May 18, 2023 – Laurie Brown is a communications coach and customer service expert who has worked in a wide range of sectors for over 30 years. From working with bull semen salesmen to teaching customer service skills to the government of the kingdom of Bahrain, she has literally seen it all. Brown recently sat down with Repertoire Magazine to discuss the difference between customer service and the customer experience, where companies get the idea of the customer experience right and wrong, and how companies can improve their communication processes.
According to Brown, the difference between customer service and customer experience is all in how you look at the customer. “I walk into a coffee shop, ask for a cup of coffee. I ask for something, I get it. That’s customer service. Providers of customer service think of it as what they do and how they do it. The customer experience is every touchpoint that I experience when I’m getting that cup of coffee. When you think of it this way, it’s action and reaction. What action does the person providing that service do, and how do I experience and react to it?”
While you may not be intentionally creating an excellent (or not so excellent) experience for your customers, the customer experience is an inevitability. There will be an experience at every interaction and every turn, which means that your company needs to be intentional with every moment of engagement. “People often receive a customer experience inadvertently because it can just be something that happens. It is every touchpoint from my first encounter, whether it’s an email, a phone call, your website or the experience of meeting you as a sales rep. All these things happen whether someone is managing these things or not.”
There may be detractors out there that might argue that their products speak for themselves, but the customer experience is one of the most important concepts for an organization to pay attention to right now. The customer experience matters more now than it ever has before, and it’s only going to become more important.
As far as Brown is concerned, there are three things that customers want, no matter where they are. “They want interactions that are easy, processes that are easy. (Second) They want the experience to be personal, which means meeting me where I am. And last, they want people who are nice. What’s your likeability? If I’m going to spend time with you in my office, you better be nice. There’s no time to deal with people who aren’t nice.”
Read more in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.