Often people get confused and interchangeably use the term customer service with customer experience. However, both are different in terms of process, utility, and scope. Customer experience is considered an umbrella in which different element comes together to support and build the perception of clients. On the other hand, customer service is considered as a small part that assists in customer experience development.
If you are still confused about these two, then this piece of article will help you in your quest in understanding the difference.
To make things easier and clearer, we have designed this article and addressed all major concerns associated with the customer experience and customer service in order. Along with how Zendesk’s flexibly makes it a reliable customer support software and how Zendesk integration with Zoho and HubSpot can tune your customer support.
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For more information on Zendesk Integration with Zoho and HubSpot Zendesk Integration, feel free to contact Techloyce, one of the reliable Zendesk Consultants providing services worldwide.
Let’s Begin!
What Is Customer Service?
The bookish definition of customer service is ‘providing assistance and guidance to the customer,’ whether it is related to technical error or product utility. However, in terms of product utility, customer service plays a crucial role in assisting customers at every phase of product interaction e.g., pre-purchase phase, consideration phase, and post-purchase queries.
In general, customer service or support helps clients to provide a solution to everything related to product installation to troubleshooting, maintenance, and disposal.
Means Of Customer Service
In 2021, the means of customer service have been changed drastically. Today, customers are everywhere and using everything from social networking platforms to traditional communication devices e.g. smartphone, and websites. However, the means and preferences have been changed.
Hence, we can say that the preferred mean of customer service changes with the preference of customers, for example:
- Self-Service Portal where customers can lodge a complaint, upgrade or downgrade a subscription, terminate or modify product utility plans while keeping track of complaint status, and so on.
- Chatbots. This has become one of the most important means of customer support because the AI-enabled customer support provides contextual assistance based on the customer query. The contextual support often leverages the knowledge base and past archive of customer queries.
- Human lead customer support. Earlier, the only mean of customer support available was the physical visit of customer support representatives or vice versa. But, technological advancement has upgraded these means too. Now the customer can directly interact with the support team without worrying about the geographical boundaries with the help of Facebook, What’s App, Google, e.tc.
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Pre-Requisite Of Customer Service
- Fast Responses
- Empathetic And Kind Agents
- Preferred Channels
What Is Customer Experience?
Customer experience is very vast. Generally, it means the impression of a customer about the brand that is formed at every stage of the customer journey. Unlike customer service, every team, department, or individual in a company is responsible for providing a quality experience to customers at every point of customer interaction either with the product or with the brand.
When it comes to customer experience, it is important to get yourself familiarize with the 3P’s of customer Experience. It includes people, processes, and products.
Key Metric To Know About Customer Experience
According to Zendesk’s Customer Experience Trends Report 2021,
- 75% buyers prefer to buy a product from a company that provides an excellent Customer Experience
- 65% of customers are using new customer channels e.g. What’s app, Facebook, etc. Therefore, there is a need to widen the customer service means to assist customers where they feel comfortable.
- 75% of customer support teams claim that tech adoption has been increased ever since the COVID lockdown is imposed and the remote support concept has been localized.
How Customer Experience Is Delivered?
Unlike Customer Service, customer experience is formed by many things, the way a brand feels, resonated with the liking of customers, and the message they give through advertisement. And, the other that differentiates the customer experience from customer service is the scope. In customer service, the scope is limited to the product or service-related query while in customer experience, everything contributes to the formation of experience ranging from support to design, the feel of the brand, and the product itself.
Some important mean that helps in delivering quality customer experience is as follow:
- Customer support. Although the scope is low yet the impact is great. As we said above, 75% of customers expect to receive faster customer service and prefer brands that offer quality CX.
- Technology. Another means is the product itself, how it works, is it easy to use, and assists customer interaction.
- The last thing on the list is the design. It can include the UI/UX of the website, application, product features, etc. All of these things help the customers in changing their perception of a Brand by influencing the touchpoints.
There are multiple ways and metrics to help you in measuring and managing the Brand CX. These metrics include Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Experience Score (CES), Net Promoter Score, Customer Lifetime Value, Customer Churn Rate, and retention Rate.
Customer Service Vs Customer Experience
- The first thing that you need to know is, customer service is a small part of customer experience while customer experience is influenced by many things.
- Both are not the same things. Customer services aim to assist, while customer experience aims to motivate perception about a brand so that customers can buy again and again. This led to customer loyalty.
- Customer service is considered a single piece of a huge puzzle. On the other hand, the customer experience is the result of the entire customer journey and interaction with the brand at every touchpoint.
- Lastly, the first one can be synonymizing with assistance and customer guidance, while customer experience gradually forms thorough out the customer journey. It can be enhanced with the help of a self-service portal, offering service through customers’ preferred means, etc.
Conclusion
Customer experience is like a huge picture that is formed gradually with the interaction of the customer with the brand. This interaction includes everything, the post on social media, the product usability, UI/UX design, along with the responsiveness of a website. However, on the other hand, customer service is a special component that guides the customer and influences the overall customer experience with quick assistance.
And, the best software available for customer support is Zendesk. It is a comprehensive support service software that can integrate with CRM. Zendesk provides support for all messaging sites including mobile, web, and across social media platforms. In addition to this, it offers on-call customer support. Hold on! the note-worthy thing about the Zendesk is, it is powered by the AI bot that can be programmed to offer contextual support to customers.
Contact Techloyce for Zendesk Integration with Zoho and HubSpot Zendesk Integration. We are certified Zendesk Consultants providing services to clients in major cities of the world.
