancing customer experience to drive growth, reduce costs, and innovate, advocating for a cross-functional approach to truly prioritize customer-centric strategies.

Takeaways

• 😀 Customer experience (CX) and customer service are not interchangeable; CX is proactive and intentional, while customer service is reactive.
• 🔍 Jeannie Walters emphasizes the importance of understanding the difference between CX and customer service for effective leadership.
• 🛍️ Customer service involves addressing issues when customers seek help, whereas CX is about creating a positive journey from the first interaction to becoming a lifelong customer.
• 💡 CX management involves being proactive to reduce service costs and enhance the overall customer perception, which can lead to higher retention and referrals.
• 📈 A strong business case for CX should include its impact on growth, customer lifetime value, and reducing service-related expenses.
• 🚀 Disruption in industries often comes from focusing on CX, making it a strategic advantage for businesses to stay ahead of competitors.
• 🤝 Cross-functional leadership is crucial for a holistic approach to CX, ensuring all parts of an organization contribute to a positive customer journey.
• 📊 Leaders should be educated on the business impact of CX, including potential cost savings and revenue growth opportunities.
• 💬 Including emotional customer stories can be powerful in convincing leaders of the importance of CX, alongside data and logical arguments.
• 🛠️ Tools like customer journey mapping can help leaders understand and engage with the concept of CX, facilitating strategic planning.
• 👥 Training and developing employees to understand and contribute to CX is essential for its success across the organization.
• 🔗 Creating a cross-functional CX team with a clear charter and regular check-ins can drive the organization towards a customer-centric culture.

Q & A

What is the main difference between customer service and customer experience according to Jeannie Walters?

Customer service is reactive, dealing with issues when customers need help or have problems. Customer experience, on the other hand, is proactive and intentional, focusing on shaping the overall journey customers have with a brand from the first interaction to becoming a lifelong customer or advocate.

Why is it important for business leaders to care about both customer service and customer experience?

Both are essential for a well-rounded approach to customer relations. Customer service addresses immediate issues, while customer experience shapes the overall perception and satisfaction of customers, which can drive business value and long-term loyalty.

How does a proactive approach to customer experience potentially reduce service costs for a business?

By anticipating and addressing potential issues before they occur, a proactive customer experience approach can minimize the need for reactive customer service, thus reducing the costs associated with handling complaints and resolving problems.

What is the role of cross-functional leadership in delivering a positive customer experience?

Cross-functional leadership is crucial for creating a cohesive customer experience strategy. It involves collaboration across different departments to ensure that every touchpoint with the customer is optimized and aligned with the brand's vision for customer experience.

How can leaders make a strong business case for investing in customer experience?

Leaders can make a business case by demonstrating the potential for increased customer retention, higher referrals, and extended customer lifetime value. They can also highlight the cost savings from reduced service issues and the potential for revenue growth through a better customer experience.

What is the significance of customer journey mapping in understanding and improving customer experience?

Customer journey mapping is a tool that visually represents the customer's experience with a brand. It helps leaders understand the customer's perspective, identify pain points, and find opportunities for improvement, ultimately leading to a more optimized and satisfying customer experience.

How can organizations ensure that all employees, not just customer-facing ones, contribute to a positive customer experience?

By training and educating all employees about the importance of customer experience and how their roles impact it. This fosters a culture where everyone is responsible for contributing to a positive customer journey.

What is the relationship between customer experience and business growth?

A positive customer experience can lead to increased customer loyalty, higher customer lifetime value, and more referrals, all of which contribute to business growth. Moreover, focusing on customer experience can also open up new market opportunities and competitive advantages.

Why is it crucial for leaders to not only look at data but also understand the human impact behind it?

While data provides quantitative insights, understanding the human impact gives leaders a qualitative perspective on how their organization affects individual customers. This emotional connection can be powerful in driving leaders to prioritize and invest in customer experience.

How can storytelling and emotional connections help in advocating for customer experience improvements?

Storytelling and emotional connections humanize data, making it more relatable and compelling for leaders. Real customer stories can illustrate the impact of a positive or negative experience, motivating leaders to take action and prioritize customer experience initiatives.

What steps can leaders take to foster a culture of proactive and intentional customer experience within their organization?

Leaders can develop a customer experience charter, establish cross-functional teams, ensure regular check-ins and feedback loops, and use tools like customer journey mapping to engage the leadership team and drive a culture focused on proactive and intentional customer experiences.

Outlines

00:00

📣 Introduction and Listener's Question

Jeannie Walters introduces herself and the topic of customer and employee experience. She listens to a question from Cara Silletto about differentiating customer experience from customer service.

