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utIlIty WEEK | 11th - 17th July 2014 | 27 Customers Market view A s leading organisations make a fun- damental shi from delivering cus- tomer service to enabling a customer experience, a whole range of terms are being used to describe the different elements under consideration. Customer service used to be clear cut and everyone understood what it meant. Not any- more. Terms like customer journey, customer experience and customer service, as well as customer touchpoints and moments of truth, are used interchangeably. What does it all mean and why does it matter? Customer journey: A series of interactions a customer has with an organisation through the process of obtaining products or services. Taking a utility example, let us consider an electricity distribution network opera- tor (DNO) receiving a call from a customer about a loss of power. Assuming it is a fault on the network, the customer journey typi- cally starts at the point when the customer contacts the DNO about the fault and (usu- ally) ends at the point when the power is restored. The customer journey is a series of interactions that broadly follow the DNO's business process. Customer experience is quite distinct, it is a longer and broader con- sideration, of which the customer journey is an element. Customer experience: How a customer feels about their whole experience, before, during and aer the customer journey. This is where it gets interesting, the key distinction being how the customer feels. Customers rarely accurately remember what you say, but they always recall (oen emphatically) how they felt. Human psychol- ogy and emotions sit alongside any logical assessment of an experience. Returning to the example of the customer experiencing a power outage, their experi- ence starts at the point when the outage occurs. A number of things might happen aer that: they may check their meter and fuse box; they may consult a neighbour; they may look several places to find a number to call; and they may call their energy supplier, navigate their phone system and reach a supplier adviser who cannot help them. They may then obtain your number and dial, at which point their customer journey with you begins. In this example, an awful lot is hap- pening through the pre-journey part of the experience, which is not always visible to organisations or considered. However, all of it is influencing the customer's perception of their experience of the outage and all of it will be reflected in their ultimate satisfaction score. In that pre-journey period there may be little you can control and few things you can influence. However, you can recognise it and be aware of how it casts a shadow over the customer's perception of the whole expe- rience. You can understand how it makes a customer feel, empathise and take steps to mitigate the impact of that pre-journey experience as soon as your contact with the customer begins. Once the customer journey starts you have both control and influence. As the relationship between most custom- ers and utilities is largely passive, customer contact is oen the result of a negative trig- ger, for example a billing issue, supply fail- ure or complaint. The customer experience therefore oen begins on an emotional low, and at best begins in a neutral position. Con- sequently, it takes a little bit more to move customers to a highly satisfied position, but it is possible. We said the customer experience was also broader than a customer journey. When you map out your customer journey you will see a series of steps that you and your customer go through together. There is also a chunk of the customer experience that runs parallel to the customer journey, very visible to custom- ers but not always well understood by you. Everything the customer experiences between interactions with you is part of their experience and oen varies dependent on the customer's circumstances at the time. The key to achieving high customer satisfac- tion with an experience is to a meet a cus- tomer's needs and exceed their expectations. Needs and expectations will vary for the same customer dependent on circumstances, you need to identify and anticipate them and respond appropriately. Considering the power outage example, the more able to cope the customer is, the lower the impact and the higher the satisfac- tion with the experience. A DNO focused on keeping the lights on is trying to deliver good customer service. But a DNO that is also focused and tuned in to "helping custom- ers cope" through an outage is enabling an excellent customer experience. Few organi- sations fully consider these parallel elements of the customer experience and fewer still take steps to mitigate their impact. Even if the customer journey was excel- lent, it can be overshadowed by the negative elements of the whole customer experience. The residual feelings can be undesirable and, when surveyed, customers will find it hard to detach the journey from the experience. Customer service: The provision of service to a customer. The traditional focus on cus- tomer service and its associated measures is becoming increasingly unhelpful. Customer service is about what you do to a customer, it is centred on the customer journey and is all too oen an inside-out perspective. Customer experience forces us to think from an outside-in perspective, including elements we might not previously have con- sidered. The starting point is a genuinely objective and clear view of what it feels like to be your customer in a variety of scenarios. It ensures you understand precisely how it feels to be on the receiving end of that whole experience (not just the service). The importance of understanding and positively addressing your customers' emo- tions throughout the experience cannot be overplayed. And when you get it right, it has an incredible impact on customer satis- faction. Amazon, Apple (in store) and John Lewis have teamed a solid product offering with mastery of the art of creating the right emotions in a customer experience. How you measure customer experience is also different to the quantitative metrics associated with customer service, with a far greater emphasis on qualitative measures. Nicola Eaton Sawford, managing director and customer experience architect, Customer Whisperers Service vs experience It is natural for utilities to concentrate on what they can control, which is customer service, but Nicola Eaton Sawford says they also need to be mindful of the total customer experience.