Good Customer Experience Examples to Learn from

Great Customer Experience: Definition

You’ll encounter various definitions if you search for explanations about customer experience (CX). I have mentioned some popular ones to help you get an idea.

Annette Franz, founder and CEO of CX Journey says:

“Customer experience is the sum of all the interactions that a client has with an organization over the life of the relationship with that company or with that brand.”

While Dale Wolf, the author of The Perfect Customer Experience blog, puts as the following:

“The perfect customer experience results in clients becoming advocates for the company, creating referral, retention and profitable growth.”

Other sources say that CX is how the company meets (or fails to) customer expectations with each interaction.

There are three common terms in each definition. These are ‘the customer,’ ‘the company,’ and ‘the experience/interaction.’ 

Let’s combine these terms simply. CX is defined as the entire experience of your customers’ journey when dealing with your brand. 

Furthermore, it is seen from the clients’ point of view. Thus, it is highly opinionated.

Thus, a great customer experience becomes the sum of all customer interactions resulting in a positive relationship between the client and the brand. 

It is essential and leads the company to become a worthy customer experience example. The better the relationship, the more likely to have a great CX. Think about it; you will not experience joy when meeting someone you don’t like.

Now you have an idea of ‘What is CX.’ You can get a more of an in-depth look at CX by reading more from our previous blogs posts. 

That said, let’s move towards the importance of CX.

Importance of Customer Experience 

Jerry Gregoire, CIO at Dell, says, “The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.”

A great customer experience strategy helps uplift your brand to the next level and become an example for every other company in the market. 

The following are different reasons why every company is trying to become the next best customer experience example:

Increasing Sales

Serious business owners highly regard collecting feedback from clients and then using it to improve their service. They know that better service leads to more satisfied consumers, which leads to increased sales.  

This research by Deloitte and Touche shows that companies that put customers at the center of the business generate 60% more revenue than those that don’t.

Ensure Customer Loyalty

It doesn’t matter how long customers have stuck with your company; if they see a better offer, they will go for it. 

However, offering a great customer service experience can offset that. Customers are more likely to stick to a company that offers to solve their particular problems. 

Sam Walton said that “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

Increases Employee Engagement

CX and engaged employees go hand in hand. Employees will align their goals and work as great team players when they see the company cares about its customers. 

Furthermore, happy and satisfied consumers will be a breeze to interact with for employees, increasing the efficiency of the entire process. Furthermore, you can further increase the credibility of your business by creating and posting employee testimonials.

Community Marketing

By focusing on CX, you transform every consumer into an advocate for the company. 

People have gradually grown out of being manipulated by advertisements. Now, more than ever, third-party validation is one of the best ways to ensure that potential customers try out your product. 

Having users sing praises about your brand and product is a sure-shot way of making a name in the market. 

Humanizing Your Business

Behind-the-scene footage and in-depth interviews have become valuable things because people want to interact with your business at a personal level. 

By doing so, you strengthen the relationship, build an emotional connection, and share your brand with them. This mutual contact helps you understand your audience better and vice versa.

If you’d like more reasons for developing CX, look no further than a previous blog post we made.

Having covered the what and why of CX, it’s time to see some of the best customer experience examples.

5 Examples of Good Customer Experience 

This section contains five of the best customer experience examples. By the end of this section, you will have an idea of what makes market-leading brands great. 

I will feature examples from:

1. Amazon
2. Apple
3. Ritz-Carlton
4. Airbnb
5. Tesla

1. Amazon

Amazon is quite simply one of the most significant customer service experience examples. Their entire model is built around delivering exceptional client satisfaction. 

That is made clear by the following quote from the founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos:

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”

The question becomes, how have they achieved such an esteemed position? The answer is simple; Amazon’s support staff is always available to help tackle problems.

Using various channels like phone, email, and a powerful social media presence with live chat makes this possible.  

Key Takeaway: Always be available to support your customers. You never know when the opportunity to make a brand advocate arises.

2. Apple

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Let’s move from one giant of the industry to the next. Apple is known worldwide because of its innovative devices that have shaped the modern world.

Apart from their stylish and highly sought-after devices, Apple is also one of the best customer experience examples. 

Their ‘Genius Bar’ is the place where the magic happens. Apple experts meet with the customers directly, offering a human face to the multi-trillion-dollar company.

In the words of late Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology — not the other way around.”

