Customer Experience Vs. Customer Service: How Are They Different?

Customer service (CS) and customer experience (CX) are often used interchangeably. But the terms aren’t the same. 

They differ in: 

• Scope: Breadth of the discipline
• Approach: The thinking behind each element 
• Impact: Business outcomes
• Measurement: Metrics for tracking

If you’ve ever used call center metrics as a gauge of your brand’s customer experience, you wouldn’t be the first. Let’s dissect the two terms and understand what they truly mean.

Customer service: A touchpoint

The morning you’re scheduled to fly out for a business trip, you receive an email: Your flight has been delayed — again. This time, the delay means you’ll miss your connecting flight. Frustrated, you call Delta’s customer support line.

After navigating the automated menu, you finally get through to a representative, Lisa. She thanks you for your patience, listens as you explain the situation, and quickly finds an alternative route for your trip. She also offers a meal voucher for the inconvenience. Hanging up, you think, “That was a hassle, but at least Lisa helped me fix it.”

Lisa provided good customer service. 

Customer service is the support a brand provides its customers to resolve an immediate need or problem.

Customer service is typically delivered as a one-to-one interaction, most times via:

• Call centers
• Virtual chat support
• In-person assistance

Zappos and Chick-fil-A are examples of brands that are known for their customer service. Zappos offers free shipping and free 365-day returns on all orders. Chick-fil-A trains their employees to say “my pleasure” to embody their founder’s commitment to customer service.

Customer service directly impacts a person’s satisfaction at that touchpoint, but it’s only one element that people use when determining whether to purchase again from a brand.

Customer experience: A journey

Customer experience encompasses every aspect of a company’s offering — the quality of customer care, of course, but also advertising, packaging, product and service features, ease of use, and reliability.
- Harvard Business Review

Recall the flight scenario, and zoom out. Your call with Lisa was just one of many touchpoints with Delta. 

Your experience also would have included: 

• Booking your ticket online or through the app
• Receiving confirmation and flight details via email
• Checking in online or at the airport kiosk
• Navigating the airport and finding your gate
• Boarding the plane and experiencing in-flight service
• Deboarding and picking up your luggage at baggage claim

‍Each of these interactions, including the customer service element, come together as something greater. The sum of all of these touchpoints is the customer experience.

Customer experience is a holistic view of all interactions a customer has with a brand, from awareness to advocacy.

Customer experience can take different names in different industries. For example:

• Patient experience (healthcare)
• Guest experience (hospitality)
• Shopper experience (retail)
• Donor experience (nonprofit) 

Amazon and Disney are two brands that deliver remarkable customer experiences. Amazon’s platform makes online shopping easy, with overnight delivery for almost anything. Disney staff move mountains to make guests feel special at their parks, cruises, and hotels.

Customer experience often gets mixed up with customer service. Learn what makes them distinct.

Differences between customer service and customer experience 

Consider another example to illustrate the differences between CX and CS.

Jessica takes a spill while playing tennis. She feels a “pop” in her knee, accompanied by immediate sharp pain that turns to dull throbbing. 

It doesn’t get better, so she decides to get it checked out. Here’s what happens:

1. Jessica gets in with her primary care physician (PCP), who’s suspicious of an ACL injury. (Not what Jessica wanted to hear.)
2. Jessica’s PCP refers her to an orthopedic specialist.
3. Jessica misses the call from the specialist’s office and plays telephone tag for a couple of days before finally scheduling a consultation.
4. During the consultation, the specialist orders imaging. Jessica gets that scheduled over the phone with an external imaging center and completes it. 
5. Weeks later, Jessica gets in again with the specialist, who confirms her PCP’s suspicion. 

Diagnosis is only the beginning of Jessica’s patient journey. She has ACL surgery, recovery, and rehabilitation ahead of her. Despite that, her patient journey has already included: 

• 3 appointments 
• Several phone calls
• Navigating to offices
• Parking
• Billing questions
• Use of the clinic’s website

Many of these steps make up Jessica’s patient (or customer) experience with the specialty practice. Only a handful of these steps represent customer service.

