We need to Demystify 'Customer Experience’, because 'Customer Service is NOT Getting Better

Despite the armies of Customer Experience experts writing article after article, the huge focus on Customer Experience Transformation & the ever increasing number of CX Transformation programmes in place, it's clear to me that most 'customer experience' transformations are simply not delivering. I suggest below why I think this is.  Read on if you're interested.

The reality is the delta between customers’ real world service experience expectations and the service experiences they actually receive is widening every day. The opportunity prize for those companies in the future that really do deliver amazing customer service experiences to their customers is now greater than its ever been.

However, right now...

We still regularly suffer long periods of waiting in call centre queues, when we didn't actually want to phone at all.

We still have web chat experiences that are just torture, when all we wanted to do was help ourselves on-line, but could not.

We still regularly speak to staff that don't have the full picture, have to transfer us, and make us repeat information multiple times that organisations should absolutely already know.

Basically we very, very rarely experience great Easy, Personalised, Intuitive & Contextual service experiences. So far from EPIC, it's untrue.

As Customers we all still suffer really poor service far too often, and these days most of us will just give up and take our business elsewhere.

The most common customer service we still experience is through badly designed Website support, Apps that don't allow you to easily find answers or ask questions, Call Centre queues that are just as painful as they've always been, impersonal & generic service, too much effort required when providing information, conversations with demotivated & disengaged staff, commitments to follow up not kept, short sighted restrictive policies rather than long term value solutions etc, etc.

Let's not kid ourselves, most CX 'experts' are advising the same thing :

'Put Customers at the Heart of Everything.....', whilst still our Customer Service Experiences are not improving. So, something significant in the Customer Experience Transformation world needs to change.

It's definitely not more 'Inspiring CX Motivational' speeches and keynotes that are needed, and it's also not more CX Technology that's needed.

AI, Chatbots, Virtual Assistants, RPA etc do have their place, but should not be given as much focus as they are receiving now. In fact, the more CX Technology that is being applied to our multi channel customer contact journeys, the further away we seem to be getting from delivering the fundamental basics of what most of us as Customers really want from our Service Interactions.

Easy, Fast & Fair Service Experiences, how often do we actually get that ? Not very often...

Here's a clue as to what I think needs to change ...

My view is the world of Customer Experience Transformation has become so confused that it's getting stuck.

We now have this very broad term of 'Customer Experience' mentioned everywhere, whilst for some unclear reason the term ‘Customer Service’ has significantly diminished.

The term 'Customer Experience' is too broad, too confusing, and too inconsistent in definition. 'Customer Service' Experience, however is crystal clear.

Here's my view on the definition of Customer Experience v Customer Service.. It's different to the popular view, but I'm ok with that.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE is the way a customer thinks and feels about a brand, it's product and services, so it should absolutely be a Marketing function.

However Marketing should absolutely not even try to ‘fix or transform service’.

How customers feel about all of their interactions with a company is captured by Insight, Journey Mapping, Analytics, Feedback etc across Brand, Product & Service. These are all very sensible areas for Marketing to look after, led by a Marketing Director, CMO etc.

However, the job of fixing and improving all of the Experience issues that Customers raise is clearly not the core job of a Marketing function. It's simply not a skillset they have.

For example;

Feedback from Customers that products are not attractive or useful would be addressed by the Product Design & Innovation teams, not Marketing.

Feedback that Pricing is not competitive would be addressed by Commercial & Finance teams, not Marketing.

So feedback that Service Experience is poor should be addressed by Customer Service experts, not Marketing experts.

So, it is clear that a CUSTOMER SERVICE Transformation needs to have complete and absolute focus on delivering the very best levels of service experience whenever a customer wants to get in touch or help themselves.

Every single interaction, across every channel, every time - that's a big challenge, which needs the singular focus of the right Customer Service People. To succeed in the future, Customer Service has to provide great customer experiences that cover all types of customer questions and enquiries, across every channel all of the time.

Great customer service should be about the experience delivered every single time a customer wants help with an enquiry, question, support or complaint, about anything. That means pre-sales, sales, order, post order, support, returns etc etc. So it's incredibly important to get this right.

Let’s be honest Customer Service is not great in most places at the moment, even though all research shows the service experiences customers actually receive is one of the top 3 drivers for their brand loyalty. It is therefore absolutely fundamental to the future success of organisations to get this right, and soon.

So, with all of this in mind, the right Leaders for Customer Service Transformation & Delivery should not be Marketing / Experience experts talking endlessly about Journey Mapping, Insight etc, but true Customer Service experts with deep understanding of the many intricacies and complexities of omnichannel customer Service.

This includes Contact Centre Management, Multi-Channel Contact Strategies, Digital Contact innovation, Field & Retail Service best practices, Knowledge Management, CRM Case Design and a whole lot more. (there is a science, but you need to know it all)

My strong opinion is the incredible growth and focus of the term 'Customer Experience' has confused things so much most companies are now just stuck with how to create, transform and improve experiences across their Customer Service interactions. This confusion is a primary driver for the lack of progress in CX Transformations we are seeing. It is just causing more and more confusion.

Pretty much every company now states that they will ‘Put their customers at the heart of everything’, even though they still force their customers to suffer too many bad and painful service experiences, in which it is absolutely clear the ‘company is at the heart of everything’ instead.

As I've said many times, customers want Easy, Personalised, Intuitive & Contextual service. We actually seem to be getting further away from that.

So, in summary this is my recommendation :

Bring back ‘Customer Service’ as a focus, do not call it Customer Experience at all, that’s just confusing. Put the right Customer Service Transformation and structure in place.

Make this Customer Service Experience Transformation function accountable for delivering the best possible Customer Experience for all Service Interactions. Remember, Service Interactions means a customer interaction for anything, across any channel, at any time. The Customer Service Experience reputation of a company is one of the most significant drivers of future company success so it needs to be led by the very best Customer Service Experts at the right Leadership level.

We need to de-mystify the role of Customer Experience Leadership. There are very very few Leaders that have expertise in Marketing & Customer Service, in the same way there are very few Leaders that have IT & Finance skillsets, so let's keep them separate..