The business world continues to evolve, with new technologies, digital platforms, market trends, and expectations reshaping how brands compete. But with many brands competing for attention and offering similar products, the real difference lies in how customers are treated. This is because customers will never forget how a brand makes them feel. The growing demand for better experiences has pushed many businesses to recognize that every interaction counts. Customer experience has become a key focus of many companies.
Providing exceptional customer experience allows brands to build strong relationships, drive repeat purchases, and create loyal brand advocates. Customer experience is also crucial for driving business revenue. Consumers are willing to pay more for quality services that make them feel valued and make their lives easier. According to PwC, 73% of customers consider the customer experience an essential factor in their purchasing decisions. This shows that customer experience is a turning point for every business.
What Are the Core Benefits of Customer Experience (CX)?
Customer experience is crucial for streamlining the conversion funnel, building customer loyalty, increasing profitability, and boosting long-term business growth. When brands consistently deliver seamless, personalized, and convenient experiences, trust is established. That trust becomes the foundation for repeat purchases and strong brand advocacy.
Research has shown that companies that invest in customer experience can exceed their competitors’ gross margins by more than 26%, securing a solid competitive edge in the marketplace. For business leaders, prioritizing customer experience is a long-term commitment that drives brand relevance and sustainable success. Here are some reasons to invest in excellent customer experience.
Brand Advocacy
An excellent customer experience strategy can lead to satisfied customers. Satisfied customers can, in turn, promote the brand. Brand Advocacy or promotion shapes the brand’s reputation in the market. The main benefits of brand advocacy are increased brand awareness and higher sales. Other benefits include cost-effective supplier negotiations and access to new markets and partnerships.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
CLV is the total revenue a customer generates for a brand throughout their relationship. A positive customer experience with a brand can encourage more purchases and reduce attrition. As a result of this, there is an increase in the CLV. A negative customer experience will have the opposite effect. This is why brands must align their strategies to achieve a positive customer experience.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
CAC is the cost of acquiring new customers for a business. It includes marketing, sales, ads, and other operating expenses. It is calculated as total sales and marketing costs divided by the number of customers acquired.
By implementing an excellent customer experience strategy, businesses can reduce this cost. This is possible through brand advocacy and customer retention, shown by increased CLV. An example is a business that adopts customer loyalty programs. This includes discount offers and buy-one-get-one-free offers. The resultant effect of this is word-of-mouth advertising, a reduction in attrition rate, and a reduced CAC.
Risk Mitigation
Every business has its day of troubles. No matter how well-prepared a company is, it may face unexpected issues. For example, a company could suffer a data leak, public backlash, or damage to its reputation along the way. In such situations, having a strong online presence and loyal customers can help. With a proper customer experience strategy, the company can build trust. Also, damage-control strategies, such as honesty and prompt responses to complaints, become more efficient. This is because loyal customers would always vouch for their favorite brands, defending them publicly and helping to repair their image.
Proof That Customer Experience Can Drive Revenue Growth
According to PR Newswire, 84% of companies that improve their customer experience report increased revenue. Retail customer experience reports indicate that brands with better customer experiences generate 5.7 times more revenue than competitors. This shows that investments in customer experience impact business success.
Retaining existing customers is also more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Research shows that improving retention by just 5% can increase profits by up to 95%. By ensuring that every touchpoint feels smooth, helpful, and personalised, businesses create experiences that customers are willing to return to and recommend to others. These referrals then expand the customer base without heavy marketing investment.
What Are the Challenges in Delivering Great Customer Experience?
Improving customer experience can be daunting, as it requires more than good intentions. According to GP strategies, businesses may encounter several challenges when implementing a great customer experience. These challenges often emerge as a result of rapid digital transformation, rising customer expectations, and growing market competition. Businesses must recognise and address these barriers to create experiences that truly resonate with customers. Some common challenges a brand may face when delivering outstanding customer experience include:
Unbiased Viewpoint
Most companies recruit customer experience managers who are familiar with the company. They often employ staff who interact well with customers because they understand daily interactions and common concerns. While it seems beneficial, it presents a challenge of separating perceived customer thoughts from honest customer thoughts. Internal assumptions may overshadow real customer frustrations. They can easily identify problems in the areas they work in directly.
