The former director and curator of earth sciences at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS), Joel Bartsch leads the stand-alone museum as president and CEO. Having held this role since 2004, Joel A. Bartsch has overseen the restructuring of the entire organization, in addition to returning the museum to profitability. Part of this process involved emphasizing renovations at the museum and boosting customer service and experience. Many people conflate the idea of customer service and customer experience since the two concepts are related. Customer service, however, is just part of the entire customer experience. It focuses on providing customers with direct support and involves providing assistance to customers when needed. Those who work on a customer service team are customer-facing and possess product knowledge, patience, and other skills that help them answer customer questions and needs. The main purpose of customer service is improving customer satisfaction. Meanwhile, customer experience covers a much broader range of activities. It’s focus is on a customer’s entire journey with a company or organization. The way this journey unfolds affects the customer’s view of the brand they are interacting with. Since customer experience addresses the entire journey, it covers everything from contact with customers to researching a product and following up with the brand after purchase. Customer experience impacts consumers’ physical, emotional, and mental connection with a brand.

1. How Customer Service and
Customer Experience Differ
Joel Bartsch

2. Introduction
The former director and curator of earth sciences at the Houston Museum of
Natural Science (HMNS), Joel Bartsch leads the stand-alone museum as president
and CEO. Having held this role since 2004, Joel A. Bartsch has overseen the
restructuring of the entire organization, in addition to returning the museum to
profitability. Part of this process involved emphasizing renovations at the museum
and boosting customer service and experience.

3. Many people conflate the idea of customer service and customer experience since the
two concepts are related. Customer service, however, is just part of the entire customer
experience. It focuses on providing customers with direct support and involves providing
assistance to customers when needed. Those who work on a customer service team are
customer-facing and possess product knowledge, patience, and other skills that help
them answer customer questions and needs. The main purpose of customer service is
improving customer satisfaction.

4. Meanwhile, customer experience covers a much broader range of activities. It’s
focus is on a customer’s entire journey with a company or organization. The way
this journey unfolds affects the customer’s view of the brand they are interacting
with. Since customer experience addresses the entire journey, it covers
everything from contact with customers to researching a product and following
up with the brand after purchase. Customer experience impacts consumers’
physical, emotional, and mental connection with a brand.