I recently posted a response to a Forrester Research Community discussion topic on the difference between “Brand Experience” vs. “Customer Experience” which I thought I’d share here:

One way to distinguish between the two is to consider the orientations:

Firm

Firms engage in efforts that result in experiences. Whether or not the efforts are thought through or haphazard, the experiences are nevertheless delivered to customers.

Firms have a great deal of control in shaping the experiences they expose their customers to — whether or not they choose to (or have the capability to effectively) exercise that control.

Firms leave an impression on those who come in contact with their efforts — the more contact over time, the deeper (and quite possibly the more meaningful) those impressions.

Customer

Customers (who may also be ‘users’) can experience a wide variety of scenarios when coming into contact with firms (from searching for a firm based on a pressing need to being cold-called by a representative to unboxing a product for the very first time & many more). Each instance of contact can be (and frankly should be) considered an experience.

Collectively, customer experiences shape a customer’s perception with regard to a firm, in turn defining the brand and its characteristics in their mind’s eye (when juxtaposed/weighted against the firm’s brand positioning).

Summary

Firms can try to influence each of the experiences their customers might be exposed to throughout their interactions with them. If the firm’s ‘sense of brand self’ is strong, it can attempt to shape each and every potential Customer Experience (touch point/pain point/joy point) with its brand personality such that the firm provides customers with Brand Experiences that are unique to the brand. As such a Brand Experience is a collection of orchestrated (and/or scripted) customer interaction scenarios that are delivered to customers by firms.

Customers have customer experiences. Collectively, those experiences define brands.

Brand Experience is orchestrated by firms (firm down) This impacts customers

Customer Experience is performed by customers (customer up) This impacts firms