Much to my chagrin, “due to technical difficulties”, I was unable to attend the PrintMediaCentr #printchat last month “Creating and Managing Customer Experiences.” Deborah sent me the link to the replay, and after looking over some of the conversation I saw that there are folks out of there that still wonder about the differences ; what makes up great customer service and how does that differ from customer experience?
For starters, you really need to have both in order to excel on all fronts. Excellent customer service means you engage the customer at all the appropriate levels of service, at the appropriate time.
If anyone read my blog from last month where I shared the “post-buyer email” from Shari’s Berries that suddenly changed my promo code from “free shipping” to “no free shipping,”you would know how I feel about their customer service. Should I have cancelled my order and gone with another option from another vendor? I could have but it was my lack of planning and procrastination that caused me to order these berries two days before the special event! I had been scratching my head all week thinking of an appropriate gift and the free shipping had been the deciding factor, so by the time I got the “so sorry” email, I was just done.
But this is where I think of the customer service portion of a company who has promised one thing and delivered something, or not delivered on something, as poor. It has left a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended) that these were extremely overpriced chocolate-covered berries by a company who doesn’t understand that you don’t pull the “free shipping” rug out from a first time buyers feet.
The actual actions taken by the company represent the customer service portion of the equation, but the experience comes at a much higher level.
For Shari’s Berries I was a first time customer (a great moment for a company to get off on the right foot) as I had to sign in and provide my information and payment credentials. I was using a promo code which obviously had been generated by their company and brought me to them. The whole transactional part went smooth enough, plenty of choices to choose from on the web site for the price point I was willing to pay, and check-out was simple and efficient. So far, so good on the experience, nothing remarkable up to this point, but satisfactory nonetheless.
It’s when the expectation of a particular item of service, in this case shipping, suddenly is altered or destroyed that the customer is suddenly left with a sense of mistrust of the company, the product and service in general. This is the experience that I came away with – this company cannot be trusted.
In this new world where pricing models can be changed with a few keystrokes in the IT department, they could have seen the popularity of the free shipping and after a threshold number, changed the online promotion to see what shipping price point their prospects were willing to pay. The overall experience has left me with an impression that this company and its people cannot be trusted to follow through on what they said or offered to do. Nor are they agile enough to make the experience better than just their average service.
The customer’s experience, the lasting impression of that company and by association, the people behind the scenes, are what brings back customers or drives away prospects.
How would you describe the difference between customer service and customer experience when it comes to your business?