05:05

🔍 Understanding Customer Service vs. Customer Experience

Jeannie explains the difference between customer service and customer experience. Customer service is reactive and involves assisting customers when they need help. Customer experience, on the other hand, is proactive and encompasses the entire journey of the customer with the brand, from the first interaction to becoming a loyal advocate.

10:07

💡 Importance of a Proactive Customer Experience

Jeannie highlights the importance of being proactive and intentional about customer experience. A well-managed customer experience reduces service costs, prevents issues, and enhances customer satisfaction. This involves listening to customers, gathering feedback, and anticipating their needs.

15:12

📊 Making the Business Case for Customer Experience

Jeannie emphasizes the need to make a strong business case for customer experience to gain leadership support. This includes defining the business impact, such as increased referrals, higher customer lifetime value, and cost savings from reduced service issues. She also suggests using emotional stories and customer testimonials to convey the importance of customer experience.

🚀 Innovating Through Customer Experience

Jeannie discusses how innovation in customer experience can disrupt industries and create significant value. Companies like Amazon and Uber have succeeded by focusing on making the customer experience more effortless and delightful. She advises leaders to take a holistic approach and involve cross-functional teams in enhancing customer experience.

🛠️ Practical Steps for Implementing Customer Experience Initiatives

Jeannie provides practical steps for leaders to improve customer experience, such as training employees, forming cross-functional CX teams, and using customer journey mapping. She encourages leaders to think strategically and develop clear definitions of success for customer experience initiatives.

📞 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Jeannie concludes by inviting listeners to ask more questions and check out resources on her website. She underscores the importance of taking action to improve customer experience and promises to address more questions in future sessions.

Keywords

💡Customer Experience

Customer Experience (CX) refers to the cumulative impression and feelings a customer has about a product or service over time. It encompasses every interaction a customer has with a company, from the initial awareness to post-purchase support. In the script, Jeannie Walters emphasizes the importance of CX as a proactive and intentional strategy that can drive business value and distinguish a company from its competitors.

💡Customer Service

Customer Service is the assistance provided to customers before, during, and after a purchase. It is typically reactive, addressing issues as they arise. In the transcript, Walters contrasts customer service with customer experience, highlighting that while customer service is critical, it is only one aspect of the overall customer journey.

💡Proactive

Proactive refers to taking action in advance of a situation to prevent problems or to create opportunities. Walters uses this term to describe a strategic approach to CX, where businesses anticipate customer needs and design experiences that meet those needs before they are explicitly stated.

💡Reactive

Reactive describes a response to a situation after it has occurred. In the context of the script, reactive is associated with customer service, where the company responds to issues only after customers have identified a problem or need assistance.

💡Employee Retention

Employee Retention is the ability of a company to keep its employees over time. It is mentioned in the context of Magnet Culture, an organization focused on strategies to keep employees satisfied and reduce turnover. Retention is indirectly related to CX as satisfied employees can contribute to a better customer experience.

💡Cross-functional Leadership

Cross-functional Leadership involves leaders from different areas of an organization working together to achieve a common goal. Walters suggests that this type of leadership is essential for delivering a positive customer experience, as it ensures that all aspects of the customer journey are considered and optimized.

💡Business Value

Business Value is the worth or usefulness that a product, service, or strategy brings to a company. Walters argues that customer experience drives business value by increasing customer loyalty, reducing service costs, and fostering a competitive advantage in the market.

💡Strategic Advantage

Strategic Advantage is a superior position that a company attains over its competitors, often through unique capabilities or offerings. The transcript discusses how a well-executed CX strategy can provide a strategic advantage by creating a differentiated customer journey that appeals to customers.

💡Customer Journey

Customer Journey describes the entire process a customer goes through when engaging with a company, from initial awareness to post-purchase interactions. Walters emphasizes the importance of mapping and optimizing this journey to create a seamless and satisfying experience for customers.

💡Customer Feedback

Customer Feedback is the input received from customers about their experiences, perceptions, and expectations. In the script, feedback is highlighted as a critical component of CX management, allowing companies to understand and address customer needs and preferences.

💡Disruption

Disruption, in a business context, refers to innovations that create a new market or disrupt an existing one, often by rethinking traditional models. Walters mentions companies like Amazon and Uber as examples of businesses that have disrupted their industries by focusing on creating a better customer experience.

💡Cost of Doing Business

The Cost of Doing Business includes all the expenses incurred in the normal course of business operations. Walters points out that customer service is sometimes viewed merely as a cost of doing business, whereas a proactive approach to CX can reduce these costs by preventing issues before they occur.