Apple employees hold to that statement and ensure everything in their power to satisfy the customers’ needs. 

Furthermore, Apple offers 90-day phone support for most of its devices in every country where they do their business officially.

Key Takeaway: Regardless of the size or stature of the business, customers want to interact with a company at a personal level. By giving them a humanistic experience, you form an emotional connection and increase their engagement with your business.

3. Ritz-Carlton

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When it comes to hospitality, few names can match the mighty Ritz-Carlton. They are one of the unmatched customer service experience examples owing to their trust in employees.

“I believe in the power of recognition and empowerment leading to great employee engagement. And employee engagement is critical to guest engagement. Employee empowerment and recognition is the core of our culture and how we achieve outstanding customer service.” – Herve Humler, President and COO, Ritz-Carlton

They give their employees a ‘customer experience stipend.’ That means that each employee can spend up to $2000 per incident to help resolve a problem. Thus, employees don’t need to wait around for approval from their seniors. That translates to one of the best practices in personalized service. 

Key Takeaway: Empowering employees to take care of customers is a sure way of ensuring stellar client satisfaction.

4. Airbnb

“If you want to create a great product, just focus on one person. Make that one person have the most amazing experience ever.” – Brian Chesky, co-founder, and CEO of Airbnb

Few names come close to offering a smooth experience than Airbnb. They quickly recognized that consumers had vastly different needs; some wanted to rent out places, while others needed room to stay.

They offer a space where these two sets of people easily communicate. Furthermore, they increased engagement with a simple user interface. 

Their consistent branding and design allow a seamless transition from the website to the mobile app.

They understand that their customer base is not black or white. Airbnb is a fantastic customer experience example because they focus on the outlying customers and ensure that they give remarkable services all across the board. 

Key Takeaway: Every client matters. By improving the experience for one customer, you improve the experience for an entire group. 

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5. Tesla

“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.” – Elon Musk, CEO and Product Architect of Tesla

For our last customer experience example, we’ll be looking at a particular case from Tesla. Their electric vehicles have been leading the charge in revolutionizing the automotive industry. 

However, to make it work, Tesla has had to take customer service to the next level. 

Tesla offers its services directly at the customers’ homes. Imagine the relief when you know that the company is sending a team to fix the issue at your convenience. 

This customer experience example focuses on such an event. Chris Kern called Tesla about a flat tire, and there was a repair crew within 40 minutes of the call. Now that is some fast service!

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Key Takeaway: To transform your client into a brand promoter; solve their problems as quickly and without any hassle. 

So, what are some best practices to take away from these five customer experience examples? I summarize them in the following:

• Have customer care representatives ready at all times; a powerful social media presence and live chat can help.
• Correspond with customers on a personal level and form an emotional connection.
• Empower employees to tackle customers’ wants and needs.
• One client represents an entire group.
• Take the path that offers the least bother for the customer.

3 Examples of Bad Customer Experience 

So, you’ve looked at the lush green garden of excellent customer experience examples. Now it’s time to look at the swamp of bad customer experience examples. Hopefully, you’ll be avoiding these practices like the plague. 

The three examples you are going to see are:

1. Fixating on company policy
2. Not paying attention to customer feedback
3. Lack of empathy with the clientele

1. Fixating on Company Policy

Many growing companies are responsible for this lack of vision. 

As businesses grow, they need rigid internal structures to keep everything managed. These structures come in the form of rules meant to keep a great CX. 

However, these rules can sometimes become obstacles in the consumers’ journey. 

One such recent and bad customer experience example was a major retail brand. A consumer found that the price of an item was listed much higher than what they found when shopping online. When they asked the employee to match the lower price, the employee denied the request because it was ‘against company policy’, highlighting the need for clear communication and flexibility in company policy templates.

This is one of the most frustrating customer experience examples. It presents a clear opportunity for the company to go above and beyond ‘rules’ to accommodate a simple request and enlist a loyal customer to their brand. 

However, that was not the case. One dissatisfied customer led to a viral story that cost thousands of potential leads. Furthermore, it left a bad taste in the mouth of the remaining consumers. 

Key Takeaway: Having rules is well and good. However, making an exception to create a memorable customer experience is always best.

2. Not Paying Attention to Customer Feedback

The Internet and social media allow companies to always remain connected with customers. Thus, digital customer experience is as vital as physical interaction. 

Ignoring digital customer experience can be a cardinal sin for any company looking to impact customers positively. 