However, it may be more difficult to identify problems in other areas, such as operations, finance, and customer complaint handling, where issues are less visible. This creates gaps in decision-making and slows down improvements. Even a well-intentioned management may introduce bias in favor of perceived enhancements to the customer experience. Internal opinions must therefore be validated against customer feedback and market insights. The key to a successful strategy is using real data to understand customers’ needs and drive improvements that reflect actual expectations.
Identifying Key Customer Priorities.
Customers assign value to a wide range of company attributes. Concerns about products may focus on performance, durability, and value for money. Service-based concerns include smooth transactions or helpful customer support. When choosing companies to do business with, today’s customers prioritize corporate values. These include community engagement, diversity, and durability.
Brands must therefore understand what matters most to their customers rather than assuming priorities remain the same over time. Customer expectations evolve quickly due to market trends, technological advancements, and social influences. Without continuous research, brands risk creating experiences that feel outdated or irrelevant.
Unfortunately, many customer experience managers face the initial problem of access. They may rely on limited internal assumptions rather than evidence-based insights. This leads to decisions that do not fully address the audience’s true needs.
Access to reliable, up-to-date information on the values and practices that customers care about the most is crucial for delivering relevant and emotionally resonant experiences. When data is accurate and easily accessible, brands can align strategies with customer priorities, reduce friction, and maintain strong marketplace relevance.
Overseeing Customer Experience Across Platforms.
Customers expect steady service, regardless of which channel they use, whether it is physical or digital. This means every touchpoint must feel connected and consistent. Many customer experience managers face the challenge of ensuring the channels interact smoothly. Even with tools like account management apps and a problem-solving chatbot, gaps can still exist within the journey. These inconsistencies make customers feel like each channel operates in isolation rather than as part of a unified experience.
Customer satisfaction research highlights common issues, which include:
- Inconsistent information across the channels
- Difficulties switching between online and offline interactions
- Making customers repeat the steps taken before, such as resending emails, re-entering information, or calling back.
Such frustrations quickly reduce trust and increase abandonment rates. Customer experience managers responsible for mapping customer journeys and smooth interactions may face issues. They must consider different customer pathways and tailor each scenario effectively. Issues such as managing multiple scenarios across different channels require coordination, strong system integration, and continuous monitoring to ensure seamless transitions.
Purging Internal Barriers
Different managers head departments, channels, and regional operations. They may even head separate companies for outsourced social media teams and call centers. Each has its own objectives and key performance indicators. When communication breaks down, teams lose sight of how their actions affect the overall customer journey.
When there is operational disconnect, managers may prioritize their own goals over the company’s broader objectives. This creates disconnects that customers feel through slow responses, fragmented information, and inconsistent service experiences. Misalignment between internal teams delays problem resolution and reduces operational efficiency.
Customer experience managers face the challenge of overcoming this disconnect. They must encourage shared ownership of the customer journey and ensure all employees understand how their roles contribute to the wider experience. They also face the challenge of implementing strategies to ensure a consistent, high-quality customer experience. Strong internal collaboration and integration are essential for delivering a unified brand experience across every touchpoint.
How to Build an Excellent Customer Experience Strategy?
According to Qualtrics, these are ways to build a customer experience strategy.
Preparation Phase
The first step in the preparation phase is research. To research your target customers, follow these steps:
1. Developing Personas
Personas are fictional characters created from research to represent the customer. They represent different user types who can use a brand’s service or product. Developing a persona helps better understand the customer’s needs, enabling the creation of a more effective customer experience. A persona should contain the demographics, needs, pain points, and image of the target customer.
2. Empathy Mapping
Empathy mapping involves using four quadrants, think, feel, say, and do, to understand the different areas of customer needs, preferences, and experience. Empathy mapping gives insight into customers and the reasons for their actions.