Highlights

Jeannie Walters emphasizes the distinction between customer service and customer experience, highlighting the importance of understanding both for business success.

Customer service is described as reactive, addressing issues as they arise, while customer experience is proactive, shaping the overall journey a customer has with a brand.

Walters suggests that leaders should care about both customer service and customer experience to deliver a positive outcome for customers and the business.

She explains that customer experience starts from the first interaction with a brand and extends through every touchpoint, influencing customer loyalty and advocacy.

Walters argues that a proactive approach to customer experience can reduce service costs by preventing issues before they occur.

She advocates for cross-functional leadership to create a cohesive customer experience strategy within an organization.

Walters provides actionable advice on how to make a business case for investing in customer experience, linking it to increased revenue and reduced expenses.

She discusses the importance of customer feedback and how it should be integrated into the customer experience strategy to predict and meet customer needs.

Walters warns of the risk of disruption by competitors who prioritize customer experience, urging leaders to innovate in this area to stay ahead.

She emphasizes the value of storytelling and emotional connection in conveying the impact of customer experience to business leaders.

Walters suggests using customer journey mapping as a tool for leaders to understand and improve the customer experience.

She encourages the development of a cross-functional CX team to lead customer experience efforts within an organization.

Walters provides a call to action for leaders to train and educate employees throughout the organization on the importance of customer experience.

She offers resources and tools, such as the Customer Experience Strategy Success Statement, to help leaders define success in customer experience.

Walters concludes by inviting listeners to engage with her for further questions and support in solving experience problems.

Transcripts

It's Experience Action. I'm Jeannie  Walters and I'm here to answer your  

questions about customer experience or  employee experience or whatever else you  

have to throw at me. So let's go ahead  and listen into our question this week.

[Listener Question] Hey, Jeannie, it's  Cara Silletto from Magnet Culture. I'd  

love to know how to get my leaders to  understand that customer experience is  

not the same thing as customer  service. Can you help me out?

[Jeannie Walters] Thanks, Cara, it's good  to hear your voice and for those of you  

who don't know Cara Silletto, I encourage  you to check out Magnet Culture. That is,  

her organization focused on employee  retention strategies. So check that out.

Now, this is a great question, because a lot  of times when I introduce myself or when I  

am speaking somewhere, I talk about customer  experience, I use the phrase customer experience,  

and still people walk up to me and they say I'm  so glad you're talking about customer service.  

And so we've been kind of trained to think about  these as interchangeable ideas, and what I want to  

share today is really why it's so important to  have both represented in your organizations in  

powerful ways, and why every single business  leader should absolutely care about customer  

service, but also they should care about customer  experience as well. And so, as we are exploring  

this idea, I encourage you to think about you know  where are the places in your organization where  

this might apply and who are the leaders that you  can really reach out to in your organization to  

bridge the gap, to create that cross-functional  leadership that we need in order to deliver on a  

positive customer experience. So let's back up a  little bit. When we talk about customer service  

versus customer experience, what are we talking  about? Well, here's the way I think about it.

Customer service is reactive by nature. Customer  service is what happens when people need us. When  

the customer, maybe, is wandering around  in a store and they can't find something,  

they need to go find somebody to help them  find that. Or maybe they use their app to  

way find in a store. That is them  seeking information, seeking help.  

This also shows up in contact centers. You  know, if we have an issue, we have to call  

and figure out what's going on. That's up to us  as customers. We have to reach out and figure out  

how do we solve this problem. Maybe we didn't get  the right order, or maybe the bill is incorrect,  

or maybe we're just missing a piece of information  that we need. There are people, and now we have  

apps and AI and all these other tools that are  there to respond to those inquiries, to respond  

to those needs. So when things go not quite right  or when the customer is missing either information  

or a product or service, customer service is there  to help. It's an important and critical role in  

your organization. Now, customer experience  is really a proactive and intentional idea.

Now, one thing I like to say is don't forget you  don't have to talk about customer experience. Your  

customers are still having an experience.  Customer experience, by definition, is the  

experience that your customers have. This is true  from when they first interact with your brand,  

all the way through every touchpoint, every  interaction, to when they actually either  

leave you or become a lifelong customer and  advocate for your brand. That's a long journey.  

That's something that we have to really think  about. If we don't think about that journey,  

what happens is the customer is still having an  experience, but they are not moving through the  

journey in the most optimized way, in the way  that makes them feel the best about your brand.  