Let’s use this example to review the 4 differences between customer service and customer experience.

1. Scope: Concentrated vs. holistic

An experience is the culmination of the entire relationship between a client and a brand. Customer service is one factor of that experience.

CS focuses on individual touchpoints, like when Jessica scheduled appointments and checked in to the office.

On the other hand, CX covers the entire journey, from when Jessica was referred to the specialty practice through her recovery period. 

2. Approach: Reactive vs. proactive

Customer service often happens in response to a customer need or problem. Customer experience is a proactive approach to creating a positive brand perception. 

Jessica made calls with the goal of scheduling appointments. She spoke with the person behind the front desk in order to check-in. These CS touchpoints existed to serve a need. 

But the ease of parking, good signage within the medical office, and comfortable waiting room were proactively put in place to make Jessica’s experience positive.

3. Impact: Satisfaction vs. perception

Customer service results in customer satisfaction at a specific touchpoint. Jessica may have been unsatisfied with all the phone calls, but satisfied with the in-office customer service aspect. 

‍Customer experience has a greater impact on long-term brand perception and loyalty. Jessica likely won’t remember all the small touchpoints that made up her experience, but she’ll remember her overall perception of the brand. Her perception will inform whether she uses the practice again — or refers a friend there.

4. Measurement: Scores vs. moments

Customer service performance metrics are focused on the touchpoint, while customer experience metrics focus on greater business outcomes, such as:

• Customer loyalty indicators
• Friction point resolution
• Overall brand perception 

In this scenario, the practice’s customer service metrics may include patient surveys — in person, over the phone, and online or via email.  

To measure customer experience performance, the practice should combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. In other words, they can shed light on survey results by uncovering defining moments in the patient journey. This work includes journey mapping, identifying (and resolving) points of friction, and amplifying positive experiences. 

Misconceptions about customer service and customer experience 

Despite the differences between customer service and customer experience, many people still use them interchangeably. 

The best way to think of CX and CS is to imagine an iceberg. As usual, most of it is submerged underwater — we only see the tip of it that floats above. 

‍Customer experience is the iceberg. Customer service is the small part that’s easiest to see.

The iceberg demonstrates why working on customer service as a means of improving the customer experience is short-sighted. Customer surveys and CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores only represent a small part of the experience.

So, how do you improve the customer experience?

How to elevate both CX and CS 

At Cast & Hue, we recommend designing customer experiences with a human-centered approach. Here are some tips from our team.

Align your customer service efforts with your customer experience strategy

Don’t work on your customer service efforts in a silo — this will create a disjointed experience. 

Build from a holistic view of your customer experience:

• Know how each touchpoint impacts the greater experience. (How? Through journey mapping.)
• Have goals and guiding principles for the customer journey. 
• Return and refer to these continua when approaching customer service challenges. 

Focus on real customer needs, not just what you think you should work on

It’s tempting to assume you know the root cause of an issue when you see it play out every day. It’s also tempting to follow your hunch about the ‘right way’ to fix it, skipping over the most important part — consumer research. 

Many businesses fall into this trap. Don’t be one of them. 

You know your customers well, but there will always be more to learn about (and from) them. Their perspectives will always be valuable. 

A lot of customer service is driven from an inside-out approach — doing things because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” This isn’t an effective way to create solutions that address your customers’ true pain points and needs.

Avoid the risk of baseless solutions by beginning the problem-solving process with diligent consumer research. (We recommend in-depth interviews over focus groups — here’s why). 

The key difference 

While customer service is an essential part of customer experience, CX offers a broader, more impactful opportunity to build loyalty, improve perception, and differentiate your brand. 

Align your CS and CX efforts by building a holistic, human-centered experience strategy. Reach out if you need a sounding board.

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