Not responding to people tells them that the company does not value their opinion. 

One such example comes from an airline company that took almost eight hours to respond to a complaint about lost luggage. Furthermore, the response itself was confusing and showed a lack of care on the company’s part. 

Source

The thread was visible to the public, and over 76K people saw it while also featuring on several news websites.

Customer experience examples like this highlight the importance of response time and its role in ensuring a great CX in the digital age. Potentially thousands of leads can be influenced by people uploading messages on social media. 

Key Takeaway: Responding to small problems on time stops them from becoming bigger ones down the road.

3. Lack of Empathy

This example is seen more often than people like. The last thing people want to hear is corporate nonsense from customer support or live chat agents. 

Not only does that make it sound like the company doesn’t care, but it also leads to increased stress for the client. 

Understanding the client’s pain and problems is a difficult skill to master. However, showing that you are making an effort goes a long way. 

Unfortunately, some companies do not train their employees to empathize with clients. At the worst times, it feels like the customer is talking to a robot with no sense of human emotions.

The example below is of a live chat gone horribly wrong. 

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Key Takeaway: It is one of the best practices to train staff to handle complex situations and, most of all, offer technical and emotional aid to the customer.

If you want to create a lasting relationship with customers, it’s best to avoid repeating the above bad customer experience examples. For a bite-sized version, stay clear of the following:

• Sticking strictly to rules and not accommodating customers’ point of view.
• Not responding in a timely or cohesive manner to customer problems.
• Letting employees show a lack of empathy and interact with customers poorly.
• Not embracing constructive criticism when customers bring it to your attention.

If you’re looking for examples on how to respond to negative feedback, here are 4 Negative Review Response Examples you can learn from.

How Can You Provide a Positive Customer Experience 

Providing a positive and memorable customer experience should be the priority for any company that wants a loyal customer base. These brand ambassadors serve as the foundation for continual growth for the company. 

This section will list the basics for creating a positive CX. I will cover the following ideas:

• Communication with Customers (always respond to positive reviews!)
• Appreciate Your Customers
• Encourage Customer Loyalty
• Make Custom Interaction Simple
• Resolve Problems Quickly
• Empower the Customer
• Finding Your Niche
• Understand Customer Expectations
• Become Customer-Centric
• Unify Company Goals to Serve the Customer

Let’s understand these points one by one to grasp their importance.

Communication with Customers

The consumer reflects on all communication happening before, during, and after engaging with your brand. That reflection formulates their experience. 

You must focus on communication throughout the customer journey. 

Appreciate Your Customers

Your consumers are the most valuable asset. It pays countless dividends to invest in them and show them how much you appreciate their support. 

Simple gestures like monthly discounts or handwritten thank you notes go a long way in ensuring happy customers.

Encourage Customer Loyalty

Making people form a relationship with your brand is one of the first steps to forming loyal customers. 

When making your brand, you must consider the client’s problems and align your services.

That makes your brand the go-to solution that caters to their needs, increasing their loyalty.

Make Customer Interaction Simple

Making your brand readily and easily available may seem like a no-brainer. However, most companies overlook this factor. 

People are more likely to secure your services if they don’t have to spend time and energy just getting to meet you through your website or other channels.

This factor is called the customer effort score.

Resolve Problems Quickly

One of the fastest ways to become the best customer experience example is to solve customers’ problems before they realize them. By keeping customers informed about complications, you let them know that you care about them. 

Furthermore, most people focus on how you handle the problem rather than the nature of the problem itself. If you are transparent in your problem resolution, consumers will notice and appreciate that. 

Empower the Customer

There are no brand promoters like clients who feel they are a part of the company. 

Filling customer surveys and feedback forms helps clients voice their opinions. It makes them feel empowered.

Doing so enables your company to become an excellent customer experience example. Furthermore, a group of happy clients forms a community excited to engage with your products and services.

Finding Your Niche

You should always have a solid idea of your company’s niche. No business does it all. 

By focusing on what you do better than anybody else, you place yourself in a position to help a select group of people fully. 

Clients appreciate brands that offer a one-stop solution rather than brands that make them bounce from one place to the next.

Understand Customer Expectations

Understanding customer expectations is one of the first steps in solving problems. Focus groups, interviews, artificial intelligence, and surveys can help you identify common patterns. 

However, it also helps to manage those expectations using proactive messaging. You don’t want to set client expectations so high that you can’t meet them in the long run.