They might have to, you know, figure things  out to get to the next step. They might not  

feel reassured and confident when they make  a purchase because they're not getting that  

reassurance. Because if we're not looking  at things from the customer's perspective,  

we are missing an opportunity to develop a  proactive and intentional customer experience.

This is where it comes into the idea of  when we add all those interactions up,  

when we are looking at the end-to-end journey.  However the customer feels about that, their  

perception is really what makes the experience  for them. So, yes, they might make a purchase,  

but they might walk out and think I'm never going  back to that store. I couldn't find anything,  

it was a mess, things were dusty. When I actually  went up there, I didn't feel good about giving my  

credit card, whatever it is. We have to look  at those interaction points as the customer  

and think about how can we make it as effortless  as possible, how can we make it as delightful as  

possible, how can we help the customer take the  next step that they want to take? And so if we're  

proactive and intentional about our customer  experience, that means a few things happen.

Well, you may have heard about customer  service being kind of the cost of doing  

business. Sometimes in large organizations  we literally refer to it as a cost center,  

meaning that we're investing there even though  there's not a direct line to return on that  

investment. However, if we can be proactive  and intentional about our customer experience,  

that does a few things for our bottom line.  Number one: it actually reduces service cost.  

If we don't create problems to begin with,  we don't have the service issues at the end.

Now, the other thing that happens is if we are  working together hand in hand with the idea of  

customer service and customer experience, we're  going to listen to what customers are saying,  

we're going to ask them about their  opinions, their feedback, and once we  

gather that we can again go back and  be intentional about the experience,  

we can start predicting what they need so  that they don't have an issue to react to,  

they don't have a need to call in, they  don't have to search around and find things,  

because we've thought about that for them as  part of our customer experience efforts inside  

the organization. So inside the organization,  what we're really doing is customer experience  

management or customer experience leadership.  This is where we are putting in the right  

efforts around the customer experience to get  the results that we and our customers want. So  

that is really the difference between the ideas  of customer service and customer experience.

Now the question is about how do we get our  leaders all to care about this. You know,  

I have heard customer experience described in  so many ways that sometimes I have to just stop  

somebody because I hear it described as fluffy  or soft skills or a cost center or all of these  

different things. And if you are listening  to this podcast for more than the first time,  

if you followed me on LinkedIn, if you have paid  attention to the articles and different things  

that we have out there, you know how I feel about  this. I really believe that customer experience  

drives business value. It is a winning business  strategy, but we have to treat it strategically  

just like any other part of business. Can you  imagine talking about sales as if it's just going  

to happen? Right, we say, wow, it's really weird.  We are just waiting here for sales to happen.

We've told everybody on our organization that  sales is important. We have said that. We put  

up a poster and it said sales, they are important,  our number one priority. But if we don't actually  

give people the communication, the tools, the  processes, the technology to get things done  

around sales, then it is magical thinking. And yet  we do that with customer experience all the time.

So what I would do if I were a leader trying  to get others to really understand why this  

is important is I would start by defining the  business impact. I would literally sit down and  

figure out what is the strategic advantage if  we can drive a better customer experience. Now  

Cara asked this question and she added that, yes,  this is part of it. We can get higher retention,  

we can get higher referrals. All of that is  really important. What I want you to do is  

make a strong business case for that. Figure out  what would a few more referrals look like for  

your bottom line. What would a higher customer  lifetime value mean? What would it mean if we  

could extend the relationship with a customer so  that they actually made more purchases with us?  

Or flip that and think about the service issues  that you actually have today. What if you could  

prevent those things? What if you had fewer people  making returns on your products or trying to get  

refunds or retribution because things went wrong?  There are so many great case studies out there,  

but really, when you look at the cost  savings, the savings of expenses there,  

that's going to make your chief  financial officer happy If you are  

looking at ways to increase revenue in this tight  market we have right now. Look for ways to really  

optimize the customer relationships  you already have, but make your case.

The other thing that you could look at is how to  innovate around your customer experience. If you  

look at many of the disruptions that have  happened in the last decade plus they have  

all been experience-based. When we talk about  the Amazons and the Ubers and the Carvanas of  

the world, we are talking about disruption  through experience. The products they sell  

are the same as others and have been for a  long time. What they did was they disrupted  

industries by focusing on how can we make the  experience more effortless, more convenient,  

more delightful for our customers. So if  you are not focused on customer experience,  

this is a great message for those  leaders you want to convince.

