Customer Service Experience — What It Is, Why It Matters So Much

Customer experience is the overall perception and feelings a customer has about a company brand based on their interactions. It includes every touchpoint and phase of customer engagements, from first contact to post-purchase support.

Customer experience directly influences customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Our research underscores this: 88% of customers said good customer service makes them more likely to buy from a company again. A positive experience can differentiate a brand from competitors, boost word-of-mouth referrals, and drive business growth.

This in-depth overview defines customer service experience and explains why it's so essential. We close with practical tips for using the right customer service management software solution with AI to improve customer service experience.

Customer service experience includes all interactions a customer has with a company's support team, such as inquiries, problem resolution, and product assistance. The right customer service software can set you up to deliver an exceptional customer service experience through various customer service channels like voice, email, live chat, and social media.

Customer service experience is critical to shaping the customer’s overall satisfaction and trust in the brand. Customer service reps, chatbots, and self-service all play a role in a good customer service experience. But a customer experience should always be consistent.

Customer service experience is critical in a business. It directly impacts customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy, which can lead to increased revenue and long-term growth. A positive customer experience differentiates a brand in a competitive market, encourages repeat business, and fosters trust, making it a crucial factor in retaining customers and attracting new ones through recommendations.

Our research finds that decision makers’ #1 priority is improving the customer experience. Customers who consistently have a good customer experience are more likely to trust your business and be open to upselling. Plus, it’s less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to find a new one.

Five important elements of a positive customer service experience include:

1. Responsiveness: It’s important to quickly and efficiently respond to and resolve customer inquiries and issues. Use automation to deflect both common and complex questions AI agents, such as Agentforce Service Agent. Agents can handle queries 24/7 without human help and can independently escalate cases to reps when necessary. Agentforce also offers scalable support, letting your company handle increased customer interactions on demand without relying on overtime or additional staff. This ensures your customers always get the service they need.
2. Empathy: Understanding and addressing the customer’s needs and emotions is key to building trust and loyalty. Role-playing and Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, can help your service reps learn valuable listening skills to help customers feel heard. Agentforce Service Agent is designed to provide courteous customer service just like your reps.
3. Knowledgeability: Make sure your service reps and agents always provide accurate info and solutions. Prioritize regular training for your reps and use Slack for real-time updates. Agentforce has a "brain" called the Atlas Reasoning Engine. It simplifies complex queries, fetches the right, trusted data from knowledge management systems and Data Cloud, and refines action plans to ensure everything is accurate and reliable, all within the guardrails you’ve set. Just like your reps, agents can learn and improve on their own.
4. Personalization: Our research finds that 81% of service pros say customers expect a more personal touch than they used to. Lean into customer data to tailor interactions to the individual customer preferences and history. Agentforce uses natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and contextual understanding to have intelligent, conversational, and personalized interactions.
5. Consistency: People expect reliable service across all customer service channels and touchpoints — every time. Agents can answer complex queries and take on thousands of interactions simultaneously 24/7. This makes sure your customers get reliable and timely assistance whenever they need it, even outside regular business hours.

Together, these factors collectively enhance customer satisfaction and build loyalty.

Measuring customer service experience involves using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to assess customer satisfaction and engagement. Key metrics include:

1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which asks customers to rate their service experience — typically through a survey.
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend the company to others.
3. First contact resolution (FCR), which measures your contact or call center’s percentage of customer inquiries resolved on the first interaction.
4. Customer Effort Score (CES), which measures how easy it is for customers to use your company’s products or services.

These metrics provide a foundation for finding out what works and what needs help in your customer service experience.

Improving customer service experience is critical for enhancing satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Here are five effective strategies to achieve this:

1. Set your team up for success: Give your customer service reps the necessary tools, authority, and training to solve issues efficiently and effectively. Reps who have autonomy will be more likely to go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction. They can make on-the-spot decisions that might make the difference between keeping or losing a customer. Encourage your reps to join the Serviceblazer Community on Slack, where they can learn best practices for customer service experience from fellow service pros.
2. Use technology and data: Invest in technology that can streamline and enhance the customer service process. This can include a customer relationship management (CRM) system for a shared 360 view of customer data, automation to speed up workflows and AI customer service agents for 24/7 assistance, and advanced analytics to personalize customer interactions and predict needs. AI in customer service can help reduce response times and even increase the accuracy of service provided.
3. Focus omnichannel support: Ensure that customers can reach you on various channels, including voice, email, social media, and live chat. Consistency across all channels is key. Customers expect a seamless experience whether they contact you through one channel and follow up through another. An omnichannel contact center can help you deliver on their expectations.
4. Solicit and act on feedback: Regularly ask for feedback through customer satisfaction surveys, social media, and direct communication to understand customer needs and pain points. More importantly, act on this feedback to make continuous improvements. Showing customers that their input has led to real changes can greatly enhance their perception of your service.
5. Foster a customer-centric culture: Create a culture that prioritizes customer satisfaction across all levels of the organization. This involves training every employee, from the top down, to think about the customer's perspective and strive to enhance the customer experience. Regular training and development sessions can help maintain this focus.

