What are customer experience (CX) and customer service?
Customer experience (CX) is the sum of all the interactions a customer has with a company, from the first contact to delivery, and from use to service. Customer service is the part of this experience in which the customer turns to the company with a question or a problem, and it is often the part that is remembered most.
Customer service software, that is, a help desk, takes these requests out of individual mailboxes and moves them into a shared, traceable record. Each request is tied to an owner, a priority and a target time; no request is left to personal reminders.
- Who has this request, and how long has it been waiting?
- Which requests are about to exceed their target time?
- Which requests has this customer opened before?
- Which questions come up most often, and which could be resolved with a knowledge base article?
- Are customers satisfied with the service they receive?
The difference between CX, help desk, call centre and service desk
These terms are often used interchangeably, but their scope and their users differ. The table below sets out side by side what each one covers.
| Concept | Scope | For whom | Typical metric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer experience (CX) | All of the customer’s contacts with the company | Customer | Satisfaction and likelihood to recommend |
| Customer service | Resolving the customer’s questions and problems | Customer | Resolution time and satisfaction |
| Help desk and ticketing system | Recording, routing and tracking the request | Support team | First response and resolution time |
| Call and contact centre | High-volume contact by phone and other channels | Customer service agents | Waiting time and first-contact resolution |
| Service desk (ITSM) | Employees’ IT and internal service requests | Employee | Service level compliance |
Internal service requests: the ITSM guide
How is a support request (ticket) managed?
The life cycle of a support request is the same on every channel. The request comes in, is classified, assigned to the right person, resolved within the target time and closed; after closure the customer is asked about satisfaction, and recurring questions turn into the knowledge base.
- ChannelEmail, portal, phone, chat or messaging.
- Logging and classificationThe request is created with subject, product, priority and customer information.
- Assignment and target timeAn owner by skill or by queue, and a service level target.
- ResolutionA reply, with handover to a specialist or field service where needed.
- Closure and satisfactionCustomer confirmation and a short satisfaction survey.
- Knowledge baseThe solution to a recurring problem becomes an article.
What must customer service do differently at a manufacturing company?
The requests a manufacturer receives are often tied to a product, an order or a shipment. That is why the support team must see not only customer information but also product and order information. A manufacturer’s customer service must be able to carry the following:
- fault and return requests: together with the product, serial or lot number and date of sale,
- spare-parts requests and their conversion into orders,
- technical support tiers: first response, specialist team and production or R&D support,
- routing to field service and recording the service visit,
- requests coming through distributors and sales channels,
- questions about order, shipment and invoice status: these should be answerable from the record in ERP.
Lot and serial tracking: glossary entry
Customer service, CRM and ERP: a single customer record
While solving a problem, the support team should know the customer’s open quotations and latest order, and the sales team should know the open support requests before going to a meeting. This is possible when the three systems share the same customer record: CRM manages sales, ERP the order and invoice, and the help desk the requests.
The direction of integration is decided at the outset: which system owns the customer record, how order status reaches the support screen, and when a support request becomes a sales opportunity.
Which metrics are tracked in customer service?
Service quality cannot be managed without being measured. The metrics below are the most common; the company sets the target values itself according to the sector, the channel and the type of request.
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| First response time | The time from the arrival of a request until the customer receives a first reply |
| Resolution time | The time from the opening of a request until it is resolved |
| First-contact resolution | The share of requests resolved at the first contact, without further correspondence or handover |
| Service level compliance (SLA) | The share of requests answered and resolved within the defined target times |
| Backlog | The requests open and awaiting a reply at a given moment |
| Customer satisfaction (CSAT) | The customer’s satisfaction with the service after the request is closed |
| Likelihood to recommend (NPS) | The customer’s willingness to recommend the company to others |
| Customer effort (CES) | The effort the customer spends to get the problem resolved |
Support requests and KVKK
Support requests contain personal data such as names, contact details, addresses and sometimes call recordings. That is why the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK) is taken into account in the design of the support process. The following topics should be assessed with your legal adviser before set-up:
- privacy notice: informing the customer, especially if phone calls are recorded,
- authorisation: which agent can see which customer and request information,
- transfer abroad: where the data centre of the cloud help desk software is,
- retention and deletion: how long closed requests and attachments are kept.
What do self-service and AI do in customer service?
Self-service means the customer finds the answer to frequently asked questions on their own, in a knowledge base or a customer portal; the support team focuses on requests that truly need expertise rather than on recurring questions.
AI contributes to this loop in three places: classifying the request and routing it to the right person, offering the agent a draft reply and a summary, and answering directly for the customer the questions that can be answered from the knowledge base. Its value depends on the knowledge base it draws on being current and accurate.
What to look for when choosing help desk software
Run a trial with your own request types and ask these questions:
- Channels: are email, portal, phone and messaging gathered in the same queue?
- Rules: can priority, routing and target times be defined for your own request types?
- Connection: can CRM and ERP data be seen on the support screen, and is there a documented interface?
- Product context: can a request be linked to a product, a serial number or an order?
- Language: is there a Turkish interface and a Turkish customer portal?
- Data: in which region is the data held, and how are roles and permissions managed?
- Reporting: can the metrics be tracked with your own breakdowns?
How is customer service software put into use?
A successful set-up starts not with the software but with a request inventory. Typical stages: mapping which requests arrive through which channel, defining request categories, priorities and target times, writing the first knowledge base articles, CRM and ERP integration, training the team and starting to track the metrics.
The most common mistakes are also well known: setting up request categories in more detail than needed, setting target times without looking at the team’s capacity, and not feeding the knowledge base from closed requests.
What does the cost of customer service software depend on?
Cloud help desk software is mostly offered as a per-agent subscription. The total cost is determined by these items:
- the number of agents and the plan chosen,
- additional channels such as phone, chat and messaging,
- AI features and add-ons,
- set-up, rule and knowledge base design services,
- CRM and ERP integration,
- training and support after go-live.
MindDX and Freshdesk
MindDX implements Freshdesk in companies where the need for customer service software has been proven. Freshdesk is customer service software that gathers requests in a single inbox and carries them to resolution with service level targets, automation and AI; for teams that want to bring phone, chat and messaging into the same workspace, Freshdesk Omni is offered.
The role of MindDX is not limited to installing the software: it runs the request inventory, the design of categories and target times, CRM and ERP integration and the embedding of measurement within a single scope.