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Customer Service VS. Customer Experience

When you are in the business of evaluating customer services levels for your clients, you tend to notice the details. Walk into an ice cream store with your kids or grandkids and you are automatically in tune with the “vibe” of the store. Is there music playing? How easy/hard is it to figure out the menu options? Were you greeted when you walked in the door? How clean was the store? Were you thanked for business? All of these things play either a subconscious or conscious role in your experience.

I remember when an ice cream store chain stopped their mystery shopping service in lieu of social media reviews. Big mistake for a variety of reasons, but the lure of getting “free” customer reviews was enough for them to give it a try. They are not alone. There is actually a term for this. The “Review Economy”has created a dent in customer research. In fact many companies use it in lieu of customer satisfaction surveys.

A year later, I went in to one of the locations as a customer with my family. I witnessed a noticeable difference right away. I was never greeted. I placed my order after waiting in line and there was no upsell or cross sell at the register. Not a huge issue for an ice cream shop, right? When we found a place to sit however, I noticed how the floor beneath the table was very dirty and dusty. The table itself needed to be cleaned better from the previous guest. All things that as a major ice cream brand, it is hard to recover from. I will never go back to the store again after that visit. I will not share my findings in social media. I am the silent, unhappy customer.

Customer Service & Customer Experience: What’s the difference?

Customer service and customer experience are related but distinct concepts. Customer service refers to the support and assistance provided by a company to its customers before, during, and after a purchase. It includes the various ways in which a company interacts with its customers, such as answering questions, providing technical support, handling complaints, and resolving issues.

Customer experience, on the other hand, encompasses the entire customer journey, including all of the interactions and touchpoints a customer has with a company, from initial awareness and consideration, to purchase and post-purchase. It’s about creating a positive and seamless experience for customers across all channels and touchpoints, and ensuring that they feel valued, understood, and appreciated.

Customer Service is Part of the Customer Experience

While customer service is a critical component of the overall customer experience, it’s just one part of it. A company that provides excellent customer service can still fall short in terms of creating a positive and memorable customer experience. To truly excel in customer experience, companies need to focus on creating a customer-centric culture, understanding and anticipating customer needs, and delivering consistent and personalized experiences across all channels and touchpoints.

Forbes recently published a great article titled, “No Help is Better than Bad Help: Focusing on the Customer Experience.” They offered some great practical tips on how to provide a better customer experience. The one tip that stood out to me was to understand your customers.

Understand Your Customers

“Having a thorough understanding of the type of customers who walk through your door also aids in creating a positive customer experience. Know them, and figure out how to tailor their experiences to their needs. Being in tune with the customer goes a long way in creating an experience worth remembering.”

This for me sums up in part why a business still needs mystery shopping and customer satisfaction surveys. You can’t get this type of understanding from a social media review unless you can unmask the author behind the post. I am in favor of online reviews, but you need all of it to really understand how to develop, train and execute a good customer experience process.

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Digital Competitive Intelligence Strategy

Social Listening

Competitive Intelligence is something that business has done for decades in one form or another. From mystery shopping to market research using various methodologies, everyone seems to be spying on everyone else. However, many businesses have been slow to consider using social media and online research, for competitive intelligence, as a way to increase market share and to gain an overall competitive edge.

For the purpose of this blog post, we will zero in on the aspects of using online resources as a way to gain digital competitive intelligence. As artificial intelligence and algorithms continue to perfect, so does the need for good software. Social listening and analytic software options are plentiful and the financial commitment for using them can be huge.

The Forrester Wave™: Social Listening Platforms, Q4 2020

According to Forrester, vendors that can provide advanced analytics, brand measurement in visualizations, and broad tech integrations, position themselves to successfully deliver enterprise-wide consumer and social intelligence to their customers (Digimond reports from the study and is named as one of the top software providers).

Digimind is a Strong Performer

In 2020, a Forrester’s customer survey found that 59% of respondents incorporate social data into market research data sets, 57% into voice of the customer (VoC) data, and 48% into audience segmentation.

It is important to mention that while social data plays a significant role, data collection from non-social media data can be equally important.

Social Media data for competitive intelligence was something we covered in a previous blog.

According to Hootesuite, social media competitive analysis, includes the following:

  • Identify who your competitors are on social media
  • Know which social platforms they’re on
  • Know how they’re using those platforms
  • Understand how well their social strategy is working
  • Benchmark your social results against the competition
  • Identify social threats to your business
  • Find gaps in your own social media strategy

Online Research Strategy Steps

The Importance of Media Monitoring for Businesses on a regular basis with ongoing detailed reporting. Select your brand with at least two top competitors and gather intelligence on a regular basis.

A Competitor Website is home to a great deal of information that can be used for competitive intelligence. From product and pricing information to new product launches to press releases.

Review and support sites should be monitored as well. Customers are very vocal online, providing a good deal of detail of product reviews.

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Gathering of Competitive Intelligence For Your Business

Competitive Intelligence

We began conducting competitive intelligence for our clients over fifteen years ago. Back then, we primarily used Mystery Shopping as a way to gain valuable information for our clients on their top competitors. We have worked with start ups, established businesses as well as companies who need information for the acquisition process.

Types of Competitive Intelligence Gained:

  1. Website Impressions: Your website is your business. While it may look great to you, unless you research how it resonates with your customers, you may never know the truth. Same is true for a competitive mystery shop. Ease of use is very important as well as using very understandable language surrounding service offerings.
Competitive Intelligence
Website Impression

2. Contact us: Be sure to test this area through every channel possible and then gauge the amount of time it takes for a representative to get back to you. In an April blog post, we shared a case study where it took a representative 6 days to get in touch with our evaluator posing as a potential business customer.

3. Pricing: Asking for a quote after going through the sales process is usually the top determining factor for conducting the research in the first place. Additionally, we upload all marketing collateral right within the evaluation form.

4. Follow up: How well does the representative follow up? Depending on the scope of work, we usually allow 5 business days to measure this. Many times, there isn’t any follow up at all.

Social Media Competitor Analysis

According to Hootesuite, social media competitive analysis, includes the following:

  • Identify who your competitors are on social media
  • Know which social platforms they’re on
  • Know how they’re using those platforms
  • Understand how well their social strategy is working
  • Benchmark your social results against the competition
  • Identify social threats to your business
  • Find gaps in your own social media strategy

When was the last time you took a closer look at your competition?

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