If you are not focused on customer experience,  somebody else in your industry is, and right now,  

today, they are working on ways to  disrupt your industry. So do not  

be left behind on this. Focus on how you can  be proactive and intentional and look at all  

of those interactions and touch points in your  customer's journey so that you can innovate and  

stay ahead. This can be really something  that develops a tremendous lot of value  

for your organization. So you want to take this  holistic approach and that means we have to get  

cross-functional leadership involved. And that  means that, as you make your business case,  

as you say to your fellow leaders, we need to care  about this, because we need to make a case in a  

couple of different ways. We need to think about  who those leaders are and what do they care about.

Now, if your CEO is all about growth, you want  to talk about the growth potential of working  

on customer experience. That's where you get into  the referrals, the higher customer lifetime value,  

more market share, more share of wallet, all of  those things. Now your CFO is going to be looking  

for higher revenues and lower expenses.  In fact, if you need a winning formula,  

this is the winning formula. Look for  ways that you can increase revenue and  

decrease expenses. One of the ways you can  do that is by preventing service issues. So  

if you have a lot of people going out to,  for instance, repair your products, well,  

that's a customer experience issue. You  might want to look at that and say, okay,  

what could we do to prevent those repairs  and that expense for our organization. Use  

that as part of your case as well. And then, of  course, we want to include customers in this.

Sometimes and I've seen this again and again  and again we think leaders want spreadsheets.  

We think leaders want to know exactly logical  steps for everything. Now that is important,  

but they also need story. They need to understand  what is this doing for the human behind the number  

on that spreadsheet. This is where bringing  in real quotes from your customers. This is  

where recordings from your call center can  be so powerful, or videos that customers  

record and share for you. This can happen on  social media. This can be maybe testimonials,  

things like that. You want to bring that  into your leadership. Because I have seen  

very hardened business professionals who seem  to only want to look at, you know, spreadsheets  

and graphs and charts. And then you play one of  those recordings where a customer is emotional  

and they start hearing the impact that your  organization has on individual people and  

suddenly that becomes the priority. So use emotion  to tell your customer's story. That can move  

mountains with leaders, but you have to do this  within the context of the broader business case.

So if you haven't already, I would encourage you  to check out our Customer Experience Strategy  

Success Statement tools on our site. It's in the  Learning Center at experienceinvestigators.com.  

That process can really help you think through  what is the definition of success here and why  

should we care about this as business leaders?  If we're only talking about customer feedback,  

our leaders are not going to pay  attention. We need to translate  

that into what does that actually mean  for our organization. So there's a place  

for customer service. There's a place for  customer experience. But all of it fits  

into this broader idea of what does  success look like for our customers,  

our employees and our organization? And it's up to  us to really define that for our fellow leaders.

So if you want a few easy calls to action here  for your fellow leaders, one is let's make sure  

we are training and educating and developing our  employees to think about customer experience in  

this way. Not just the customer facing staff,  not just the customer service folks, but everyone  

throughout the organization. That's a great way  to get some cross-functional engagement. And then,  

if you don't already have a cross-functional CX  team who is really leading the charge around this,  

that is another great place to start.  Sometimes these start very organically, but  

I would encourage you to think about developing a  charter, making sure you have regular check-ins,  

making sure you have ways to close the loop  with customers who give you that feedback,  

as well as with leaders who have requests or  ideas or things like that. So make sure you  

have some sort of cross-functionality across  your leadership team when it comes to customer  

experience. And then customer journey mapping is  another great tool that can really help leaders  

understand what this really is and how you  can move forward with it. So if you haven't  

done that recently, it's a great way to get  engagement with that leadership team as well.

I hope this helps. I love this question  because really we have been trained in so  

many different ways as business leaders, as  entrepreneurs, as people who are focused on  

different aspects of our organization and often  we just haven't really been taught this stuff. So  

there is no shame in the fact that your other  leaders might not know exactly what this is,  

but the fact that you want to advocate for  it is a great step in the right direction.  

So you will see the rewards of this. Think  strategically, develop that definition of  

success and engage cross-functionally with your  leaders across the organization so that you can  

really see the return on the investment around  proactive, intentional customer experiences.

Thank you so much for this question and, as  always, I am here for you. So if you are listening  

to this, thinking, well, I have a follow-up  question or I have another question? Hey,  

that's why we're here. So go ahead and check  out askjeannie.vip. That's where you can leave  

me a recording, anonymously or with your name,  and I'll give you a shout out. And we're here  

to solve experience problems and to make sure  that we are taking action around experience. So  

I will talk to you again next week. Thank  you for all you do and can't wait to hear  

your next question. To learn more about our  strategic approach to experience, check out  

free resources at experienceinvestigators.com,  where you can sign up for our newsletter,  

our Year of CX program and more, and please  follow me, Jeannie Walters, on LinkedIn.