Page 21 - Warwickers Customers Count vflip2

is only part of customer experience Customer service is not the same as customer experience. Customer service is the job of front-line workers, servicing customer requests for help - via an 0800 number, e-mail, or at a retail desk. It's important to invest in good customer service, it is an integral part of the customer experience, but not enough. Customer experience is the job of everyone in the company. For instance customer experience can be bad because the product, and the refund policy, are both broken. Everyone from the CEO and CFO to the product designers and manufacturing facility contributed to this bad customer experience; and as a result, they lose a customer and generate bad word of mouth. On the day the good customer service received in store didn't and couldn't possibly fix the overall experience. Invest in customer experience throughout the organisation, and that will naturally include improving customer service. But it's still everyone's job now to think about customer experience. Organizations that sacrifice customer experience quality in order to save costs are all too common. However, more and more organizations realise that consistently delivering great customer experiences increases revenues AND decreases support costs at the same time. Savvy organizations realise the value strong customer experiences bring. What better way to design an optimal customer experience, than having your own customers contribute to its design? This reduces the level of optimisation and tweaking of the experience organisations would have to do later on. Most of the leading customer experience organisations embrace this method today, and as other companies become more mature, look for this trend to increase. customer service 21 CUSTOMER SERVICE IS NOT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE The impact of a customer’s expectations on their experience cannot be stressed enough. It is vital that you set their expectations as early and clearly as possible. Otherwise they will set their own expectations, and react negatively if they are not delivered. This drives up support costs while negatively impacting customer satisfaction, a deadly combination. Ensure all your customers are provided with clear expectations that you exceed. The perception of over-delivering on your promises goes a long way in establishing customer trust and loyalty.