{"id":915488,"date":"2018-11-01T11:36:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T18:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.callcentercoach.com\/?p=3812"},"modified":"2018-11-01T11:39:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T18:39:05","slug":"whats-the-difference-between-customer-service-and-customer-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/whats-the-difference-between-customer-service-and-customer-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the difference between customer service and customer experience?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Sadly, Bill Gessert<\/a><\/strong> passed away suddenly on October 3rd<\/sup>, 2018 \u2013 leaving behind his beloved wife, Lisa and four adult children and five grandsons. It\u2019s was a complete honor to have had Bill on my podcast The Fast Leader Show. While I knew our time together would be full of sharing and insight, I especially loved the way he was able to answer the nagging question, \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between customer service and customer experience?\u201d<\/p>\n

I had known Bill through digital interactions for several years and deeply respected the huge impact he had made on the entire customer service and contact center industries over his career. I finally had the chance to meet him face-to-face at Customer Contact Week (CCW) in Las Vegas in June 2018.<\/p>\n

During our brief 15-minutes together at CCW, he introduced me to 3 passers by and we discussed his guest appearance on the Fast Leader Show. It was a whirlwind chance meeting that I\u2019m grateful for and I\u2019m happy to share with you an edited version of my interview with Bill \u2013 where he shares the difference between customer service and customer experience.<\/p>\n

Start of edited transcript of interview (FULL EPISODE CLICK HERE<\/a><\/strong>):<\/p>\n

Jim Rembach<\/strong>: Bill Gessert, are you ready to help us get over the hump?<\/p>\n

Bill Gessert<\/strong>: I am absolutely ready. I\u2019m looking forward to this today Jim, thanks for having me on board.<\/p>\n

Jim Rembach<\/strong>: I\u2019m glad you\u2019re here. Now given my legion a little bit about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is, so that we can get to know you even better.<\/p>\n

Bill Gessert<\/strong>: Other than the Green Bay Packers? Okay, let\u2019s do that. You know really the thing that I\u2019ve been passionate about my entire life is customer service. Interesting thing \u2013 and you and I talked about this Jim is that today there\u2019s a lot of talk about the term customer experience which is legitimate. And I get asked all the time, what\u2019s the difference between customer service and customer experience.<\/p>\n

I have written about this<\/a><\/strong>, I actually get a little video about this<\/a><\/strong> too. I think I can give you a really short clear explanation that will help people understand. And my passion is all about service. So, here\u2019s how I view the difference.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you\u2019re going to go out to eat this this weekend with your wonderful wife. You choose your favorite restaurant and you call them to make a reservation. That\u2019s the starting point of your experience your customer experience with that that restaurant.<\/p>\n

So, you make your reservation. You show up. You get greeted by the valet. You go inside, the hostess greets you. You get to your table. The table is spotless \u2013 it\u2019s clean. The dishes are clean. You order from a menu that you\u2019re familiar with and it has items on it that you like. All of these things contribute to your overall experience. From the time you made that reservation to the time you pay your check, get in your car and drive home. That\u2019s the experience.<\/p>\n

But now let\u2019s go back and look at that. You called to make that reservation and you spoke to somebody \u2013 that\u2019s a service interaction \u2013 that\u2019s a touch point that makes up customer service. The valet greeted you \u2013 that\u2019s a touch point that makes up service. All part of the overall experience, but it\u2019s a critical part of service.<\/p>\n

So, my passion has always been, how can we improve those touch points. What can we do to increase the professionalism, the friendliness, the overall experience that\u2019s created during that touch point. My whole life has been devoted to helping individuals and organizations improve those service interactions. Those touch points \u2013 that when they\u2019re all combined make up the overall customer experience.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my philosophy Jim, that you cannot create exceptional customer experiences without focusing on those touch points \u2013 those service interactions. That\u2019s why I\u2019m passionate about customer service.<\/p>\n

Jim Rembach<\/strong>: Thanks for giving that clarity. For me, I started asking another question of myself \u2013 in that where does the whole strategy piece come into play? Because, I almost see strategy coming in a lot of different places. I have the strategy associated with that overall customer experience and then I have the strategy associated with those touch points. I can even break it down a little bit further and talk about the strategies within those touch points as far as is it inbound, outbound, digital, mobile. It goes on and on and on. Is that another confusion point or do you see it more clearly than I do at the moment?<\/p>\n

Bill Gessert:<\/strong> You know, first of all I understand exactly what you\u2019re saying. What you\u2019re really addressing is what some people sometime call silos. Because if you do map out the entire customer journey, you\u2019ll see that those touch points, those interaction points happen in different areas. And they happen under the jurisdiction of different organizational departments.<\/p>\n

Marketing could be responsible for some, the customer service department could be responsible for some, product development could be responsible for some, so that\u2019s why in many organizations you\u2019re now seeing the role of the chief customer officer. That\u2019s a person who has the responsibility to really rein and all of those silos and look at everything strategically.<\/p>\n

They have to do so not only from the from the organizations point of view but more importantly from the customers point of view. You\u2019ve got to bring in the voice of the customer, you\u2019ve got to bring in feedback, data \u2013 whether it\u2019s NPS scores or more intensive customer satisfaction surveys, social media. All of those things go into evaluating what kind of experience we\u2019re creating and how can we improve.<\/p>\n

Now, once those decisions are made at the strategic level then somebody\u2019s got to implement that at the tactical level. To me that\u2019s where those touch points are that\u2019s where the service interactions are.<\/p>\n

Learn even more from Bill Gessert on the Fast Leader Show<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sadly, Bill Gessert passed away suddenly on October 3rd, 2018 \u2013 leaving behind his beloved wife, Lisa and four adult children and five grandsons. It\u2019s was a complete honor to have had Bill on my podcast The Fast Leader Show. While I knew our time toget…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6644,"featured_media":897979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[84,130,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6644"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}