There is a fundamental premise I make in the new eBook / trend report I am working on captured in the title.
Yet I’ve taken part in debates on LinkedIn that show there are divisions in opinion. Separatist thinking even.
Some think that customer success (CS) is the new kid on the block and muscling into territory owned by the customer experience (CX) brigade.
I guess it all depends on your background. Do you come from a marketing background where CX generally hails. Or from a customer service or account management background where CS hails.
I think it’s all rather pointless. I see the two as being inextricably linked.
The mother and father of modern views of the customer. Perhaps CX is the mother because in my view, CS is born of it, so to speak.
Some distinctions might be useful at this stage. These are mine:
- CX is the sum total of interactions a customer has with a company and the net effect this has on the customer in terms of satisfaction and loyalty.
- CS are the outcomes a company enables a customer to achieve through the use of its products/services.
CX is made up of many touch points that often transcend those of a CS team.
For example, pre-sales activities make CS hard if a product or service has not been sold right and perceptions between vendor and customer are misaligned on what comes after the deal is done.
CS teams are not always involved pre sales, at least in the early stages.
So its important those in sales are aligned to the right customer experience view and approach. They start the customer off on the journey after all.
In my mind, the best analogy I can draw between the two is that CX is the shell of the home with all of the feelings and emotion it engenders. CS is the different conveniences you find in it, the bathroom to clean yourself, the bedroom to get rest, the kitchen to feed yourself.
I’ve captured it in a DanelDoodle just in case it’s not clear with some other examples.
