Seth Godin recently wrote a post Cultural Wisdom that got me thinking about the difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience.

He makes the point that cultural wisdom is the ability to discern when things don’t fit with your overall brand. The sophistication to know what fits with the norms of your brand culture — and the resultant opinion people form about that brand.

Very often people will describe what I do as “Customer Service” or something along those lines. Whether as a speaker or a consultant, they quickly slot me into the term customer service because it is easy to understand and wrap their head around.

However, what most of us actually do is much broader than customer service; it is more about the overall experience.

Customer experience starts the minute someone thinks about interacting with your product or service. It continues as they begin towards the actual interaction with your product or service. They make judgments about how easy you are to find online or in the phone book, where you are located, how clean the parking lot is, the condition of the paint, carpeting and furniture in your offices, the tone of voice by the receptionist, the strength of your hand shake, etc. The list goes on.

Each of these examples above have nothing to do with the “customer service” you provide around your product or service, but they often dramatically affect whether you even get the chance to do business with that customer.

My Perspective: Seth asks “Who’s in charge of cultural norms at your organization?” My question is “Who’s in charge of your overall customer experience?”

Does one person/team have oversight over all aspects of the customer experience, or are they limited only to the period when interacting directly with the client.

Most clients I work with understand that great customer service is just one part of great customer experience. These organizations understand every person in the organization plays a critical role in that experience — whether they ever actually interact directly with clients.

Is anyone in your organization responsible for the full customer experience?