Become Customer-Centric

Simply put, being customer-centric means that your company revolves around the customers’ wants and needs.

It also means adopting a culture that extends to every one of your employees. Having clients who know that your brand is working for them is a reliable way of growing your business. 

Unify Company Goals to Serve the Customer

Tying up with the customer-centric culture, you have to ensure that every employee understands the company’s goal of putting clients first.

This sentiment is best followed through when flowing from the top of the hierarchy filtering down to individual employees.

As a leader, you should ensure that new hires respect these goals and are trained to provide the customer experiences that they remember fondly.

This section has covered the basics of ensuring a positive CX. You should have a good idea about:

• Communication and Appreciation of Customers
• Encouraging Customer Loyalty
• Making Interaction Simple and Quick Problem Resolution
• Empowering the Customers
• Finding Your Niche
• Understanding Customer Expectations and Becoming Customer-Centric
• And, Unifying Company Goals

However, what to do when you want to embellish it a little more and advance it further?

9 Ideas to Improve Customer Experience 

So, you want to elevate your brand’s CX. Implement these changes and watch your company soar above the competition.

	Action	How To	Result
1	Build an omni-channel strategy	Use mobile-friendly websites and provide cross-channel support.	Multiple channels for marketing, sales, customer support offer a uniform service. It restructures all interactions under one platform.
2	Deliver excellent service	Provide effective real-time support to lower resolution time.	Excellent client service boosts customer satisfaction. Leads to positive word-of-mouth about your company.
3	Train your staff	Conduct regular training programs about product knowledge and soft skills.	Helps understand client needs faster, leading to a faster resolution time. Helps increase empathic listening.Helps reduce sales cycles and improve sales conversions.
4	Create self-service options	Develop innovative websites that feature your knowledge base.	Save clients’ time. Empowers them with tools to solve their problems themselves.Strengthen brand reputation.
5	Gather and implement customer feedback	Conduct various types of surveys to gather feedback using different channels.	Clients feel that their opinion matters. Feedback empowers you to understand clientele needs and tailor products/services to cater to them.
6	Focus on social proof	Ask customers who offer positive feedback if they would like to write testimonials.	You show people how the users perceive your brand. Helps businesses develop a level of trust with new leads.
7	Engage clients throughout their journey	Gathering feedback data at various points through their customer journey.	Increases lifetime value by improving all stages of the customer journey. Increase conversion rates by increasing client retention.
8	Empower the employees	Give your staff the resources and freedom to solve customers’ problems. Listen to employee concerns and embed a shared goal throughout the company.	Employees feel responsible for handling user concerns. The customer experiences a decrease in resolution time.More personalized service leads to happier customers.
9	Use customer analytics	Use various channels and surveys to gather feedback before using different analysis methods and artificial intelligence tools.	Quantifies customer experience with tangible business outcomes. Create a single view of customers as they interact with your brand.

There you have it, the basics to ensuring a positive CX and something extra to make your brand stand out from the competition. 

Book a meeting with our CMO and learn how to increase your CX and transform it into more sales.

If you think that all of this sounds like too much work, you’re right. That is why the next section will cover the three best solutions that make managing CX a piece of cake.

3 Best Customer Experience Solutions in 2024 

This section features three softwares that can help you collect, manage and analyze customer experience metrics like NPS, CSAT, CES, and more.

	Software	Key Features
1	Trustmary	Ideal for measuring NPS and collecting feedback. Converts feedback into testimonials. Showcases as social proof on your website.
2	Startquestion	Conducts market research and collects data.Easy to use interface.Various templates for building custom surveys.
3	SurveyLegend	Allows full customization of surveys.Can send surveys over multiple channels.Collects and represents data clearly.

Conclusion

Offering the best CX can be the difference between your brand making it big or fizzling out among the competition. 

I gathered some of the best customer experience examples to give you an idea of what market leaders do. Those should give ideas to create and implement strategies for improving your relationship with customers. 

As a recap, I covered the following topics:

• The definition of great CX
• The importance of CX
• 5 examples of good CX
• 3 examples of bad CX
• How to provide a positive CX and 9 ideas to improve it further
• Lastly, the three best CX solutions for 2024

Articles that will help you out:

• The ultimate guide to CX
• Building blocks of successful sales from the CX perspective
• How to develop the CX of your current clients?
• Aftercare measures to improve your CX