"You're pissing me off!"

The one-sentence email came from the company president. He was upset that the phones had been ringing all day, and blamed me for what was happening.

Our phone lines rang throughout the office whenever a customer was holding for more than a minute. Everyone, including the president, was expected to drop what they were doing and answer the phone.

The president thought it was my job to stop the surge since I was the customer service manager. So did my coworkers in other departments, who were openly grousing about having to take so many calls.

In reality, there wasn't much I could do.

Ironically, the phones were ringing off the hook due to mistakes my colleagues had made. The president, who was upset at me, had made the most critical blunders. It was a miserable experience to get blamed for their failures.

That experience happened over 20 years ago, but it's still fresh in my mind. It's something I think about every time someone conflates customer service with customer experience.

Here's why we need to stop doing that.

Customer service vs. customer experience

Customer service is just one part of the overall customer experience. That distinction is important, for reasons I'll explain in just a moment.

For now, let's start with some definitions. This excellent definition of customer experience comes from Annette Franz:

The sum of all the interactions that a customer has with an organization over the life of the “relationship” with that company… and, especially, the feelings, emotions, and perceptions the customer has about those interactions.

Customer experience includes customer service and also product design, marketing, delivery, and any other part of the company that the customer interacts with in some way.

This helpful definition of customer service comes from the Oxford English Dictionary:

The assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services.

You can read this detailed explanation of the difference between the two if you want to take a deeper dive.

How confusing service and experience causes problems

Several problems are created when customer service is mistaken for customer experience. Here are three:

#1 Hidden Problems

The true scope of customer experience problems get hidden when the customer service team is expected to take responsibility for everything.

At my company, most of our customer service calls were about problems caused by other departments.

1. Defective products sourced by merchandising.

2. Backorders caused by supply chain struggling to keep items in stock.

3. Incorrect items shipped by the fulfillment center.

The president refused to acknowledge the scope of these problems or take steps to address them, so the phones kept ringing.

#2 Lacking Ownership

Other departments avoid ownership when the customer service team is rebranded as the "customer experience team." They distance themselves from anything that has a negative impact on customers.

The president expected my team to fix the customer experience issues, even though most of the problems were a direct result of his decisions. He micromanaged the merchandising side of the business, often to disastrous effect:

• Selecting poor quality products that led to high return rates.

• Writing advertising copy that exaggerated a product's attributes and dissatisfied customers.

• Vetting suppliers who were slow to deliver promised shipments, causing extreme backorders.

Ironically, it was the president's policy that customer service calls had to ring throughout the office whenever a customer was on hold for a minute. He wouldn't let me change it, yet he blamed me when the phone rang.

#3 Defended Silos

A lack of ownership creates silos, where each department pursues and defends its own agenda without regard to the impact on the overall customer experience.

Inventory was one of the biggest problems that plagued my company. It wasn't uncommon to find a box of 30 items where our inventory showed zero in stock, or an empty shelf where our inventory showed 10 items would be there.

Yet the warehouse manager refused to conduct an inventory.

It got so bad that customer service reps started going to the warehouse to search for backordered items. On many occasions, they found items previously thought backordered that could be shipped to waiting customers.

Rather than delight in our success, the warehouse manager got even more territorial and barred reps from going into the warehouse to look for products.

Conclusion

Customer service does play a vital role in customer experience. In addition to helping customers, customer service can be a listening post to share customer feedback with the rest of the organization.

In retrospect, I made a lot of mistakes in this area.

I'd often share vague feedback such as, "We're getting a lot of calls about backordered items." Nobody wanted to listened to that. Some, including the president, accused me of being a complainer.

One day, I accidentally discovered a better approach. It involved sharing a story, data, and a specific request.

First, I told the president a story to make the situation tangible. We had missed out on selling an expensive item because it was found damaged in the warehouse and couldn't be shipped.

Second, I explained at least 50 percent of similar items we had in stock were damaged, too. This data helped explain the scope of the problem.

Finally, I asked for help getting the inventory cleaned up so we didn't lose out on more sales.

The president agreed, and ordered the warehouse manager to inspect and repair each item, and remove any items from inventory that could not be repaired.

It was a great lesson, and one that I carried on to my next job. The president’s angry email convinced me I was in the wrong place. Good thing I left, since the company went out of business about a year later.