Customer service vs customer experience

• Control 

Comparatively an organization has more control over the customer service it provides. It is totally set up in the office and you choose your agents and train them accordingly. When it comes to customer experience, you don’t have much control over it as there are so many external factors that affect a customer’s perspective of your brand. 

• Metrics 

There are certain metrics to measure both customer service and customer experience. For customer service, you can use Customer satisfaction score (CSAT), customer effort score (CES), and Net Promoter Score^® (NPS^®) to measure its quality. And for customer experience, along with the mentions metrics, customer lifetime value (CLV), customer churn rate, and customer retention rate can also help gauge CX.

• Ownership 

When we talk about customer service, the responsibility of delivering the right customer service is of the customer service team and managers. Even though other employees can have an interaction with the customers, it all comes down to the customer service team. 

But if we talk about customer experience, it is an entire organization’s responsibility to give their best that will ultimately benefit the customer. 

It won’t be fair to even discuss which one is more important, is it customer service or customer experience? As said before, customer service is an important component of customer experience. Meaning, when a customer thinks about your brand, he first remembers how he was treated. It can be over a call, a visit, product demo, or any other communication channel. 

The way you serve your customers leaves a deep mark in their minds forever. So, when a customer experiences even just one bad experience, they consider it a reason enough to switch to a better competitor. This leaves them with a bad customer experience. 

Hence, it is safe to say that a good customer service will be more likely to turn into a good customer experience too.