By implementing these strategies, your business can significantly improve their customer service experience. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and even business growth.

Delivering exceptional customer service experience involves using data, automation, AI, and knowledge management effectively. Here are some best practices for each to set up for success:

• Data: Use data to understand customer preferences, personalize interactions, and anticipate needs. By analyzing behavior patterns, your customer service team — both reps and agents — can offer tailored solutions, improving satisfaction and loyalty.
• Automation: With automation, you can enhance customer experience by streamlining processes such as responding to inquiries quickly through AI agents or automating order tracking updates. This allows your customers to get fast, accurate support, leading to smoother interactions and greater satisfaction.
• AI: Agentforce Service Agent provides instant, 24/7 support, ensuring timely and efficient problem resolution for both common and complex issues. Agents make sure your customers get reliable service whenever they need it.
• Knowledge Management: Effective knowledge management provides your team with consistent and accurate information across all customer touchpoints, ensuring quicker issue resolution and reducing frustration. By organizing and making valuable insights easily accessible, you can help your reps, agents, and customers find answers efficiently, enhancing the overall experience.

Great customer service experiences happen when an organization understands what pleases the customer. A few examples:

• A customer on a deadline contacted their internet service provider about connectivity issues late at night and was quickly connected to an AI agent. The agent verified their identity, ran a diagnostic test, and provided clear, step-by-step instructions to reset their router. The agent also shared links to knowledge base articles for any further questions. The issue was resolved on the first try, enhancing the customer's satisfaction and trust in the telco provider.
• The owner of a small field service business needed to apply for a loan but was concerned about the process, required documentation, and getting all their questions answered. When they visited their long-time bank’s website, an AI agent quickly pulled up their account info from the centralized system. The agent guided them through the loan application, pre-filling most of the required info and pointing out any additional documents needed. When the owner had a question the agent couldn't answer, the issue was automatically escalated to a customer service rep, who had a full view of their account in their CRM and resolved the issue right away. This streamlined process saved the owner time and reduced stress, making the application smooth and efficient. The bank's knowledge management made the B2B customer service experience feel personalized and hassle-free.
• A healthcare provider set up an automated patient portal where patients can schedule appointments, view test results, and manage their health records all in one place. When a patient needed a follow-up appointment, they just logged in, and the system automatically suggested available slots based on their doctor’s schedule and past appointments. An AI agent was there to answer any questions, and the self-service portal automatically sent reminders for the appointment and any pre-visit tasks, like filling out forms. This automation saved the patient time and reduced stress, making the whole experience seamless and efficient.

Giving your support team the right technology can help them deliver a better customer service experience. That starts with the right cloud-based customer service support software solution. Let’s look at how Service Cloud can help set you up for success:

1. Unified Customer View: Service Cloud provides a 360-degree view of each customer by integrating data from various sources in the CRM. This lets both reps and AI agents deliver personalized service based on the customer’s history, preferences, and prior interactions. Reps and agents can access all relevant information in one place, reducing response times and enhancing the quality of service.
2. Omnichannel Support: Businesses can manage customer interactions across multiple channels, including phone, email, social media, and live chat, from a single interface. This capability ensures a seamless and consistent customer experience, regardless of how or where a customer chooses to engage with the company.
3. Automation and AI: Service Cloud uses automation and artificial intelligence. Automation tools can streamline workflows in the console and deflect cases to agents to free up reps to focus on higher-value work, such as maximizing revenue. Agentforce Service Agent can handle a wide range of tasks on its own, from managing time-consuming jobs to answering routine questions and resolving complex B2B customer service issues. Fast, reliable service can boost customer satisfaction (CSAT).
4. Self-Service: Businesses can create self-service portals where customers can find answers to their questions, update their account information, and resolve issues on their own. This not only improves customer satisfaction by empowering customers but also reduces the workload on service teams. Use this free self-service assessment tool to see if your customer portal is adding value to customer experience.
5. Real-Time Analytics and Reporting: The platform offers powerful analytics and reporting tools that help businesses track key performance indicators (KPIs), customer satisfaction metrics, and rep and agent performance. These insights allow managers to make informed decisions to continually improve service quality and efficiency.
6. Case Management: Case management capabilities make sure every customer issue is tracked, managed, and resolved in the most efficient way possible. It allows for easy case assignment, ticketing, escalation, and collaboration among team members, ensuring that customer issues are resolved promptly and effectively.

Service Cloud helps businesses not only meet but exceed customer expectations, leading to improved customer loyalty, reduced churn, and ultimately, enhanced business growth.