3. Stakeholder Management
Stakeholders influence how customer experience is delivered. They play a crucial role in shaping strategies, allocating resources, and making operational decisions. When their expectations are aligned with the brand vision, it becomes easier to prioritise what truly matters to customers. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how they feel before making key decisions that impact the customers.
The goal of stakeholder management is to get everyone on the same page. When stakeholders are fully aligned, the customer experience becomes more consistent, impactful, and effective. Creating a stakeholder map can help with effective management. It requires listing all teams that interact with the customer, such as sales, product, support, billing, customer support, and marketing. After listing them, each would be sorted into one of four categories below based on its level of support and influence.
- Supporters: High support and low influence. They can be added to the project team to maintain high energy levels.
- Champions: High support and High influence. They should work closely with the project team, as they can bring others on board.
- Gatekeeper: There is a significant risk of low support and strong influence. Their concerns would need to be addressed. The champions can be used to win them over.
- Bystanders: They are low in support and influence. Bystanders should be kept abreast of the situation.
Customer Journey Mapping.
After the preparation phase, the next step is to map out the consumer journey. This involves considering every step from the consumer’s perspective. It involves:
1. Vision Framing
There is a need to ensure stakeholders are clear about the strategy’s primary intent. This is important before setting up the customer experience strategy, as it helps define areas to explore and develop. Vision framing enables a clearly defined business vision, helping everyone understand the strategy’s primary intent. Once there is a clear understanding, the stakeholders can now make informed decisions and take explicit action.
2. Customer Journey Map
The customer journey map is a visual tool that shows how customers interact with a brand from start to finish. This includes every action, decision, and need at every stage of the brand interaction. Additionally, it highlights opportunities for improving the customer experience. Creating a customer journey map includes following the customer journey mapping guide.
The 5A’s method can also be used to determine the root cause of customers’ pain points. The 5 A’s customer journey map framework depicts all significant interactions throughout the customer lifecycle. It aids in the sorting of stages from brand awareness to retention. The 5A’s include
- Attraction: This refers to how customers discover the brand’s product or service.
- Acceptance: This refers to the point at which customers begin engaging a brand.
- Adoption: This questions how customers use a brand’s product or service.
- Amplification: This answers the customer experience after the interaction.
- Advancement: These include customer follow-up and retention.
Shaping the Future Customer Journey
Shaping the customer journey is important because it allows visualization of the target consumer’s brand perception. The steps below can help shape the future customer journey effectively.
1. The 5 Whys
The 5 Whys is a simple and effective problem-solving tool. It helps understand the root cause of problems. Every identified root cause must be supported by data. Studies may reveal a different situation from what is expected. The process involves noting down the pain point of interest and asking ‘why’ until the root cause is identified.
2. Brainstorming
This is an organized technique. It develops new ideas by employing a different thought process. The process involves gathering the right well-informed persons. These people will aim to solve the brand’s problems. The best way to achieve excellent results is to apply divergent thinking. This means exploring all angles and selecting the best solution. The four main brainstorming techniques are:
- Classic: This includes assigning a score to diverse ideas generated.
- What if? It involves asking “What if?” three times to generate a better solution.
- Wrong way: The wrong way involves seeing things from the negative end of the goal. This means asking questions that are the opposite of what a brand aims to achieve. If it is customer retention, what would drive the customers away?
- Risky options: This involves prioritizing issues that matter most to generate greater ideas. It also involves considering ideas that often stray due to fear of failure.
Customer Experience Planning (CEP)
This is the next step after customer journey mapping and brainstorming. It serves to refine the initiatives provided. CEP only uses viable ideas. The process involves describing the new experience and the problem it will solve. In addition, there is the solution and the outcome. The design tool will refine opportunities and rank them by value.
Conclusion
Improving customer experience across various fields goes beyond strategy creation. It requires special strategies unique to each business environment. With the help of a professional or an agency like OneQ Digital brands can design and implement customer experience solutions that truly match their audience’s needs. At OneQ Digital, we provide data-backed strategies, expert guidance, and continuous improvement plans that support measurable success. Visit our website for more information about our services.
